For Parent Eyes Only!

The Royal Servants Experience

Royal Servants Director, Tom Ives

We are excited that your son or daughter has chosen to invest part of their summer in ministry with Royal Servants!

What is Royal Servants?  The short version is that we are a missions organization that also has a commitment to discipling students in the context of world evangelism.  We design short-term mission trips for Jr. high and high school students ages 13 to 19 years old, and we train those who are college-age and older as staff disciplers, or small group leaders.

Royal Servants ministry is relationally focused as opposed to task-oriented (building structures, etc.).  We organize and facilitate international trips that give students opportunities to work with indigenous Christian workers, missionaries and churches.  Depending on the trip they choose, the students and leaders will be involved in a variety of activities; they may host children’s Bible clubs or English language camps.  They may perform street evangelism, love on and embrace neglected kids in an orphanage or a leper colony, hike to remote mountain villages, or do practical acts of service in neighborhoods—any and everything to enable us to communicate the love of Christ.  Your son or daughter will live their faith in whole new ways and see the world with a different perspective.

Since you have received this Parent Packet, we know that your son or daughter now has their Prep Packet.  This information is designed to guide them through all the practical aspects of getting ready for the summer experience.  It contains all of the useful information they will need to raise their funds, get their passport, and arrange for a domestic flight to Training Camp (or directions on how to drive).  It will help them to pack the correct clothes, get the right shots (if needed), and develop a proper attitude.  Even though this Parent Packet is designed to help you help your son/daughter by giving you an overview of the summer, we suggest that you read through their Prep Packet.  It contains critical information that is not found here.

What’s Your Part?

As a parent, you play an important but delicate role in helping your son or daughter prepare successfully for the trip.  I say important because a parent’s involvement, either through practical support or positive encouragement, is the common ingredient we have found in students who come fully supported and emotionally prepared.  And I say delicate because some don’t want, but desperately need, your help in organizing and accomplishing the myriad of details that you know go in to preparing for a long journey.

Give your son or daughter the gift of encouragement.  To have the attitude that “this is your thing, so don’t ask me for help,” is to isolate them and make them feel cut off from the best resource they have—mom and/or dad.  On the opposite end, to totally dominate the process and do everything for them may leave your son or daughter feeling like it’s not “their” trip but yours.  They may then come to Training Camp feeling lazy, apathetic or unmotivated.  There is an appropriate balance between engaging in their trip and giving them room and responsibility to do their part to make it happen. Your positive encouragement and faith will be a significant investment into their experience.

What Will They Feel?

Having worked with teenagers for almost 30 years and having raised two teens myself, I have seen certain consistencies.  To start with, they are excited—really jazzed!  When they receive their Prep Packet they are revved up and ready to go, but as time goes on and support raising becomes work, they may loose their enthusiasm and start to procrastinate.  “There’s still plenty of time”, or “I’ll get going on it soon,” are things you might hear.  Then around April or May, panic, which can lead to paralysis, can set in.   A student’s schedule is so full these days with endless demands from school, sports, friends, and church.  They have so much to do!  When the added load of having to write and call supporters, memorize the needed Bible verses, plan and pack for the trip, it can be overwhelming for some students.

Who Gets To Go?

Beginning in May the teams start to fill up.  We will designate places on the each team by the amount of support in each person’s account.  Therefore, it is important to send in the support money as it is received, rather than holding it in case the needed support won’t be able to be raised.  A student with $2,200.00 in their account will get a place ahead of a student with who has $100.00 in their account yet has $3,000.00 in checks and cash waiting at home.

Each participant must fill out a Royal Servants application.  The application must be signed by their church’s mission board, pastor or youth pastor.  We want to make sure there is a spiritual authority and accountability in each person’s life that is a part of Royal Servants.  If this is not possible, please contact Royal Servants to discuss options.

Once the application is signed the participant is accepted.  We believe the local church is God’s instrument for reaching the world, and the signature on the application is the church’s recommendation of the individual.  We will not second guess the church’s decision.  We may, however, change the status of a person (from staff to student or vice versa) depending on their spiritual maturity.

Royal Servants facilitates short-term mission trips.  On each trip we partner alongside churches and missionaries, in countries around the world, to help them reach their community with the Gospel.  We are very intentional about discipling each student so they experience utmost spiritual growth and transformation.

Royal Servants is serious about its work.  We train our students well, and as a result we are invited back year after year by missionaries who are amazed at the effectiveness of our students and the hard work they do.

The process of equipping and preparing students begins at Training Camp and continues throughout the entire summer.  Our days are busy, the work is fulfilling, and the impact is tangible.  This doesn’t happen by accident but by intentional planning.  We have a saying, “There is a purpose in everything we do.”

Our trips are made up of students who have had a relationship with Jesus since they were young as well as students who have just come to know Christ.  Some students come focused on doing missions work and some want to grow and focus on the Lord; others come who have been struggling spiritually and want to spend a summer focused on getting their life right with God.  On each trip there is a wide range of maturity, and we are prepared for that.   However, there are some students who just don’t do well during the summer and have a hard time.

Your son or daughter may not do well on Royal Servants if he or she:

• Has significant emotional or health related issues.  Royal Servants does not discriminate against students with health issues; but as a parent, you need to exercise great wisdom in helping your son or daughter prepare for the mission.  Does your child not tolerate heat?  Let us know.  It’s far better to inform us ahead of time than to get a call from us explaining that your child has fainted because of heat exhaustion.  If your daughter struggles with a severe case of diabetes, Africa may not be the best place for her because of time zone, exhaustion, or food issues, but Ireland may be!  Does your son have AD/HD issues, or is he Bipolar?  He is welcome, but sending him on the mission trip is not the time or place to take him off his medications “to see how he does.”

Please let us know of any and all emotional and physical issues (including recent surgeries), your son or daughter may have.  This gives us the opportunity to ask questions so we’ll be prepared to help him or her stay healthy and have the best experience possible!

• Needs rehabilitation.  If your son or daughter needs help for significant addiction, eating disorders or behavioral issues, Royal Servants isn’t the place for them to deal with it.  Royal Servants is not a rehab program.  Do students sometimes come with behavior issues?  Yes.  We work with them, challenge them, and hold them accountable.  But Royal Servants is not a counseling program and students with deep issues need professional help before they try to tackle a mission trip.
• Does not have a personal relationship with Christ.  If a student is an agnostic, atheist, or satanist (this has happened), Royal Servants is not the place for them.  The discipleship, time spent in God’s word, and teachings won’t make sense to a person who does not share a common belief and value system with the rest of the team.  Students who come without a Christian perspective often become a distraction, temptation, or hindrance to the other students.

Royal Servants’ Trip Leaders patiently work with students to help them learn how to make healthy and appropriate choices during the mission trip.  Trip Leaders also have a responsibility to consider the well-being of the entire team and not let one or two students ruin it for the others or to compromise the work we are doing internationally.  If necessary, a leader may have to send home an individual(s) if his/her behavior is judged to be disruptive to the team or its work.  If so, the additional costs are the responsibility of the person being sent home.  We want the environment on each trip to be a safe place for every student to grow.  Additionally, it’s important that each participant has an attitude and behavior that will protect the work of each missionary and church we work with.

Please feel free to call me if you have questions regarding whether Royal Servants is right for your son or daughter.  I have worked with students for 30 years and am not easily daunted by the problems students wrestle with today.  The entire Royal Servants staff believes in teenagers and loves working with them.  We are willing to go the extra mile to help students walk through this challenging season of their lives.

Leadership

The leadership structure of the teams is pretty straightforward.  Each team has a Trip Leader which is a current or former Reign Ministries staff member.  The Trip Leader is the “buck stop” person—the one who makes the final call on an issue.  The Trip Leader is responsible to create an environment where the students feel valued and secure.  He/she will also set the tone and direction for the team and is an integral part of its success and growth.

Each Trip Leader is assisted by their leadership team, which is made up of two or more persons who help give the team direction.  The assistant leaders are models to the students, often teach throughout the summer, and give leadership from up front.  They are in charge of the logistics of the team; they handle the finances, buy and coordinate the meals, as well as handle personal and medical issues.  Each leadership team arrives at camp two weeks prior to the students for training and preparation.

Next, each team has staff disciplers. These men and women are usually (but not always) college-age or older.  They lead the small groups in which your son or daughter will be placed.  Royal Servants works hard to maintain a ratio of one staff discipler to three or four students.  The disciplers typically room together in hostels and/or tents and rotate cooking for the rest of the team.  The staff disciplers also help students with their memory work, hold them accountable for keeping the guidelines, meet together for prayer as well as to discuss devotional insights.

Training Camp

This year, Training Camp begins on Saturday, June 23, 2012.  Training Camp is a time for the students to rearrange their priorities.  Many come tired and stressed having just finished school.  Others arrive distracted by the myriad of voices that scream at them daily—that value is found in how they look, worth is in possessions, and everything is relative, even their faith.  We use Training Camp to reorient each student, and prepare them for the work that they are about to engage in.  Therefore, there are a number of things that Training Camp is designed to accomplish.

• First, to relationally prepare them.  We take students (approx. 25-50 per team) from all over the country and fashion them into a team during this time.  Most students arrive without knowing anyone else on the trip, so we intentionally structure camp to build trust, appreciation and care for each other.  We do this through strategic team building exercises designed to help students feel comfortable to be themselves.
• Second, to spiritually prepare them before they get on the mission field and their destination. We accomplish this by group challenges, group teachings (how to deal with sin and to experience God’s forgiveness, evangelism training, etc), and time spent as individual teams.  Our goal is that these groups consist of one staff to three/four students.  It is here that much of the growth and personal discipleship happens, as the students are “poured into” spiritually and relationally by their staff discipler.
• Third, to physically prepare them with ministry skills they can use to reach out in the areas they are ministering.  We teach them how to use drama, puppets, dance, and music to reach out to communities.

The teams will pack up and leave camp on the morning of July 1-3, 2012. From there they will either go directly to the airport or to a church in Chicago where they will spend the night prior to flying overseas.

Open House at Training Camp

We invite all parents and relatives to come and experience a typical day at Training Camp on Saturday, June 30, 2012, from 1:00pm–7:00pm.  You will be able to take a walk around the camp and observe students as they work at perfecting their skill groups.  There will also be time to hang out and talk, eat a meal and worship together.  You are free to be there the whole time or to come for just a portion of the day.  More detailed information will be sent closer to the summer.

Overseas

Once the team arrives overseas and begins the work, all of the time of training and preparation comes together.  The schedule is designed to maximize the day and is often fast and furious.  The following is a typical day taken from the Nepal Team schedule:

As you can imagine, as the team proceeds through the summer they grow closer and closer together.  We call our teams “families” because we get to know one another and in many ways grow as close as a real family.  Time spent in the Word, worship, and in discipleship groups forges tight bonds.  When you combine this with active ministry outreach with students who share the same faith and convictions, it spurs incredible growth in each teenager.

Debriefing

Debriefing takes place during the last week of outreach.  The purpose of debriefing is to help each student process what they experienced on the mission field and prepare them to go home.  We use the time to help them correctly interpret their experience; to recognize where they saw God work on the field and how He worked in their life.

In all likelihood your son or daughter will have developed deep friendships; they will have been given significant responsibility, tasted new freedoms, and experienced the reality of Jesus Christ in ways that will have deepened their faith.  Sometimes home seems uninteresting in comparison.  Debriefing is a time to help them transition home from the ministry “high” to everyday life.  They will work together creating a group report of their ministry experience and develop a personal report; they will also do a Bible study on fear, courage and obedience.  They will set goals to help enable them to come home without a crash.  Each team does debriefing, and we see it as so important that we set aside four to five days for the process.

Home Again

After the students arrive home it is typical for them to experience, to a greater or lesser degree, a period of transition.  Beginning soon after the teams return, Royal Servants will send out a few letters addressing issues that we have found that many former students wrestle with.  You may want to look at these letters as well to get a feeling for what they may be working through from a Royal Servants perspective.