Right now in St. Louis, there are nearly 20,000 college students and recent grads who are gathered at the Edward Jones Dome (home of the Rams) at the Urbana 2009 conference. This triennial 5-day conference is one focused on inspiring young people to live out their Christian faith by engaging in world missions, with a great emphasis on poverty alleviation. Some of the “tracks” or “concentrations” at Urbana include:
In fact, the Urbana 2006 conference was where I first learned about getting involved in microfinance, after I ran across a booth for Opportunity International, a microfinance organization which had nearly $800 million in assets and over 1.25 million active loan clients in 2008. If you’re at Urbana now, check out booth #538 to check out Opportunity International and meet @amycarolwolff. You may also run across @marklrussell, who formerly worked at Hope International, a microfinance organization with a worldwide reach (including East Asia, where I was doing similar work this past summer).
It may be a bit late to trek to St. Louis now, with only a couple of days remaining in Urbana 2009, but if you’re interested in checking out the largest gathering of missions organizations in North America (including the likes of Opportunity Int’l and Hope Int’l) sign up for Urbana 2012!
P.S. Check out live tweets from Urbana 2009 here!
