In 2009, two medical students at River Plate Adventist University dreamt of a myriad of youth equipped for cross-cultural outreach. One of them, Jean D. Pont, shares his perspective about how the movement “I Will Go” started.

“‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth’” (Isaiah 49:6, NIV, italics supplied).¹

There was a gentle breeze that afternoon, the kind that often swept across the campus. The leaves of some lofty coconut palms responded almost imperceptibly, moving with serene solemnity. In the window of the guesthouse one could see the silhouettes of three individuals from three different continents: a married couple visiting from River Plate Adventist University (UAP), Argentina, and a visiting professor who was the worldwide director of Adventist-Muslim Relations. The couple had traveled to Southeast Asia for a family member’s wedding.

In this scene (Illustration 1), I was the young husband. I had long harbored a burning desire to assimilate all the knowledge and accumulated experience I possibly could from experts in this area of service. When I learned that Professor Lester Merklin was also visiting Southeast Asia from the Institute of World Mission (IWM) at Andrews University (Michigan, U.S.A.), I could not let the opportunity pass to sit and talk with him.

My parents had invested most of their lives in active service as humanitarian aid workers in vulnerable communities around the globe, mainly through the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). Thus, I had had the challenge and blessing of growing up on five different continents. After becoming a medical student at UAP in Argentina, I would absorb each testimony of a traveling missionary or occasional transcultural mission seminar as a fresh wind from faraway lands. What I heard moved me with nostalgia and solemn joy. Just as that gentle breeze moved the palm leaves, it stirred in me the calling to a life of service in places where I might fit in best.

“Why don’t we do training and seminars about other cultures, and how to go about mission in faraway places?” I used to challenge my classmate, Rigoberto Vidal. The conversation got deeper and more intense toward the end of 2009. After some time, he invited me, on behalf of the student leaders’ committee, to coordinate the training activities of the Mission Institute at the School of Health Sciences at the university. This was a bustling student movement of hundreds of active young people who reached out to the surrounding cities and communities in creative ways every week. Rigoberto was the pioneer student president during the first seven years of this Mission Institute.

The dream we dialogued about was to offer extensive and systematic seminars covering a broad range of global challenges. This dream had kept me alive spiritually during my years in medical school and was soon about to bud like a tender, green plant in ways least expected.

God had already been polishing and shaping me in many ways. By then, I had taken part in the initiative to organize three student community-outreach groups. I met the woman who would later become my wife while involved in these activities. One group visited bedridden patients at the teaching sanatorium and the elderly in care homes near campus. Next, a prison ministry was launched. After my wife and I married, a third initiative was established to reach out to rural homes on Sabbath afternoons. The group consisted of about 30 students who went on bicycles and met with people, checked their blood pressure, gave healthy lifestyle and wholistic wellness courses, and just enjoyed the warm-hearted hospitality of farming families who received us as we stepped off our muddy, well-used bikes.

Still, I only dimly understood the potential implications of the challenge launched at me back then to lead out with training activities, nor did I comprehend the impact of accepting the opportunity to develop this area further. After all I had experienced growing up, I felt strongly about sharing with my fellow students at UAP the disinterested and unconditional love necessary for cross-cultural service that my parents had modeled and that the Scriptures describe in Acts 10:34 and 35. I desired to do all I could to broaden their horizons, so that more youth would venture to think differently and undergo the necessary paradigm shift so they could be useful in contexts radically different from their own.

Back inside the guesthouse, Lester Merklin proposed quite an unexpected challenge as we talked that afternoon. He suggested we would host a training seminar back at UAP in Argentina on the fundamentals of cross-cultural work. This would be offered by IWM, the very organization that regularly prepares families before they head into the global mission field. He wanted to bring a colleague, Wagner Kuhn, a professor of missions at Andrews University, originally from Brazil, to connect with the Latin American cultural background of the audience.

MOVING ALONG WITH THE WIND

Eight months later, in August 2010, the plan became a reality, after much prayer and preparation. A hundred students were involved for one full week during the cold winter of the Southern Hemisphere. These highly motivated youth disregarded their comfort and were blessed with 30 hours of the best training experience available.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6, NIV). The breeze was just beginning to make its way through the dense vegetation of our hearts. However, something with greater potential impact, which would reach further, was about to come.

“Why not do a mission congress here?” Wagner Kuhn suggested in response to a question about how students could be sent from UAP to be trained for outreach abroad. He thus, perhaps unknowingly, planted a seed in the heart of mission-minded students and staff at just the right moment. Students and teachers started investing their effort and time into something that was yet to be a reality. With the support of Abraham Acosta, then dean of the School of Health Sciences at UAP, and the administration of the university, a group of volunteers advanced with ever-increasing determination. God was causing a wind to blow, and the leaves were solemnly responding by swaying in its path.

Jesus told Nicodemus that night in ancient Palestine: “‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit’” (John 3:8, NIV). We could feel it blowing and could not remain indifferent—nor could we have done less on behalf of our study mates, considering what Jesus had done for us.

My friend Rigoberto said something back then that remains true today. “‘I Will Go’ was born in the heart of God.” But we need to let it flow through our arteries and veins until it permeates our entire being, as with oxygen-rich blood, modifying all that we are and thus all we do.

Before saying “I Will Go,” let us kneel down with contrite determination in Christ that “I Will Be” all that God would have us be, so that He can use us beyond our wildest imagination, transformed into His likeness and thus of unlimited usefulness!

“There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, putting aside self, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God. . . . If His people will remove the obstructions, He will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams through human channels.”²

Let me share excerpts from the poem that gave the congress at UAP in 2011 its name, and inspired the worldwide movement that led to the Seventh-day Adventist Church adopting “I Will Go” as its Strategic Plan for 2020–2025.³ The poem was composed by Elmita Acosta (daughter of Abraham Acosta), back then a fellow medical student, written while she was serving as a volunteer abroad.⁴ Do these words reflect my desire and yours when waking up on a random morning, thinking of a thousand things simultaneously? If we’ve lost track, would it not be time to return now? Let’s make these words our own today.

I Will Go, Lord!

Who will go to the forgotten places of this world? . . . .

Who will go in search of the fallen? . . . .

I will show your love to those who don’t have peace. . . . .

I will go, Lord, please send me.

EFFECTS OF THE WIND

Where my wife and I used to live with our two children, winds were known to get very intense. That wind was able to really muss up one’s hair! We enjoyed laughing together and sticking close to each other as the powerful and vitalizing current of air blew past.

Similarly, the disciples sought unity in prayer before Pentecost (Acts 1:13, 14), a crucial condition to receive blessings from above (Psalm 133:1–3), before they received the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit as “a rushing mighty wind” (Acts 2:1, 2, NKJV). Thus, ancient prophecies were fulfilled, as they will be once again before Jesus returns (Hosea 6:3, Joel 2:28–32). The powerful current of God’s Spirit helps us stay together and fills us with joy that overflows, so that we can’t help but share with others (2 Kings 7:9, Acts 4:20, 1 Corinthians 9:16).

May the current of the movement that God put into action back then do more than muss up our hair. May it turn the whole world upside down through individuals in love with Jesus, who gave His all upon that rugged cross for you and me and for every human being!

However insignificant you may feel, God can do wonders within and through you. All you need to do is to let His Spirit move as a gentle breeze within you, which will spur you to action!

Glory to God for what He Himself made grow at UAP, a contagious spirit of cross-cultural mission, and thorough preparation for service. Many young hearts on fire for Jesus have ventured out from there to embrace a new paradigm, a greater cultural intelligence, responding with joy to the sacred and solemn call: “‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’” In resonance with the prophet Isaiah, who was first transformed by grace from above and then challenged with this question, I also decided to respond, “‘Here am I. Send me!’” (Isaiah 6:8, NIV, italics supplied), not as a matter of mere personal ambition, but as the response of a grateful heart. In other words, “I Will Go”! How about you? What will your response be?

Jean D. Pont (not his real name) is a physician who graduated from River Plate Adventist University in Argentina, who wishes to remain anonymous on account of his plans for humanitarian-aid work in restricted areas. A video about how “I Will Go” started is available online at https://youtu.be/kwy8nTZl_ J0?si=9Yn54ydFgWERNDnL/.

Recommended Citation

Jean D. Pont, "A Wind Starting to Blow ," Dialogue 37:2 (2025): 22-25

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Scripture quotations in this article credited to NIV are quoted from the New International Version of the Bible. Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations credited to NKJV are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
2. Ellen G. White, Our High Calling (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1961), 151.
3. “The Reach the World: I Will Go strategic plan is a rallying cry to Total Member Involvement.” “I Will Go involves all church members in reaching the world, inspiring and equipping them to use their God-given spiritual gifts in witness and service for Christ”: https://iwillgo2020.org/.
4. This poem first appeared in “Reflections,” Mission Post 10:3 (n.d.), page 5. Used by permission of the author.