A couple of months ago I began to think about all of the young people who have come through the doors of Coreluv’s ministry in Haiti. It was a sweet moment of reflection about what the Lord has done. I am a mom to three teenagers so the thought of young people possessing a contagious zeal for the Lord and a compassion for missions touches me. The more I thought about it, the more God opened my eyes to see that it was His HAND moving inside the hearts of these young people, awakening them to a purpose GREATER than themselves.
Isn’t that going against the grain for America’s youth today? Setting aside self to serve others?
It was a somber moment for me that quickly led me to pray for this generation and to thank God for awakening so many young people into missions within our ministry. Their reckless abandonment to move in the direction of God’s calling on their lives is beautiful!
“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns!” -Isaiah 52:7
In 2013, Mike and I felt strongly that we were to begin Coreluv’s first internship program in Haiti, a program where young people would give up a month of their summer traveling to Haiti to care for orphans and the poor and oppressed within our communities there. Mike and I were blessed to be able to lead some of our first interns during the summer of 2013.
I’ll never forget the excitement we experienced leading up to it, not to mention the nervousness we felt as we wondered if it would be a HIT or a FLOP!?! The question that most definitely rolled through our heads was, “Would the internship program be the fuel that would light up American youth with a fire for God and a desire for world missions? And would others follow?”
As we spent those first few weeks with the interns in Haiti imparting purpose into their lives, we witnessed them serving God with a passion like none other. They represented the hands of feet of Jesus to the orphaned children we were called to care for and we were blown away!! It was evident that the spirit of God was truly moving inside their hearts!!!
Some of Coreluv’s past interns having fun together in Haiti!
2017 marks the 5th year that Coreluv has continued to cultivate it’s summer internship program. This summer we had our largest application request ever. To help facilitate more interns, we decided to add a third month (August) in addition to our traditional June and July sessions.
Over the years, God has added amazing leaders to our Coreluv staff who are now able to lead our internships and who help us to steward these young people into their callings!
(Our 2017 June interns led by staff members David and Pam Wong!)
Not only have we seen these young adults give up their summers for God, but we’ve seen some of them give up their lives as well after attending our School of Missions where they eventually moved to Haiti to serve as full time Coreluv missionaries.
(Chris and Misty Brown, directors of Coreluv’s School of Missions, led our July and August interns this summer. They are posing with their amazing group here!)
We don’t take lightly the things that God is doing inside the hearts of these young people and we truly desire to continue to keep prayer and His spirit at the forefront of everything we do. Our prayer is that God would continue to set hearts on fire for the things that are dear to His (James 1:27.)
Send us out; and let us BURN,
-Mandy Reiszner