Walking on Holy Ground

“I came to the Middle East having experienced quite a lot of loss. … I had a lot of healing to do—spiritually, emotionally, physically,” said Elena,* a Resonate Global Mission volunteer. “God answered my prayers.”

Elena had been discerning a call to ministry for years, but as she was finishing her undergraduate studies, she didn’t feel ready to go straight to seminary.

“I felt I needed further spiritual formation … and wanted to find it in a diverse community where I could ask new questions about the way that God is at work in the world and be challenged by the perspectives of those whose culture, language, and way of being the church was different from my own,” she said.

That’s when she learned about Cohort, a Resonate program for young adults to live in community, serve in a grassroots ministry, and engage in deep spiritual formation. With opportunities to serve in Central America, Europe, the Middle East, and Detroit, Mich., Resonate’s Cohort is an opportunity for young adults to get a better understanding of what it’s like to be a missionary or to work in cross-cultural ministry.

When Elena met with the Resonate missionary* who leads Cohort in the Middle East, she felt an instant connection to the ministry. It seemed like a good fit for what she sensed God was calling her to focus on.

“I had never done any international travel before in my life, … so deciding to do a year-long experience like Cohort in a completely different culture, time zone, and community on my own was definitely a baptism of fire,” said Elena.

She found the transition was overwhelming. Not only was she grieving the death of a friend back home, but she was plunged into new sights, sounds, and smells. The daily Islamic calls to prayer reverberated throughout the city where she was now living, and crowds of people swarmed around her speaking Arabic.

Elena also struggled to understand what some of her fellow Cohort volunteers were saying. Cohort Middle East is intentionally diverse, with volunteers from the Middle East, North America, and other regions throughout the world. But that was something Elena had been looking for, and the Resonate missionary helped guide the group as they worked to navigate barriers of language and culture.

“In spite of ongoing grief, homesickness, and culture shock,” Elena said, “it didn’t take long before I felt like I had a second family here.”

Elena met with the Cohort group every week to engage in topics of spiritual formation. They ate together, read the Bible together, worshiped together, and asked tough questions together. They also visited various ministries and biblical sites.

“The events of Scripture took place in this region,” Elena said. “It really is like walking on holy ground in some sense.”

But even with all of the travel, Elena’s favorite memories center around gathering with the Cohort in the living room of the missionary’s home. The Cohort was Elena’s rock as she navigated a new culture and worked with street-involved youth and their families, mentored third-culture kids, led a healing-through-storytelling program, and served with a local church that ministers with expatriates.

“Elena came with open hands and heart to experience all that God had for her,” said the Resonate missionary leading the Cohort. “I appreciated that she came wanting to know God, others, and herself on a new level. … Elena loves people with openness and abandon.”

After Elena’s year of service was finished, she stayed on to co-lead the next cohort. Through her experience, God answered her prayers for healing and spiritual formation in a way she might never have experienced at home.

“Not only can I locate my story within the story of this region, but Cohort teaches us to locate ourselves within the story of what God has done and is doing across the global church. We belong to Christ, and because of that, we belong to each other,” Elena said.

“Knowing that—and not just abstractly, but experientially and incarnationally through Cohort—has changed how I understand myself, my faith, and my vocation in ministry, but also what the body of Christ is and what it means that each believer is called to bring the fullness of Christ’s kingdom on earth.”

*Names changed for security.