We accept interns who are over the age of 18 and have completed at least one semester of college or the equivalent life experience by the time their ETN internship starts. This would mean that we do accept married couples and families with children. Each adult in the family will need to submit their own application for review. If you are bringing your children with you, we ask that you prayerfully consider this step of faith. Please note that kids aren’t just tagging along but will bring something unique to their team and base that otherwise would be missing. Practically it could impact what you as mom and dad can do with your team, so contact ETN to process what it could look like for your family to go. It is not required to have gone on a short-term trip prior to participating in ETN, but we do encourage it.

The application process and the questions therein are to ensure Engage the Nations is a healthy experience for you and for the people around you. The process begins with filling out the intern application and requesting references. The base leadership team representing your preferred location will contact you after receiving your application and references. Each intern is encouraged to process with the Lord, their church leadership and community to get a sense of what team/nation God may be leading you to for an internship. In the ETN application, you will be asked to give some of your preferences. ETN will work with base leaders and long-term teams to find the best fit for you. That said, we cannot guarantee that the team you preference is the one you will be on. We ask that everyone apply with “open hands” as to where they will serve. From there, your application will be sent on to the long-term team. In some instances, you may participate in a short interview with the base leadership team. Once the process is completed and is prayerfully reviewed, the base leaders will promptly communicate with you the status of your application. In the event that the capacity of your preferred base has already been filled, you will be redirected to your second preference/another base.

If you are accepted to ETN, your primary responsibilities will include but are not limited to:
● Support raising*
● Filling out required documents in a timely manner
● Pre-field training assignmentsAttending team meetings
● Attending ETN training and debriefOther tasks as directed by your base leader/administrator
● *ETN will provide every team resources to equip you in how to effectively support raise. Ultimately, we trust the Lord to provide; that said, our faithfulness allows us to partner with the Holy Spirit to see all our needs taken care of!

We find that when it comes to setting you up for a great trip (or potentially derailing it), few things are as critical as rightly placed expectations. While we can’t give you an exhaustive list, here are some things to be aware of. Expect:

● The program dates are May 16th-August 10th, 2024. ETN begins with training in the Dallas area and closes with a debrief in the Dallas area. 
● Interns are expected to be on site at their location, including training and debrief, for the duration of the internship. The only exception to this is if they are in a wedding or a family member is getting married.
● Bases will work alongside the LTT (Long-Term Team) to accomplish the intended goal of that region.
● Each intern is under the direct leadership of the Base Leaders and submits to their decisions.
● Interns and Base Leaders are submitted to the LTT and their overall vision for ETN.
● Interns are asked to be flexible and allow their schedule to be set by the Base Leaders and LTT.
● Interns are asked to refrain from starting dating relationships during their internship, either with a team member or locals.
● Interns are expected to comply with all security precautions and standards set by the LTT and Base Leaders, including social media restrictions, for living above reproach and protecting the longevity of the LTT in that nation. 
● Before deployment and while on the field, interns are expected to fully participate in and complete team assignments and expectations.
● At any point in the trip, if an intern is detrimental to the health of the team and ministry, they may be sent home at the discretion of the LTT.

Engage the Nations is a combination of several base teams working across multiple nations on 5 continents. Each base will have a leadership team and summer interns totaling no more than 15 people. Bases will be responsible for working with the long-term team as well as local ministry partners to reach out to those who don’t know Jesus. All interns are required to participate in a mandatory training that will cover a range of relevant topics. The training will be highly interactive and will be aimed at equipping you in what is expected over the course of the summer. Similarly, all interns will end their ETN experience with a mandatory debrief from August 4-6, 2023, where interns will be lead through a series of prompts to help aid their transition back. As anyone who has been on a mission trip knows, there is no such thing as “normal” ☺. That said, as each base team gets settled, there are basic elements you can expect: spending individual time with Jesus daily, team meetings, prayer, and outreach. Ministry will primarily consist of engaging with locals and looking for Spirit-prepared “People of Peace” in the base city and surrounding areas. A typical day may look like the following:
● Wake up and spend time with Jesus
● Breakfast
● Connect with the team to discuss details for the day
● Team prayer time
● Lunch
● Afternoon outreach
● DinnerOutreach and follow up

Each base will have a Base Leadership Team, which will consist of your base leaders, base administrator, and (at some sites) base parents. These are the people that will be walking with you before, during and after your internship. They are deeply committed to you and will be very involved both pre-launching and during the summer. Additionally, at each base there will be an Antioch long-term team; these long-term workers will, in many ways, have bottom-line oversight for everything related to your base. While you may not interact with them daily, they will be a significant part of your covering as well. Last but not least, Engage the Nations staff will be working behind the scenes to ensure that from start to finish you have an incredible internship experience.

This is often the most delicate and vulnerable part of moving forward as part of ETN. We encourage you to include your parents in the decision process of your summer plans. Rather than “reporting” to them what you are planning on doing, invite them to pray with you about the decision as you start to apply. Listen to their input – they love you and want the best for you! We are exhorted by the Word to “honor our father and mother” (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2), and so this isn’t just our admonition to applicants but a Biblical command for us to follow. As a rule of thumb, if your parents are still paying your bills (tuition, rent, food, cell phone, car, insurance, etc.) then they have the right to influence and determine the decisions you make in your life. So, honor your parents and include them in this decision with you. If your parents have questions and concerns, please feel free to have them email us directly at etn@antioch.org. Please make sure they include your name and your local church in the body of their email.

We recognize that there are dangers everywhere (including the US) and that travel brings an added element of risk. We have worked hard to put extensive safety protocols in place. That said, Engage the Nations is not for everyone. Applicants need to consider that things happen we can’t predict. People get sick and accidents happen. Because we minister amongst the poor and sometimes in remote locations, it is possible you will encounter people with any number of challenges. To address the issues we face, we work closely with a variety of organizations on the ground to monitor political, security, health, weather and other risks in the regions that we minister. This information includes the US State Department travel warnings. All interns are required to have a travel insurance policy that works closely to ensure you will receive the care you need if it should arise. Moreover, interns are required to register with the State Department prior to deployment.

We recommend everyone that travels to any of our locations review the CDC and State Department websites (linked below) for recommended vaccines for your area. These are the same resources we recommended for all ETN interns even before the global COVID-19 pandemic. Certain countries and airlines might require a vaccine for entry so please check with them before arriving at the airport for departure.
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● https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/COVID-19-Country-Specific-Information.html
● https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/index.html

‍We can only recommend what the CDC and State Department recommend for international travel. However, if the COVID vaccine is required for entry to your location, by either the governing country or the airline you are traveling on, then you may require written documentation from a medical professional stating your desire to not vaccinate, or you might not be able to progress on the trip without the vaccine. If you decided to withdraw from ETN at any point for any reason (including vaccination or COVID), we cannot give refunds. All donations given to ETN are given with the understanding that by contributing to this project, donors acknowledge that the church/missions agency has the authority to apply contributions designated for this project to another, related purpose in the event that the project is canceled. Unfortunately, there will be no refunds that can be given. If your specific base gets canceled but other bases are still operating then you are able to switch locations assuming there is availability.

The primary vision for ETN is that interns will 1) support the work of the long-term team and 2) be developed as a follower of Jesus. Our hope is that interns will be equipped in the basics of making disciples – how to engage the lost, simple tools for evangelism, and helping people encounter Jesus through the Bible. Day by day, base teams will live out the book of Acts – seeking Jesus with community through prayer and worship, and then going out to share that love with those that have never heard. While there may have different platforms to create those interactions – from English clubs to sports ministry to praying for the sick- all will be aimed at finding people that are spiritually hungry who can, in turn, reach others in a way that leads to a movement.  

Yes, Engage the Nations is an initiative of Antioch Community Church based in Waco, TX. Antioch was established in 1999 by our Senior Pastor, Jimmy Seibert, his wife, Laura, and a group of friends who shared the call for a missions-based church. Before the church was formed, this same group of people started a missionary training school, planted churches in Russia, Mongolia and Uzbekistan, and formed an international missions organization called Antioch Ministries International (AMI).

Over the years, we have grown from one small service to several services for more than 4,000 people. Now, through planting churches, tens of thousands of people have come to Christ and are meeting together in the U.S. and around the world. Antioch Ministries International has more than 140 full-time workers around the world, and we are part of a growing family of churches called the Antioch International Movement of Churches. While it’s not about the numbers, every number represents a person who has encountered God. Each church plant and ministry means more people are experiencing the love God and making His love known throughout the earth.

Whether in Waco, around the U.S. or in the remote parts of the earth, our passion is to see the Church advance the Kingdom of God around the world through evangelism and discipleship. The vision doesn’t stop with planting churches. Our dream is for each of our church plants to become a church-planting movement that impacts thousands of people. Our teams are dedicated to training nationals to reach their people and lead their own movements. As these movements grow, we believe the number of unengaged and unreached people groups will decrease and the name of Jesus will be glorified.

Our vision and beliefs center around a passion for Jesus and His purposes on the Earth – Loving God, others and those who don’t know Jesus.

Our passion and purpose has always been and will always be JESUS. The One who takes away our sins, binds up the broken hearted, gives hope to the hopeless, heals the sick and delivers the captive. The One who is LOVE.

We believe the church is the hope of the world and want to see more of Jesus in our city, our nation, and the nations. Practically, that means we are a local church with a global mission.

We believe church doesn’t just happen on Sundays. In the Bible, the first church was commissioned to live in community, to worship, to share meals, to praise God together and to reach out to others. We live out this mission daily here in Waco, in coffee shops, church pews, on soccer fields, and street corners.

We believe everyone has a meaningful part to play in the Kingdom of God, called to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to the world. As we respond to needs, from one end of the earth to the other, we plant churches and impact communities with God’s love so we might see His Kingdom come and His will be done.To see more about what we believe, please visit antioch.org

We at Engage the Nations take the responsibility and care of our participants very seriously. The reality is the world can be an unsafe place. However, that truth is not limited to overseas travel. While we cannot make guarantees, safety and security is a top priority for our program, and our staff works hard to set up the necessary protocols to minimize risk for all participants. Our leadership team and staff monitor safety concerns and issues in the nations where we work, including organized protests, political uprisings, medical alerts, and natural disasters. We maintain active communication with our international contacts, and our set processes include changing locations if we believe the risk level in an area is not appropriate for our participants.

We have well-defined procedures related to seeking medical attention, including the expectation that interns will quickly seek care if they are sick and not immediately getting better. While we are people of faith, we hold our base leadership accountable to help interns to make wise decisions, particularly when it comes to healthcare. While it may be disconcerting for a parent to hear that their student has visited the hospital, please remember that a hospital visit overseas may simply be the normative place he or she goes to see a doctor. Where appropriate, the Base Leader is involved in treatment and follow-up plans. In the cases of severe illness, the top levels of ETN leadership become involved. Whenever possible, we ask the student to convey information about illness to his or her parents. At times, this will be after the incident is resolved. If your student is incapable of communicating the seriousness of his or her situation, ETN will notify the individual’s emergency contacts.

Please note: emergency contacts are part of your student’s application and may not always be the parent(s).

We are asking all our participants to spend minimal time on social media/online. This will impact the amount of your interaction. Additionally, while on the field there will be times when communication could be difficult; internet can be spotty and slow in some of the places we work. There will be times when we encourage your intern to press more deeply into the Lord and he or she may choose to fully abandon “distractions”, including Facebook, Instagram, FaceTime and other means of communicating back home for a period of time.

As possible, participants will update family, friends, mentors and churches back home; this may be through email by a designated team member. With limited communication ability in some areas, it is likely you may get the short and condensed updates from the field.

The chances of compromising something or someone are somewhat remote, but it’s best not to take chances. The risk is greatest for our local ministry hosts and partners, as well as long-term church planters. We are asking everyone to err on the side of caution. Please refer to your child’s location by how it is listed on engagethenations.com. Thank you for your help in this!