Living it Out: What is a Short-Term Mission MOBILIZER?

What is a Short-Term Mission MOBILIZER?

What does Carol Letkeman DO?

In short, a mobilizer is a pathways coach. Let me try to explain. Imagine you’ve been inspired to walk the West Coast Trail, but you have never walked more than maybe 5km at one time, let alone hiked mountains for 7 days straight. Where do you begin? After a few days of YouTube tutorials, maybe a trip to MEC and the local library, you know you need a real & living friend to help you. You need someone to encourage you, help you prepare physically, emotionally, spiritually and technically. That’s where a mobilizer is your best friend.

Over a cup of coffee, you learn that Carol is an experienced hiking guide with a team of Sherpas & fitness trainers who desire to help you prepare for hiking but also help you discern which pathways are best to test your skills and fitness levels without breaking your soul.

Moving from analogy to reality, what is a short-term mission mobilizer in practical terms? What does Carol do? Carol is a life coach, career counselor, networker, prayer-counselor, team-builder, and assignment coordinator. She helps ‘mobilize’ people toward a mission pathway that makes sense for them and their church. There are many pathways to join God on a mission. In the background, Carol is meeting with university and college faculty and administration to secure academic credit for particular pathways. She is working with local, provincial and national church leadership to foster partnership and collaboration for each individual, family or church team on a mission. Carol and her team design training camps and debrief retreats with a robust curriculum that focus on attentiveness to God, scripture, community (team-dynamics) and cross-cultural adaptation. In addition, this team becomes part of a discernment process for future assignments and vocational ministry opportunities. In any given year, Carol and her team are in disciple-making mentorship roles with 50-100 individuals whether first time participants or burgeoning church planters! A mobilizer's work is life-on-life discipleship.