This month is our student-missions focus issue, an opportunity to highlight the terrific ministry of our student missionaries (SMs)! Though SMs don’t appear in Adventist Frontiers as often as career missionaries, they are central to AFM’s outreach and continued success around the world.

AFM has SM DNA. Conceived and launched in 1985 by a student-mission society, our approach to ministry is still characterized by the traits of the young—flexibility, openness, learning, friendship and utter reliance on God’s leading and providence.

It is no secret that SMs tend to thrive in cross-cultural frontier ministry. They jump into the new culture with both feet, and their joyful openness pulls new friends into their orbit magnetically. The relationships they build are fertile ground for the Holy Spirit’s influence as He draws and convicts newly opened hearts. Even after our SMs have returned home, the ripples of their life witness continue to spread for years through hearts and communities.

While SMs are powerful agents of change, most of them would tell you that they themselves are the ones most changed by their experience. Often for the first time in their lives, they feel deeply engaged in vital ministry that is impacting lives now and for eternity. As God draws them deeper into His plan for their lives, many of them feel compelled to stay a second or even a third year. No matter how long they stay, every single AFM student missionary gets a hands-on perspective of God’s end-time work to reach the unreached, and their lives will never be the same.

• Twitter