Mission Year Married
L to R: Margareta and Zach Maxon, Jamie and Dustin White, Monica and Ben Wheeler
Almost from the moment Mission Year began, married couples expressed their desire to impact poor, urban neighborhoods through meaningful relationships, church involvement, and community service as well. Soon after, Mission Year Married began, and it has become an important part of our ministry as young couples choose to serve God and the poor each year. While the program shares the same basic model as the single program, Mission Year Married definitely has a few key differences. Therefore, we’ve tried to outline some of the basics, so that the details are clear.
How Mission Year Married Works
Alterna
Beginning in 2009, Mission Year began partnering with the Alterna community just outside of Atlanta. The community where Alterna resides is predominately African American and also has a small Latino population with whom Alterna works and serves. Alterna is a Christian missional community comprised of U.S. citizens and Latin American immigrants committed to faithful acts of accompaniment, advocacy and hospitality, especially with immigrants from Latin America. The members all live in one neighborhood and are comprised of one American family, two Mexican families, and two Guatemalan families.
You can learn a bit more about Alterna at http://alternacommunity.wordpress.com/our-call/
Community Service
As with our general program, we have formed several partnerships where our married couples can serve. These sites offer a higher level of responsibility and are with organizations that we feel are great places to work, such as:
- Habitat for Humanity
- JennyJack Farm – a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
- Public elementary school
- DASH (a neighborhood development organization)
- New Community Church
- Twin Cedars – working with teen mothers and their children
Community Living
In order to provide a sense of community, while also maintaining a relative amount of privacy, Mission Year will place two to three couples in a house or apartment together. Each couple will have their own bedroom, but will share common living space, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and general household responsibilities.
Church
Each household of two to three couples will attend the same neighborhood church and become involved as active members.
Community Outreach
Weekends are some of the best times to connect with neighbors. Whether this is playing with kids or working alongside a friend in the community garden, it’s important to be present during this time. Therefore, weekends are reserved for community outreach, but another day during the week will be free for your Sabbath.
Training
Couples arrive in their city at the same time as other team members and attend orientation with them as well. Occassionally, one couple is asked to serve as team leaders. This couple would arrive a week earliers. In addition, the Married City Director leads an orientation experience specifically for the couples. Throughout the year, couples will participate in the Trainings and City Wide gatherings.
Marriage Enrichment
Couples will meet with Mission Year Married City Director, and couples are also given marriage-focused cirriculum to read and discuss. In addition, Mission Year hosts a marriage retreat during their year of service to promote support and growth.
Each couple also has the option to meet with an urban ministry couple outside of Mission Year. Such connections will be provided on an “as needed” basis and should not be seen as a requirement.
Discipleship
Couples can expect the same type of discipleship resources and support offered to our single team members. MY Married team members will follow the regular Mission Year curriculum and meet weekly as a household for curriculum discussions. Each Individual will also meet monthly with their city director to check-in. There will be opportunity to discuss their community service, neighborhood outreach, church involvement, personal issues, and ministry issues.
FAQs
How much does Mission Year Cost?
Mission Year truly has no price tag, because how much someone can or can’t raise has absolutely no bearing on our selection of Team Members. Still, if you must know it costs us approximately $24,000 a year to recruit, train, house, feed, manage and insure a Married Couple.
What If I Can’t Raise That Much?
While we expect you to raise as much of that amount as possible and we expect your newsletters to friends and family to go out each month, we recognize that how much you can raise largely depends on the resources of your church, family, and friends. Because we want anyone willing and able to serve, we are always fundraising to subsidize Team Members with limited resources. We turn no one away because of money. We trust God to meet our needs. Our only requirement is that you put forth your best effort to help sustain the program. Let us make one thing perfectly clear. You absolutely should not let worries about raising financial support keep you from applying to Mission Year.
Birth Control
The reasons may seem obvious to you, but we want to emphasize that birth control is extremely important during your Mission Year. Our insurance would only cover about 80% of prenatal and hospital costs which would make for a deductible that neither you nor we can afford. (However, oral contraceptives are covered up to $300/year under our prescription drug plan!) Also, there is the possibility that some couples may find pregnancy and childbirth distracting. Go figure.
Getting Ready To Leave Mission Year
MY Married will have their closing retreat at the end of July.
We understand the challenges that face our married couples when they are leaving Mission Year. Therefore, we are very open to creative ways of helping our couples transition out of the program. At times, this has meant someone has started a job before Mission Year is over to help with transition costs (anytime after July 1st is generally acceptable, but we would prefer for you to wait until your year is over if feasible). Your city director will work with you to figure out the best plan for you, your service site, team, and city.
Please note that if you and your City Director determined it is OK for you to work before your year is over, and you have not raised all of your support, you may be asked to help offset some of your living costs while you work.
Staying On After Mission Year
In the past, some of our couples have entered Mission Year with the intention of staying in their communities longer than a year. While we cannot provide programmatic support beyond the period of a year, we will be as helpful as possible in assisting couples with this transition.
This may change when someone gets a job near the end of their Mission Year (see Getting Ready to Leave Mission Year)
