Over spring break, the 91�Թ� men’s soccer team traveled to Pucallpa, Peru, for a student-led mission trip centered on sharing the gospel through soccer. 

The trip was spearheaded by team captain, Aaron Babyak ‘26, whose initiative carried the effort from early planning to execution. After proposing the trip, he spent the following months coordinating with South American Mission (SAM) to finalize logistics and develop a plan for the week. He shared “I had questions about whether it would really end up working out. But in the end it went better than we could have ever thought.”

Throughout the week, the team hosted daily soccer camps for more than 200 boys and girls in Pucallpa. Each session combined soccer skill development with devotionals, using translators to communicate the message of Jesus Christ. “We used soccer as a door to share the good news of Jesus with them every day,” Aaron said.

While language barriers and the heat presented challenges, the team rose to the occasion. Soccer became a common language as the student-athletes formed trust and connection with the kids they served. Spanish-speaking students led in translating for the rest of the team, while some led devotionals, and others served in the background by handling equipment.

One of the most meaningful moments came at the end of the week. In the early days of the week, campers seldom celebrated exciting moments on the field. By the end of the week, that hesitation was gone. Aaron shared, “People who did not know each other’s names a couple of days ago were screaming in celebration and running around. All of a sudden, no one was too cool to celebrate anymore.”

By the end of the trip, more than 200 children had heard the gospel, and the team was able to donate equipment and soccer gear to the community in Pucallpa. Head Coach Luke Gibson highlighted the impact of Aaron’s leadership: “Aaron took full ownership of the vision and brought it to life through intentional planning, strong communication, and meaningful relationship-building with our hosts,” Gibson said. “His work was foundational to everything we experienced.”

This mission trip to Peru is an encouragement, seeing how 91�Թ� students are purposefully using their unique gifts and talents to make a lasting impact through global missions. 

SHARE exists to “help English-speaking families serving in Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East meet their children’s educational needs.” Through this mission, SHARE seeks to serve global workers to enable them to remain where God has called them. Cairn teams have long partnered with SHARE in this mission.

Many of the children at this conference are considered Third Culture Kids. This year’s Cairn team included four TCK students, who were able to bring personal understanding and insight into the unique experiences of the children they taught and served. Throughout the week, the team demonstrated consistent Christ-centered service, humility, and energy. Evening debriefs revealed deep spiritual growth, seen by one student’s reflection on the importance of missions: “I just don’t want to waste my life.”

“To have a heart for the nations, one must first have a heart for the lost.”

This is what Kevin King ’90 shared with me, as he sat next to his wife, J*, in the office of their Brownstone apartment building in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. It is a singular sentence that serves as an effective summary of what they shared over the two interviews I had with them. Among the whos, whats, whys, wheres, and hows that the Kings shared regarding International Project’s 30-year history, it is evident that “a heart for the lost” has driven every decision.

A Campus Love Story

Kevin and J met as students at 91�Թ� in 1989 while running on the cross country team. J, a freshman, chose to study at Cairn because she had desired to be a missionary since she was a young teen. Kevin was a more recent believer, and in his senior year, he was looking to attend seminary after graduation to become a pastor. The two began dating shortly before Kevin graduated and continued while he earned his Master of Divinity from Missio Seminary in Philadelphia. Over the course of those three years of biblical study, it became clear: Kevin and J were both called to be full-time missionaries, and they were called to do so together. The day after J’s last class at the University, they were married on campus in a pond-side ceremony off of Pine street—the last ceremony to be held there, as construction of the president’s residence began immediately after.

An Unmet Need and a Timely Mission

Kevin and J both had a strong desire to be missionaries among an unreached people group. They began praying and asking God where he would have them serve in the 10/40 window. It was during this same time that a friend invited them to see the ministry potential in New York City. What they found shocked them: Over 90,000 international students, 100,000 West African Muslims in one neighborhood, 80,000 Bangladeshi Muslims in another neighborhood, and 60,000 Arab Muslims in yet another neighborhood. Rather than living among one unreached people group across the ocean, the Kings realized the potential to live among the dozens of unreached people groups that were already converging in NYC. While, thankfully, many missions organizations have recognized and are participating in this diaspora ministry in the US, that was not the case in the early ’90s. The Kings had a vision for a new kind of missions that didn’t follow the typical playbook of crossing saltwater. Rather than moving halfway across the world to establish themselves in an entirely new culture, the Kings wanted to minister to the stranger next door. To be full-time financially supported missionaries who stayed stateside was nearly unheard of, which made it difficult to find an organization to support their work. They prayed and patiently waited for God to bring them to an organization that would support them—and that’s exactly what he did. The Kings found stateside missionary support from WorldTeam, giving them the opportunity to lay the foundation for what would become International Project.

For the first 10 years, they focused their efforts on campus ministry. English conversation groups, discovery Bible studies, and invitations to leave cafeteria food behind in exchange for a home-cooked meal were the order of the day. They built relationships with international students, shared the gospel, and discipled those who could then return home to share that same message with their families and communities. They were amazed at what God was doing. Over a five-year period, they saw seven house churches start in other countries as students returned home to make disciples.

As they continued to build relationships and establish themselves in the city, they expanded their focus to more broadly cover diaspora, including international students but also immigrants, refugees, and diplomats. Their vision with immigrants and refugees was the same as that on campus: To see the gospel spread through these new diaspora believers and see the gospel carried through relational lines to start churches in closed countries. Through International Project teams, they have seen churches begin in Iran, West Africa, and Bangladesh.

A Sending Agency of Their Very Own

For years, Kevin and J were International Project—two supported missionaries with a heart for internationals living in New York City. They were eager to add more missionaries to their team, but that process was slow-going. They started to host missionary trainings while they waited for full-time team members. The Equip Missionary Training Program, a one-year program focused on training cross-cultural church planters to start simple multiplying churches, is something they began in 2010 and continue to do today. Missions organizations from all over the country would send their new missionaries to the Kings for training—but then they would leave, continuing on their journey to do missions across the globe. The Kings came to the realization that as long as they were missionaries sent by a larger agency, they would never have the focused support they needed for their unique missions strategy of reaching diaspora communities in the US. They needed all of the resources “in house” to recruit, train, and retain a team of missionaries committed to their same mission.

In 2012, International Project officially became a sending organization. This move brought renewed focus to their diaspora ministry and streamlined their ability to serve these communities in the ways in which they felt the Lord leading.

This decision opened the door for incredible opportunity and growth, but it also came with considerable challenges. Training, mobilization, HR, finances, and pastoral care are just a few of the time-consuming and weighty responsibilities that must smoothly run behind the scenes in order for missionaries to be well-supported to do their jobs well. The Kings’ schedules were already full with the ground work of missions, so in order to succeed as an independent ministry, they needed a lot more help. But where the workload increased, God provided the workers. International Project grew from just Kevin and J to about 40 missionaries in an eight-year period. In addition to these missionary workers, they have a ten-person operations and mobilization team to support this work.

Opportunities to Expand

Campus ministry is still a significant part of International Project’s strategic plan to reach unreached people groups in NYC and, by extension, around the world. They have an average of 15 different discovery Bible studies every week across two college campuses. But the campus ministry team, led by J, is only one of eight teams that International Project now sends out. They have five teams in New York City: the campus team, two teams reaching Arabs, a team reaching South Asian Muslims, and a team reaching South Asian Hindus. They have also expanded their ministry footprint past NYC. They have a team reaching the Hindu population in Dallas, TX, and they have two teams in Rome and Central Asia to minister to the immigrant and refugee populations entering Europe.

In addition to the missionary teams, International Project also runs two thrift stores and community center in Brooklyn, staffed with another 35 employees. Both of these locations offer practical resources to the community while serving a greater, spiritual purpose. They provide a no-cost public space for ministry to happen. They offer specially designed groups and programs for immigrants and refugees, as well as a wider number of services to the broader community such as food distribution and various communal groups like kitting and art groups. Physical space in New York City is costly, but this ministry platform has proven to be a worthy investment in the extension of International Project’s presence and impact in the city.

Serving as International Project President, Kevin works with all of these teams—setting organizational vision and goals and providing training and support to the workers. For a time during their ministry expansion, Kevin was running most of the internal operations of International Project, which pulled him away from the direct ministry. But now a 10-person operations team has taken up the majority of this work, allowing Kevin to lead the organization while continuing to do the work of ministry that he desires to spend his time on—missionary training, dinner table conversations, and walking side by side with those who need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

Challenges to the Mission

International Project has had many causes for celebration in its three decades of operation—both in terms of organizational growth and its participation in the spread of the gospel throughout the world. They have also faced significant challenges. Attrition is one of these challenges. This challenge is not unique to International Project but one which all missions organizations face: Missionaries leave. The work is hard, expectations are not met, family dynamics change priorities, and the list goes on. What makes attrition for International Project especially difficult is their location. Choosing to minister in a city means choosing to live in a small apartment with a lot more noise, a lot more trash, and a lot more people—all at a lot higher of a cost.

“Reaching unreached people groups used to mean going to live in a jungle or a village,” said Kevin. “While these situations still exist, that paradigm of missions has quickly changed because the majority of people—including the unreached—now live in cities. The new sacrifice of missions is being willing to be stacked on top of each other.”

Politics have also proven to be a continuing challenge to International Project’s mission. The Kings believe that God, who sovereignly rules over all things, is “divinely orchestrating global migration.” But too often, the politics of immigration cloud the conversation of gospel ministry to the foreigner among us—occasionally resulting in angry emails from those who conflate International Project’s mission to minister to the foreigner with their endorsement of any particular border policy. International Project’s focus is not on lobbying immigration policies but effectively building relationships and sharing the gospel with those God has brought to their neighborhoods, no matter what policies are in place. As Kevin said, “This is an opportunity to reach the nations, regardless of politics. Our focus is not on one’s government status in the country but one’s spiritual status in the Kingdom of God.”

A Continuing Work

It is hard to tell the story of International Project apart from the Kings. In many ways, it is their story. It has been 32 years since their pond-side wedding on Cairn’s campus, and for 30 of those years, they have worked side-by-side in a ministry that they built from the ground up. It’s a story they get to share, a legacy that deserves to be celebrated. But at the same time, we recognize that this is, ultimately, God’s story. Lord willing, International Project will continue to reach unreached people groups around the world long after the Kings are gone. And even if International Project, the 503c, were to end before the Lord’s return, the International Project—the Great Commission of bringing the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth—would continue, because the Lord has said it to be so.

If you are interested in serving with International Project, visit .

*Identity hidden due to the sensitive nature of her ministry work.

Dr. Njoroge set his chapel message series around “unconventional” missions passages, including Genesis 19, Joshua 5, and Matthew 22. Genesis 19 recounts the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as the rescue of Lot and his family. Dr. Njoroge took the week to break passages down to investigate several key takeaways. The destruction of the cities and subsequent saving of Lot in Genesis drew the reader’s attention to the role of Abraham as what Dr. Njoroge called an “agent of God’s blessing.” As Abraham was used as such an agent to rescue Lot and his family, Dr. Njoroge encouraged students to both look for the “Abrahams” in their own lives as well as look for ways to be that agent of blessing.

The chapel speaker also took time in his messages to reinforce the power of apologetics. He pointed to the ministry of Jesus as the example for missionary work. By addressing the individual’s worldviews, Jesus took confrontations and turned them around, asking the individual to consider their own perspective. In seeking to be that blessing to others, we can best do so by being prepared and confident in our faith. 

Other events throughout the week included the popular World Feast, where 18 different cultures were represented. Students also had a chance to participate in the Cafe and Community at mission rep’s tables and a Boardwalk Chapel Social where they were given the opportunity to interact with missionaries, learning more about the heart of their work and how God can use their gifts and passions to serve wherever He takes them.

You can listen to Dr. Njoroge’s World Reach Week chapel messages here.

On January 23–26, 2023, 91�Թ� hosted World Reach Week. Building on the theme “Right Here, Right Now,” speakers and events focused on the work of participating in and anticipating God’s Kingdom as a current reality, not a distant future.

In Monday’s chapel, keynote speaker Pastor David Harrop focused on the advantages of being young adults. He called students to consider how seriously they take the great commission—to distinguish their feelings of what they think they want to do from what they are commanded to do. Encouraging them, he added that we have God-given gifts that, even if we feel as though they may not be useful in mission-oriented ways, will lead us to opportunities to use those gifts in ways that serve others and magnify the Lord.

On Wednesday, an alumni panel was able to share their thoughts on “How Is God Calling After I Graduate?” By relaying their personal experiences, the panel motivated students to persevere through difficulties or uncertainty and continue to find ways to serve God and others. The panel also encouraged the audience to engage with an individual’s faith values in order to have the chance to share the gospel in any setting students may find themselves in.

Friday’s chapel featured the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dr. Aneesh Khushman. Using the metaphor of his sourdough starter, Dr. Khushman pushed the students to be those who work to “pass” the gospel to others, just as he passes on some of the sourdough starter to others. Dr. Khushman also shared his own missionary journey, particularly how it led him to Cairn. His recognition that teaching is still full of missionary purpose and opportunities helped remind students that mission work can happen anywhere.

Other featured events throughout the week included the popular World Feast, Cafe and Community at mission rep’s tables, and an evangelism training session, all of which gave students more opportunities to further discuss and prepare for taking on the role of an active member of the Kingdom.

Cairn hosted its biannual World Reach Week on the week of January 24–28, 2022. Over the course of a three year cycle, Cairn has emphasized three aspects of missions: discover, prepare, and commit. The 2021–22 academic year marks the third year of this cycle; accordingly, this week focused on forming a commitment to participate in God’s work around the world. 

During chapel on Monday, two representatives from SEND International shared how their teams strive to serve incoming refugees and local immigrant communities by meeting spiritual and physical needs of our international neighbors. The speakers related personal stories of their relationships with refugees from the Middle East, encouraging the student body to seek opportunities to love incoming foreigners as they build new lives in nearby communities. 

In Wednesday’s chapel, Liz Givens facilitated a Q&A with current students who have served internationally. Students shared formative experiences concerning their mission work in Greece and Kenya, as well as relationships they established through service. 

The last chapel, during Friday morning, was a time of worship. By praising God’s attributes, seeking to mirror His character, and asking Him to break our hearts for what breaks His, students were given the chance to reflect on the idea of commitment in pursuing ways to love others as we have been loved.

Students were invited to participate in additional seminars throughout the week. Dr. Plummer led a seminar titled “Addressing Objections to the Gospel,” Global Recordings Network and Disciples for the Harvest led a seminar on “Sharing the Gospel in 6,500 Languages Using Your Smartphone, and Ari Hauben of Chosen People Ministries spoke to “How You Can Effectively and Appropriately Reach the Heart of Jewish People With the Good News.” 

In addition to learning and listening, University students also had the opportunity to serve and celebrate. After collecting supplies for several weeks, the students made Luopads, reusable feminine hygiene products for women around the world, on Thursday afternoon. Later that day, MuKappa, the TCK student organization, organized a World Feast in Heritage Hall to celebrate the numerous cultures represented in the student body through food.

As students continue to learn about what it means to discover, prepare for, and commit to missions, World Reach Week continues to be an effective series of events educating the student body and developing a passion reflective of God’s heart for every tribe, nation, and tongue.