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The past two pandemic years have challenged us and our relational ministry strategy. We are looking toward 2022, but not looking to "start back" where we left off in 2019. We are truly asking God to help us "start over", and there are some specific ways that will play out in 2022.
Campus: The university in BH, UFMG, has altered their calendar due to COVID, so the current semester will continue until the end of February 2022. Then, the first semester of 2022 will officially begin in April. We expect UFMG to resume in-person classes, and also for our team to have at least limited access to the campus and to students! We may not be able to enter buildings, but we can take advantage of common spaces and the general buzz of people being back on campus for classes. One of our challenges and a reason to "start over" is that there has been a 50% turnover since we were last engaged in-person at UFMG. Half of the campus population has graduated and incoming students have come to replace them. There are students who are half-way through their college career and have never had a class on campus. We have never had a chance to meet 50% of the current student population. While this is intimidating, it is also a new opportunity to see where God will open doors at UFMG.
English Initiative: GringoEnglish, our English-instruction project, will start 2022 with in-person classes. Very exciting! We have revamped physical spaces, refined our strategy, tweaked teaching hours and clarified how we will use this front in our overall ministry efforts to "build laborers through the campus for the lost world". I have spent the second half of 2021 focusing on this portion of our team and efforts, and am really excited to see how 2022 will provide a new means for us to impact UFMG and Belo Horizonte.
Church: Our church has been executing a "preparation strategy" during the second semester of 2021 in order to transition well into 2022. It is not enough to be desirous to re-engage in life as a community and in ministry in our city, but to be prepared, active and have momentum toward re-engagement. Our leadership has had many conversations, strategy sessions and the beginnings of corporate events to get us ready for 2022. It won't be perfect, but we are excited to think about 2022 and what God is going to do in us and through us in Belo Horizonte.