Avant Ministries

I first learned about Avant Ministries (formerly known as the Gospel Missionary Union) in 2016 at ICOM (The International Conference on Missions). I was just passing by the booth, honestly, not interested in talking with anyone, but I made eye contact with someone from Avant, which initiated a “hello” and the start of a conversation. They were excited to hear about my desire to be a missionary in Latin America and that I was already fluent in Spanish. I was even connected with one of their staff members who had grown up as a missionary kid and who was also fluent in Spanish. Avant stayed in contact with me, but I did not pursue them. At the time, they did not have a lot of opportunities for me to serve as a missionary in Latin America.

A year or two later, after an extensive search for a sending agency I could work for in the mission field, I contacted Avant about working with them. Avant was, what felt like, my last ditched effort to work with an organization as a missionary. Many of the organizations I had looked into didn’t meet my criteria in missionary care, ministry focus, or most importantly in Biblical doctrine. Avant fit my criteria the best but I worried they still did not have ministry opportunities available for me in Latin America. What I didn’t know was that Avant was merging with Camino Global, an organization who had been working in Latin America for decades. More opportunities for ministry were being added to Avant’s current ministries in Latin America at the same time I had chosen to email them! I joined Avant Ministries in July of 2019 and I am excited to be serving with them in God’s Kingdom!

Avant focuses on planting churches in the unreached areas of the world. Avant trains, sends, and serves missionaries in 50 different countries. Through church planting, media, education, camp programming, and business, Avant works towards establishing churches among the unreached: mature, nationally led churches that desire to plant more churches, first in their own city, and then all over the world.