Tent International aims at recruiting 20 new tentmakers in 20 weeks as the organization celebrates its 20-year anniversary.
“The Covid pandemic has slowed down the global job market. We still aim at having 20 new tentmakers ready to go before Easter next year. God is calling people to move despite Covid 19, and he can open doors when needed,” says Tent International’s co-founder and director Steinar Opheim.
Celebration
Tent celebrated its 20-year anniversary at an online gathering last Saturday with participants from 27 nations on five continents.
“We did not expect that we would get such a global presence when Tent was launched 20 year ago. It is amazing to see how things are growing with new, national entities being added nearly every year,” says Tent’s director.
The celebration was led by research geologist Sabrina Barroso from Rio de Janeiro. She got new perspectives on her job in an energy company after coming to one of Tent’s trainings.
“I did not know that I could serve God through my job until I took the GO Equipped course here in Brazil three years ago. Since then I have taken part in Tent Brazil’s work to share this good news with other people, said Barroso as she opened the celebration. Then followed prayers, worship. testimonies and greetings from tentmakers and leaders from around the world.
Confirmation through a child
The 200 participants also got to hear the story on how Tent started, shared by Birgit Opheim, who is also a co-founder of Tent. Birgit and Steinar got the calling to start Tent as they lived and served God in Azerbaijan. To make sure that the calling came from God, they asked for a sign of confirmation. Little did they know that their oldest son, who at that time was five years old, would play a central role in the confirmation story. You can read the full story of the calling and the confirmation at https://www.tentinternational.org/how-it-started
International development
The first five years after Tent was launched, the organization focused fully on training and sending Norwegian tentmakers. From 2005 Tent started doing training courses internationally – many of them in collaboration with US-based Global Intent (formerly Global Opportunities). The number of courses grew steadily over the years. In 2019 Tent did 10 courses with a total number of 404 participants.
From 2015 new national branches also started to form. Today Tent has resource centers in India, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Nigeria and Liberia. New centers are under establishment in Niger and South Africa.
Key mission groups
“It has been a stormy, intense, troublesome and joyful journey this far. We look with anticipation forward to what God will lead Tent into the coming years. Businesspeople, professionals and students are welcome in all nations, even in countries where traditional missionaries do not have access. We thus believe that these are key groups God will use to fulfill his great commission. Tent wants to be a good tool in his hands. Our big dream is that there should be at least one Christian colleague in every workplace all over the world. The Gospel often travels freely through relationships created in workplace settings,” says Steinar Opheim.