Some also respond to needs in the United States, on Native American reservations or in the hills of Appalachia.

Chambersburg resident Darren Brown found his calling in the African nations of Gambia and Mauritania.

The 22-year-old spent five weeks going between the two Islamic countries in January and February 2001 with a Christian missionary organization called Youth With a Mission.

While Gambia, a former British colony, was Islamic in name, the culture was open to other religions, Brown said. The missionaries were able to freely discuss Christianity with people and minister to children in schools.

However, in Mauritania, a strict Muslim country, doing the very work Brown and his companions were sent to do was forbidden.

"It was OK to be a foreigner and be a Christian, but you couldn't proselytize," Brown said. "It was offensive to their religion to speak of Jesus as anything other than one of the prophets."

Brown said at the church they attended, a guard stood at the door to make sure no Mauritanian citizens were going in. Under their laws, Brown said, anyone who converted to Christianity faced death.

"Even before Sept. 11, going there made me realize the freedom of religion we have in America, the freedom of speech," Brown said.

"Over there, you can have freedom of speech, if you are a Muslim. You can have freedom of religion, if you are a Muslim. When we flew back to Gambia for our last week there, it was almost a physical release off my chest. I could be myself and a Christian again."

To fulfill their mission in Mauritania, Brown and other YWAM volunteers worked rebuilding a medical building burned by an arsonist weeks before their arrival. The clinic in the capital city of Nouakchott , which was about the size of a ranch-style house in the United States, served 140,000 people.

Women in the group taught hygiene and sanitation at a women's prison in the area. Men in the group taught basketball and other games to boys in a juvenile detention center.

They could only speak about Christianity if asked, and Brown's group hoped the secular volunteer work by Christians would encourage questions about the faith.

Brown said he emerged from his experience eager to serve again, especially in areas unreached by the message of Christianity.

Down under missionary

Joel Williamson , 19, Shippensburg, is currently working for Youth With a Mission in Newcastle, Australia, with his Christian rock band, SuperMarket Hero .

Whenever he and the band are not on tour, they serve the YWAM center in Newcastle and volunteer locally, Williamson said in an e-mail interview.

Williamson said that while his parents were not initially ecstatic to think of their son half a world a way, they backed him once they saw his desire to serve.

His church, Living Faith Chapel in Shippensburg, also supported him by raising money to support his missionary work.

Currently one year into an at least three-year commitment in Australia, Williamson said his faith grows stronger every day.

"Since I've joined YWAM, my life has changed drastically. I'm so much more in love with the Lord. I feel so much more mature in it. God is working in my life and I'm so stoked to see the effects of Him working inside of me," Williamson said. "In terms of having faith, I'm definitely seeing it exercised. I'm stoked to see God moving in so many tangible ways ... . It definitely increases my faith."

Life-changing work

Mark Vincenti , youth pastor at King Street United Brethren Church in Chambersburg, leads from experience.

The 24-year-old, who has a degree in youth ministry from Huntingdon College in Indiana, went to Haiti during his sophomore and junior years. He helped set up medical clinics and spent time with children in an orphanage.

For completion of his degree, he spent six months ministering to youths in the slums of Boston.

Vincenti knows the life-changing impact of such trips. Prior to ministering in Haiti, he had planned to be a music major.

Now, he leads teens from King Street in a scaled-down version of the Boston experience.

"Today's young people really want to make a difference in this world," Vincenti said. "They aren't content to be comfortable. They want to go somewhere and do something."

Shawn Brubaker is only 18, but the Chambersburg Area Senior High School senior has already seen the deserts of New Mexico, the jungles of Trinidad and the broad flatlands of Zimbabwe.

Brubaker began missionary service through his church, Antrim Brethren in Christ , at age 14, with a trip to the Navajo Brethren in Christ Mission in New Mexico.

Letting her young teen-ager go so far from home by himself was a bit daunting to Brubaker's mother, Bonny .

"I was just a little bit nervous," Bonny Brubaker said. "But I knew the people who were directors of the camp. I was just concerned for his safety. But he came to both his dad and me and said he wanted to go. I was rather proud of him. I liked that he was interested in wanting to serve like that."

Shawn said he was also hesitant. However, once he met his team and began his work -- construction on homes at the mission -- his shyness fell away.

By the time he took his trip to Zimbabwe last summer, mother and son were sure Shawn was doing the right thing.

"At first, I didn't think I could do it, but God has given me a passion to reach others for Christ. It's amazing what he called me to do," Shawn said.

Blessings of home

Those who return from mission trips say the blessings of life in the United States become crystal clear after witnessing life in other parts of the world.

Shippensburg resident Melinda Rininger returned in March from a three-month trip to Prampram, Ghana, in West Africa.

Rininger and other volunteers from Oasis of Love Church in Shippensburg went to Ghana to open the Oasis International Training Center .

Three years in the making, the Shippensburg church funded the vocational, technical and spiritual center for adults through numerous donations of its members.

Going overseas to start the first classes, which had 100 enrolled students with more waiting in the wings, was a moving experience, Rininger said.

"I saw how appreciative the African people were," Rininger said. "They were happy with their lives, but they were so willing to learn new ways of doing things -- not like some Americans. It was a privilege to work with them."

Rininger said the difference Christianity made in the lives of the Ghanaians strengthened her own resolve to serve the Lord.

"A missionary trip can be just going downtown -- you don't have to go overseas to do it," she said. "All that matters is that you're serving the Lord with your life."