When is Spring Connection 2024

March 9-16
March 16-23

NOTE: Passport or Passport Card required – Apply Immediately.

What is Spring Connection?

Spring Connection, a short-term missions program sponsored by EFC-MAYM in cooperation with Coahuila, Mexico Friends Churches, has been hosting Friends Church Sr. High student missions teams in Mexico since 1993. Spring Connection allows students to serve the foreign mission field for one-week, experiencing ministry in a cross-cultural community and observing God’s action in the context of Coahuila, Mexico Friends Churches. Connection also provides a place for youth groups to be challenged and stretched together, finding sacrifice and service as pleasures in God’s Kingdom.  Furthermore, Spring Connection not only helps students develop a mission-minded world-view, but also allows them to take a beginners-level peek at exploring missionary life and ministry calling. Spring Connection gives all participants a tremendous blessing as they plunge themselves right into the middle of God’s work!

Participating Spring Connection Youth Groups, are divided (by youth group) into teams of 10 – 20 members per team.  Then each team is assigned to work with a Friends Church in various sites within the state of Coahuila, under supervision of a local Pastor, Spring Connection Directors, and Youth Group Leaders. There are several potential locations available for Connection Teams to be placed. Ministry sites include:  Nueva Rosita, Allende, Cloete, Agujita, Nacimiento, Palau, La Luz, and Coronado’s Rosita church.

Students who wish to participate in Spring Connection but don’t have a youth group and/or adult leader to come with can contact a nearby Mid-America Friends Church Youth Pastor to inquire about participating with their group or contact [email protected] to talk about options.

Spring Connection is once every two years:  The EFC-MAYM Youth Division decided during 2007 meetings to begin an ‘every-other-year’ schedule for Spring Connection.  Current plans are for EFC-MAYM to go to Coahuila in 2016, 2018, 2020 and so on.  In the off-Connection-years, the Youth Division would like to encourage local youth groups to continue a spring break experiential mission’s emphasis, which could happen through the local church, or by churches working together and/or through the EFC-MAYM Ministry Center.

Spring Connection guidelines for student team members:

1. High School Student (college, adults, families also welcome!)
2. Must have Passport or Passport Card
3. Active participant in local church and/or youth program
4. Respectful to authority and peers
5. Willing to be stretched and follow all Spring Connection guidelines
6. Has been accepted as a team member of a participating EFC-MAYM Church/Youth Group
7. See full Spring Connection Guidelines here.

Spring Connection 2024 Registration Costs and Deadlines:

Spring Connection costs vary for each group.  Contact your youth group leader for your groups’ total registration costs and to see about fundraising help.

There are two Spring Connection registration payments to make:

1. Feb. 14 = $250 Registration and online registration form due to EFC-MAYM: covers all expenses while in Mexico including meals, overnight arrangements, work project supplies, administration, etc.  The deposit amount is the same for every student, adult, and interpreter. The cost for children, age 4-13, accompanying adult leaders is $100. Check with your youth leader before registering to find out if you are to pay your $250 Deposit directly to EFC-MAYM or if you should make payments directly to your youth leader or church.
2. A second payment due to your church group helps cover cost of your groups’ transportation, hotel costs, tourist cards and administration down and back.  Also, each person is responsible for travel meals. 

Late Fees: Any registrations or payments posted online late will be charged a $20 late fee.  No registrations will be accepted after February 21. (Contact Jesse for any exceptions)

February 28 – Release and Medical Consent Form due to Friends Ministry Center, 2018 Maple, Wichita, KS  67213.

NOTE: These deadlines are to the EFC-MAYM Friends Ministry Center.  While individuals are responsible for registering online, payment checks and Release Forms may be collected by group leaders at an earlier date.  Also, your group leader will most likely be collecting your Passports/Passport Cards in preparation for border crossing.  Ask your leader!

Passport or Passport Card – You cannot participate in Spring Connection and cross the border without either a passport or passport card.  Locate your passport or apply for a passport or passport card immediately. You may have to pay expedite fees to get it in time if you wait.

Spring Connection Refund/Cancellation Policy :

• Cancellations received on or before February 14 will be refunded in full.
• Cancellations received after February 14 will be refunded the deposit minus a 20% administration fee.
• Cancellations for any reason February 28 or after will receive no deposit refund.

Spring Connection Base

Our meeting place to start and end the week in Mexico together, will be at Agujita Friends Church, next to Samuel Vasquez’s home.  Registered groups will meet at Eagle Pass, Texas for border crossing and convoy to Agujita.  Agujita is a short distance from Nueva Rosita.

Spring Connection Directors

Jesse Penna, EFC-MAYM Director of Student Ministries, will serve as Spring Connection Director. You can contact Jesse anytime: 316-267-0391 (office) or 316-641-9961(cell) or [email protected].

Samuel Vasquez is one of several pastors and a leader among the pastors that Jesse and all of us look to for leadership in our work with the churches in Mexico.  Samuel and the Mexican pastors are our bosses.  Show great respect to them.  They will be very busy hosting us and will be interested in what we do in their churches and communities.  When we leave, they will still be there, so we must follow their leading, welcome their participation and seek their opinions in what we do.  We hope to help them minister to the community, not hurt it.  Our witness may affect their witness.

What about safety?

Spring Connection Director and our Mexican pastor hosts are very careful to provide a safe and secure environment to house and transport team members. We would not take a Spring Connection team into a known dangerous environment or intentionally expose them to risks at any time. Spring Connection directors rely on missionary-trusted local insight. We monitor reports of political unrest and travel conditions through the US State Department – http://www.state.gov/.

What if your parents have concerns?

It is perfectly normal for parents to be concerned about their children traveling out of the U.S. They should feel free to contact Spring Connection Directors with any questions they may have about safety, concerns, leadership, or costs. Also, your parents can be provided with references of other people ‘just like them’ who have already sent their children on mission trips to Mexico in the past year, and/or who have traveled internationally extensively, including to Mexico. Contact the Ministry Office at 316-267-0391.