Partnership in Action: A California Church Helps Launch a Preschool in Southeast Asia

Partnership in Action: A California Church Helps Launch a Preschool in Southeast Asia

“It really is just teaching our people what it looks like to live out your faith in different ways,” said Chris McElwee, Pastor of Discipleship at Wellspring Church.

A group of 12 people from Wellspring Church in Indian Wells, California experienced first-hand the impact their financial support is making on a TeachBeyond project. They traveled to the capital city of a country in Southeast Asia last October to visit a preschool they had helped launch. The group also visited a school that supports missionary families, a rehab center, a swim school and a coffee business that provides education and work experience for people with developmental disabilities.

Pastor Chris McElwee says the trip was an eye-opening experience for the members of his church.

“It was just really inspiring,” he said, “and I think everyone on the team was just really moved by how hard everyone works there and how professional the team is to do the work that they're doing. You know, you have to be good at what you're doing or it just doesn't work.”

Chris originally connected with TeachBeyond through Advancement Director Vance Frusher. They had worked together at a church in Chicago and remained friends, even as they moved to different cities.

“When I took the role here at Wellspring, Vance was one of my first phone calls because I knew TeachBeyond. We've actually been supporters of Vance,” Chris said. “So, I knew about it and knew they were a great organization.”

Before sending their first team, Chris and another Wellspring staff member took a vision trip to the region to meet the local leader and determine if the project would be a good fit for the church.

After that initial trip, Wellspring Church began its partnership with TeachBeyond in Southeast Asia. Church members began financially supporting the development of a preschool and planned their first trip to coincide with its grand opening celebration. 

“This preschool would not have gotten launched in the way that it did without that sponsorship,” Vance said. “If this church hadn’t said, ‘hey, we want to get behind this and we want to support the work of what TeachBeyond is doing internationally,’ we wouldn’t have launched the preschool. We might have done something differently, but we don’t know what that would have been.”

Partnerships like this are essential to the mission of TeachBeyond. They provide the financial support needed to expand access to transformational education. In return, churches experience the joy of seeing the impact of the projects they support. More than simply sharing resources, these partnerships create opportunities for mutual blessing as TeachBeyond and churches take the next steps together in this work.

“We see this as a prime discipleship opportunity for people,” Chris said. “That’s why we go. It’s helping people to grow in their faith and their understanding of the gospel and their understanding of God's mission and their part in it.”

If you want to get your church involved with TeachBeyond you can reach out to the Director of Advancement ([email protected]) or Director of Church Partnerships ([email protected]) to begin that conversation.