This summer, sophomore Ty Everman went on a mission trip to Japan. During their stay, the team sought to support a small church in the rural part of Nagano that a missionary family from Everman's church planted 17 years ago. Everman and his team had the opportunity to lead a Vacation Bible School for younger children as well as two youth events.
Everman described Japan as possibly the most unreached, open culture. While the government isn’t necessarily opposed to Christianity and the people are very welcoming to Americans, Everman summarized, there aren’t enough Christians and churches to make a thriving Christian movement.
The church body of 40 people is the only community of believers in that area. “The church was just so happy we were there because you can know that you have an army of brothers and sisters around the globe,” Everman said, “but for [us] to just be there and kind of represent [the church body] for a week and a half … they were so thrilled.”
In the weeks leading up to the team’s departure, Everman recalled feeling a deep conviction to pray over the work he was about to do. It made him realize that he needed to change his prayer life. “Why am I not praying with this much fervor for, like next Thursday?” Everman felt convicted to pray over each day in the same way he prayed over his trip to Japan. “You're going to run into a non-believer at the grocery store and you should be ready to do God's work at all times.” Everman desires to be intentional even when he isn’t on a "mission trip."
Two important events in high school set his soul on fire for overseas mission trips. During a high school course called “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement,” Everman’s entire life was changed. The course explored what God has been doing around the globe for the past 200 years and how many people still don’t have access to the gospel. He often wondered why people were going out into the world instead of evangelizing their neighbors, and this course offered the answer.
The second event was a group that held a conference at his church to discuss their recently completed New Testament translation. Everman was surprised that "such a small proportion of the collective church body was working with a certain people group," just to translate the New Testament. “That also kind of put a big burden on my conscience,” Everman said.
Looking at his own life, Everman realized how blessed he is. "I don't want God to find that I have not invested and multiplied the talents He has given me. So I looked at the need in different parts of the world and concluded that I should go and be one of the people who is actively out there."
During two short-term mission trips to New York, Everman discovered that he specifically has a heart for reaching out to Muslims and desires to do missions work with Muslims in some capacity overseas. “I feel like it's one of the things that people are afraid of and kind of shirk away from and so I just feel an overwhelming responsibility to [reach the Muslims]. I want to be on God's SEAL Team Six.”
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Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.