Welcome to the second annual student-missions special edition of Adventist Frontiers! This month, we are turning the spotlight on our student missionaries (SMs) and short-term volunteers.

The term “student missionary” is a bit deceiving. Yes, our SMs typically come to us from colleges and universities, but that is where the “student” part ends. Yes, our SMs receive top-notch mission training and are mentored in the field by experienced career missionaries, but there is nothing safe, passive or theoretical about the work our SMs do.

Can there be such a thing as a student soldier on a battlefield, a student firefighter at a three-alarm blaze, or a student skydiver leaping out the door at 5,000 feet? Not really. When student missionaries throw themselves into the great controversy alongside seasoned veterans, they become brothers and sisters united in a common purpose. The mission front line is a war zone where real lives are at stake, now and for eternity. It’s an apartment building going up in flames, and people are in the windows screaming for help. It pulls you like gravity and demands your total commitment to jump.

Real medical lifesaving. Real spiritual warfare against principalities and powers. Real relationships with unreached people. Real Gospel ministry by word and deed. Real personal growth and life transformation. This is what it means to be an AFM student missionary.

Are you ready to jump?

• Twitter