Story number 1 for 18 Jun 2002

(India)–We begin today along the border between Pakistan and India, where the two countries last week stepped back from the brink of all-out war. In the midst of the crisis, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship is launching its annual Global Urban Trek. Intervarsity’s Phil Evans says their missionj teams are slated to work in Third World countries, but the tensions have changed plans for their work in Calcutta. “Many of the students were willing to go; wanted to go, but our policy is such that we thought we should respect some of the warnings that our government was saying that it might not be a safe place for Americans at this time. So, we chose to reassign the students to other places.” Evans says the end result of the Global Urban Trek is a new group of missionaries dedicated to full time service in the field. “30-percent of the students who went on it made a commitment to serve with their whole life with the urban poor. Thirty of them said ‘this is going to be my life’, which is an amazing step of spiritual maturity and discipleship.”