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Every year, the U.S. State Department invites between 40,000-120,000 immigrants to the United States to get a second chance at life. In a small, in-town community that is part of metro Atlanta, 60,000 refugees have been “re-settled” since 1992. They come from places like Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Bosnia, Burma, Burundi, Congo, Bhutan, and Afghanistan.

This fall, a group of eight new Mission Society missionaries will move into this town’s low-income apartment complexes. Their neighbors will likely be victims of religious persecution, war, and ethnic cleansing. Like their refugee apartment-mates, these missionaries will come with no furniture. They may invest in a cot and buy a few other furnishings from a local thrift store, but they will intentionally embrace a lifestyle similar to the people among whom they will live.

These eight missionaries are relocating to this town for a four-month apprenticeship. Their objectives are to learn to live in community, to become more effective disciple-makers, to learn to depend on Christ in challenging circumstances, and to practice seeing God at work in the hearts of the people around them. Underlying these objectives is also their desire to foster a passion for Jesus and a passion for His Kingdom.

Eventually, these new missionaries will be placed overseas, some of them in the most difficult and remote outposts in the world. In the meantime, you might say that their four months in this community of refugees will be a practice run.

This “Atlanta Apprenticeship program” is one of the new ways your partnership is enabling us to train your Mission Society missionaries. It also seems to be representative of momentum that is building these days.

Earlier this year, we re-wrote our mission statement to even more expressly state our commitment to reach the “least reached.” Since then, God has been opening doors of opportunity, inspiring new ideas like the Atlanta Apprenticeship program, providing volunteers to help shepherd projects, and raising up women and men who are willing to go to the ends of the earth to offer Christ.

In fact, of the 203 current Mission Society missionaries, 76 are—or will be—serving in restricted access areas among least reached communities! In other words 37% of your missionaries are already or will soon be working among people who have had little or no exposure to any Christian witness.

More than 25% of the world’s population has yet to hear about Jesus. The Mission Society is equipping missionaries and national partners to help reach people—some, in the most secluded areas—with the message that the God of all the universe has sent His Son to redeem them.