The Salvation Army is an international movement, and The College for Officer Training is committed to supporting global mission both through our Partners in Mission program, and also through overseas mission opportunities. In the past number of years, The College for Officer Training in Winnipeg has been blessed to send cadets to Zambia with the ZIM project, Jamaica, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine and Cuba for their summer assignment.
The outcomes for out of country mission opportunities are as follows:
1. The future officers involved will have a greater understanding of cross-cultural ministry as well as exposure to the overseas missions. This exposure in their development as leaders may lead to doors opening as their call to officership is strengthened and affirmed.
2. They will have developed their capacity to be agents of encouragement.
3. They will develop a greater understanding of intentional prayer and expand their faith in relation to struggles of overseas personnel and God’s provision for the same.
4. This will provide expanded integration of course work at The College for Officer Training with their field experience.
5. It will bolster our Territory’s commitment to the internationalism of The Salvation Army, from a leadership development perspective.
6. The passion of missions, which the future officers will potentially develop, could have the potential to broaden and deepen their future ministry commitment to missions and Partners in Mission specifically.
7. They may discover a calling to full time international ministry.
Purposes:
Cadets will work alongside missionary officers, and at the same time learn to minister pastorally, in a cross-cultural setting. This would be accomplished in the following ways:
Encourage – To Build Up
• We would seek to build relationships through which we would serve as agents of encouragement to the officers and the people. This is critical because the indigenous leadership is encouraged by the efforts, energy and passion for ministry which cadets provide.
• Through encouragement and pastoral care we will seek to empower the local corps and communities by helping them to discover their dignity, even though they live under the oppression of poverty.
• To support any local ministry initiatives which the local ministry units might present.
Learn – To Be Built Up
• We would seek to integrate classroom academics with practical field experience.
• We would seek to understand some of the complexities related to poverty and experience how God works in the midst of pain and suffering (Matt.25).
• To recognize our own weaknesses and strengths, which are so easily hidden when we function within our own comfort levels.
• To come to an understanding that the family of God exists outside our Canadian borders, and to learn from those with whom they serve.
Pray – To Lift Up
• To learn, with our brothers and sisters, the importance of setting time aside daily for an extended period of personal and corporate prayer.
• To become educated about world issues that require prayer.
• To be able to educate Canadian Salvationists about issues abroad which require prayer.
