Building A Bridge – Spotlight on EC Serve

EC Serve Director, Mandy Moore turned 17 while on her first mission trip to Siberia. 

Mandy grew up in the church but will admit she wasn’t the best kid. 

“Two weeks before I turned 16, I went to a youth camp and had that born again experience,” she remembered. “I encountered the Lord in a way I never had before and asked for forgiveness. I felt light and brand new.”

Mandy left camp that year filled with a hunger for God’s word. Through a member at her church, Mandy was connected to a Youth Missions organization named, Teen Mania Ministry. At a convention in Atlanta, she learned of their cross-cultural missions program and instantly felt the Lord calling her to go and serve.

Since her first trip to Siberia, Mandy has gone on more than 20 international mission trips. 

Now, she is bringing that passion for service into her new role at Emmanuel, as the Director of EC Serve.

As Director of EC Serve, Mandy hopes to administratively facilitate a variety of International and Domestic mission teams throughout the academic year.  These teams will be led by qualified faculty and staff. Personally, she along with her husband, Frank intend to lead 2-3 international mission teams each academic year. 

“Through EC Serve’s short-term mission teams, the goal is to build a bridge between EC Serve and the IPHC World Missions Ministries,” she said. “We hope that our teams can work collaboratively with World Missions teams in medical or children’s ministries, so students can practice their majors cross-culturally.”

Her overall goal for EC Serve is to provide a variety of opportunities for students to go and serve if they feel led to.

“We will be doing service projects on campus, in the community, regionally, and internationally,” Mandy said. “Every student, whatever their background is when they come to Emmanuel, if they want to serve, they can find their place.” 

She hopes to provide opportunities for students who are on fire for the Lord and want to serve like Jesus, and for those who may not know Jesus in that way but want to serve because it’s the right thing to do.

“These projects can be evangelistic to our students,” Mandy said. “We can provide opportunities to come and serve and experience Jesus like they never have before. The goal of EC serve is to be a tool for our students of both discipleship and evangelism, that way we grow as we serve.”

Her vision for the program is for students to have weekly opportunities to serve at the local level, whether it be visiting nursing homes or volunteering to bag groceries at a local grocery store. Once a semester, she plans to do both a day trip and a weekend trip to serve in some capacity. She hopes to plan 2-3 international mission trips per year.

“I would like for our Biology and Pre-Med majors to be able to do medical missions cross-culturally,” she said. “I’d like for our Education majors to be able to have teaching opportunities and vacation bible school opportunities cross-culturally, and for SCM students to be able to preach, and speak, and teach cross-culturally on some of these trips.”

What’s Mandy’s message to students interested in participating in EC Serve? 

“You don’t have to be completely perfect in your relationship with the Lord to serve.”

When Mandy went on her first mission trip, it lit a fire in her to serve that is still burning bright. She hopes that through EC Serve, students can find that same passion for the Lord and serving his people that she did.