On the surface of it who would have thought that a missions trip would provide way for our younger budding entrepreneurs to learn about fund raising, joint ventures and working hard? Kristi Brantley shares about her experiences with that in this article.

One of my favorite things about summer is the mission trips that I am privileged to go on with our students at my church. I am an adult leader in our student ministry, and each summer we offer two mission trips. One is for the seventh and eighth graders, and the second one is for the ninth through twelfth grade students.

Missions are an important characteristic of our church. We are a very serving church, and we start taking our children on mission trips in the fifth and sixth grade. Going on a mission trip is a great way to teach young ones about serving, about other cultures, and everyone comes home with new appreciations and with hearts that love to serve.

Part of the training for these trips involves raising prayer and financial support. We try to teach the students how to creatively work for and earn a big portion of the money needed for the trip. Many students don't have jobs, and several have never had to earn money for anything in their life.

It is always interesting trying to teach students about working, saving and being creative with ways to earn money. Some of the ideas that have been suggested have been: car washes, baby sitting, spring cleaning inside a house, cleaning up yards, cutting grass, planting gardens, pressuring washing driveways and the outside of houses, selling doughnuts at intersections, washing windows, and other varied jobs.

All of these ideas remind me of being an entrepreneur. I hope that as we train these students on how to raise needed funds for a mission trip, they are learning ways to become entrepreneurs at an early age. Who knows what some of these small jobs will produce in our students. It's never too early to learn. Or too late to learn!

Entrepreneurs are also needed to fund mission's trips. Often times those who feel called to mission work as adults have had no experience on the capital raising side that is so desperately needed for this important work. So what better way to get them started? While they are young plant the seeds. Give them a love of mission work. Teach them how to raise the money to support and fund that work.

In doing both you are raising entrepreneurs with a heart for service that can continue funding these things when they become adults.