“Welcome to the Student Ministries Ethiopia 2026 trip! Your application was accepted. Your trip leader will reach out to you soon.” This email, shining by light of a late-night computer screen, arrived in four Hosanna Ministries students’ inboxes at the end of last year. Since the idea of high schoolers traveling to East Africa didn’t yet seem plausible, they held a tentative breath. By the first team meeting, however, the chance to embark on this mission trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and share the Good News from July 31st to August 9th grew beyond mere pixels. Alongside the three team leaders—Erin Maroney, Jeff Wright, and Markus Rentschler—four students will embark on this journey: Calvin Reichwald, Kate Schwartz, Danuu Daka, and the author of this article, Tyler Weeks. The student ministries program that brought them such an opportunity is best explained by Jenn Alexander, one of Hosanna’s lead pastors.
“Here at Hosanna, our students move along a pathway where they get to learn the faith in grade school. Then, when they're in middle school, they get to embrace the faith. And when they come into high school, we encourage them to live and even share the faith. And often that happens through impact trips.”
Choosing to spread the Good News in Ethiopia’s capital city started with much more than an email, however. It came from these students’ increasing involvement in Hosanna’s youth group program, whose four campuses in Lakeville, Rosemount, Shakopee, and Northfield attract hundreds of students. Attending these Wednesday night programs since middle school led the author, for instance, to get baptized, confirm their faith in Christ, and become a devout believer. The program’s “engaging worship, dynamic teaching, prayer ministry, serving opportunities, and interactive small groups” allows him and other students to cultivate their own faith rather than one built from routine Sunday services or unhealthy masks. Since his junior year, these steps have included sharing testimonies, giving messages, and eventually leading a middle school group of 7th grade boys. An opportunity to serve on a Native American reservation in Wind River, Wyoming fanned into flames his faith with an important realization.
Jenn Alexander: “The sense is that the impact goes both directions. It's easy to think we're only going to go to this place to make an impact, and we do—those stories multiply as we bring the hope and the heartbeat of Jesus into really hard situations. But the stories that come home are so much more often about how you were impacted and around gratitude for what you have.”
Preparing students for such an endeavor typically starts by establishing a place’s culture, history, people, and a rather critical reminder from the Northfield student ministries director, Jeff Wright: “This is not a vacation. It’s not a me-centered trip. This is a Jesus-centered trip.” Another simple rule made the Wind River trips he has hosted especially powerful: no phones. Daunting as this may seem in a social media-littered world, the decision to cut off this perceived connection ushers in a more powerful, raw connection with team members. Rather than having faces tucked in their phones, students are forced into conversations with different campuses that may be a little awkward at first. However, each passing day and a genuine commitment to grow your faith also grows the team and its relationships. Walls break down. Masks are torn off. And the somewhat disconnected environment transforms into a tight-knit group that creates something truly special for the next ministry year.
Jeff Wright: “They are emotional trips if you allow them to be. If your heart is truly open, and you're receptive to what the Lord wants to do within you—within your team—they are emotional. I can attest to that every year. So many things happen within these trips, but the mountaintop experience that we so often hear about takes work. As you prepare for a trip, it takes work. As you're on the trip, it takes work.”
Having experienced this transformation, Wind River was, for good reason, the only mission on the author’s mind for 2026. Returning to the reservation would have reignited the powerful bonds fostered over that week. Yet Ethiopia was tugging at his and two other hearts in Northfield, urging them to step out and seek discomfort in East Africa. When they lift off for Addis Ababa on July 31st, Dr. Gemechis Buba and the rest of his team will welcome them with open arms. His rapidly expanding non-profit organization, Leadstar International, has been advancing Christ’s mission in America, Africa, and the Middle East since 2015. Alongside accompanying students at their summer camp, the team will work with Ellilta to empower the families of previous trafficking victims. Taking from his twenty years of missionary work, Jeff Wright stated that “these people truly do have nothing, and yet they're still happy. They still love Jesus and they're still willing to be hospitable and to love just where they're at.” Such gratitude and contentment demands the question: are we taking the things of our lives for granted?
“As you’re on the trip, you have to live in tight quarters with people for seven, 10, 15-day spurts, and you learn a lot. You experience so many incredible things along this journey. And it ultimately changes the trajectory of our life and what we get to do—where we live, work, study, and play. It is hard to come off that mountaintop and live in the valley, but taking that beauty and experience home truly transforms the lives of students.”
No Bible verse speaks to the “summit” of this journey quite as well as Acts 1:8, which serves as Hosanna’s unofficial mission trip motto. It teaches that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” These seven team members happened to choose Ethiopia, but their impact will end up multiplying the hope and heartbeat of Jesus throughout Africa, back in Minnesota, and into whatever valley the Lord calls them into. As is expected this summer, many leave missions feeling called to join Hosanna’s team, become middle school leaders, or serve in children’s ministry and other trips. Regardless of the path, their stories are reminders that the mountaintop waits for all of us. Rather than standing down, let us put on the boots of peace from Ephesians 6:15, seek discomfort, and trust in direction greater than our own. Are you ready to start the climb?
See the full details of this trip and consider supporting the author’s remaining fundraising at https://hosanna.managedmissions.com/MyTrip/tylerweeks.
