FAQs

A typical week is comprised of three main things:

1. Team or small group meetings twice per week
   • One focused on spiritual formation
   • One focused on a practical ministry topic
2. Language-learning
   • 4-5 days per week for the first 6+ months
   • 2-3 days per week from approximately the 6th month to 2 years (depending on each person’s learning needs)
3. Engagement with partner church or local ministry
   • At first, 2-3 times per week (with rotation through a few ministries of interest).
   • Eventually, 4-5 times per week (after settling on the ministry of focus and after approximately 6 months of language study).

New arrivals can expect one-on-one mentoring with one of the long-term staff approximately 2 times per month. Avance participants in their second year will meet with a mentor about once per month. In addition, there are many opportunities for informal mentoring during team and community activities.

Yes! We plan for several trips per year to other parts of Thailand and surrounding countries. The purpose of these trips is to:
Till the soil for future work by bringing prayer and worship to unreached areas.
Expand our vision (and the vision of the Thai church) for the needs and opportunities in surrounding regions.

Developing a strong and supportive community is a primary goal of this program, and all members are expected to participate in the learning and community activities of Avance . However, we encourage staff to have healthy and supportive friendships outside Avance, and we definitely want staff to develop local relationships!

This program is currently structured as a two-year program for the purpose of:

• Effective language and culture skills. These can take a long time to develop, particularly in parts of Asia with difficult languages such as Thailand.
• Exploration of gifts and calling. This can happen more deeply through a longer season of ministry exploration.
• Benefits of a full first term. Growing through the full cycle of “first term” struggles and joys can bring benefits that are not seen in shorter experiences.

We love CIT and strongly support that program as a wonderful foundation for cross-cultural ministry. However, having experienced CIT ourselves, we know it’s easy to forget many of those principles as soon as the plane lands! We want to build on the CIT foundation to support workers through the challenging transition to effective ministry on the field.