Student Fusion (SF)
FAQ

General Questions

If you are trying to connect with us any time leading up to your trip, please email missions@wol.org or call 518-494-1420 in order to speak with Randy Curtis, the Short Term Missions Manager for Word of Life (WOL). Before you depart on your trip, we will communicate with each team how they can stay connected to their families while on the trip as well as how families can stay up to date with you throughout the trip.

Financial Questions

An individual giving account and Fund ID will be assigned to you. All monies sent in for your trip will be deposited into your Student Fusion account and a tax-deductible receipt will be sent to the donor. You will receive instructions via email as to how to look up your support level, manage your support account, print and distribute support tools, and how to help others know how to donate to your trip using an online giving page.

Travel to and from the airport, flights to and from the country, travel, lodging, and food while in the country, ministry needs, COVID tests, and travel and medical assistance plan are the major expenses that are included in the cost of the trip that you need to raise. Souvenirs, passports, extra snacks, appropriate clothing or footwear, and travel to and from SF Training Week (see below) are not included in the cost of the trip.

Donations to Word of Life are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Funds raised are not refundable, may not be transferred, nor applied toward school bills, used for outside ministries or other purposes. If any extra support is raised, it will be used by Word of Life for missions work at Word of Life’s discretion. Word of Life is not responsible for incidental expenses, such as passport fees, special clothing, postage, or printing of prayer letters.

If the funds were submitted online:

Confirm what day the donor submitted the money.
Confirm that the donor received an email confirmation after submitting their donation.
Ensure that you’ve waited at least 3-4 business days for the funds to be processed.

If the funds were submitted through the mail:

Confirm what day the donor mailed the funds.
Confirm that the donor put a support slip from you with the check.
Assume it takes 3-4 business days for the check to arrive at WOL (depending on where in the country it’s being mailed from) then add another 3-4 business days for the check to be processed and posted to your account.

Training Week Questions

Trip participants meet for several days of team building and training in cross-cultural ministry, evangelism, sharing your testimony, ministry preparation, and emergency procedures before departing for the trip. For those who are going on a SF trip within the Caribbean, SF Training Week takes place at The Coast, Word of Life’s summer camping location in Hudson, FL. For those who are going on all other international SF trips, SF Training Week takes place at Word of Life’s Ranch and Ridge Camp in Pottersville, NY. Finally, for those who are going on the Navajo Nation SF trip, SF Training Week takes place on site with the trip leader in Montevallo, AL.

In the spring season, we will email communicate with you about how to handle your transportation needs to WOL property for SF Training Week as well as your travel plans once you return to WOL property after your trip is complete. WOL will arrange transportation from SF Training Week to the airport for your trip, and we will arrange transportation from the airport back to WOL property after the trip is over.

Travel, Medical, and COVID Questions

See each scenario below for how WOL will handle this depending on where the issues happen:

1. SF Training week – You will have to go home. A trip leader will facilitate helping you contact you parents and arrange for transportation. The trip leader will either need to reschedule your flight or cancel it.
2. Connecting flights – A trip leader of the same gender will stay with you and reschedule flights and arrange whatever is necessary to get home or to the intended WOL destination with the airport and airline.
3. In country – You will have to stay on WOL property until your flight can be rescheduled. A trip leader of the same gender will stay with you until your flight is rescheduled. If a passport is lost while in country, WOL fields will help you and/or your trip leader work on getting an emergency passport, including knowing the emergency consulate phone number, schedule, address, location for getting pictures taken, etc.
4. Trip leaders will have copies of everyone’s passports during the trip, and they will also have everyone’s passports kept in a secure location during the trip except for when going through customs in airports.

See each scenario below for how WOL will handle this depending on where the issues happen:

SF Training week – A trip leader of the same gender will go with you and stay with you the whole time you are there.
In country – A member of that WOL field and a trip leader will go with you and at least one of them will stay with you the whole time you are there. WOL fields will determine ahead of time which hospital(s) will be used depending on where ministry takes place each day of the trip including thinking through health insurance, deposit requirements, emergency rooms, etc. WOL fields will check to ensure WOL’s travel and medical assistance plan works in their country.

See each scenario below for how WOL will handle this depending on where the issues happen:

On WOL property –

1. 1. WOL fields will have a plan for food, housing, cleaning, fellowship, accountability, etc. for those who have to quarantine.
  2. If you have to quarantine due to sickness as opposed to exposure, WOL fields will have a plan for appropriate medical care in coordination with doctors and hospitals if necessary.
  3. We will not leave a student on WOL property alone or only with one member of the opposite gender while the rest of the missionaries, staff, and students leave for ministry.

Off WOL property –

WOL fields and trip leaders will have a plan for checking in daily with you. We will do our best to have a trip leader of the same gender quarantine with you in this scenario.

See each scenario below for how WOL will handle this depending on the following criteria:

If going to a field where certain vaccines are required, you will need to get that vaccine(s) in order to go. While we will communicate with you what vaccines, if any, are required for your country, we use the US State Department website – travel.state.gov – to look up vaccine requirements for each country, and we also double check with the Field Director in the country you are going to in order to verify. If there is a discrepancy, we will communicate this to you via email. Make sure you have all necessary vaccine and/or medical paperwork with you for travel.
If going to a field where vaccines are not required, you do not have to get one, but you can if you want. In order to come to SF Training Week, you will have to list out which vaccines you have received (if any) on our health form as that is required by law for WOL to have that information for those who stay at our youth camps. We will send you more information about this prior to your arrival at SF Training Week.

See each scenario below for how WOL will handle this depending on the following criteria:

If it is required, we will handle testing logistics prior to leaving for your field and prior to returning home.
SF Training week – We will provide transportation to and from testing facilities and/or administer the tests with our own staff who are qualified to do so.
In country – We will provide transportation to and from testing facilities.

See each scenario below for how WOL will handle this depending on the following criteria:

Training week – If you test positive for COVID during SF Training Week and prior to leaving for your field, you will not be able to go on the trip. We will set you up with any necessary quarantining on WOL property while your plans for traveling home develop.
In country – You will stay on WOL property until you are well, and the quarantine requirement is over. A trip leader of the same gender will stay back with you and travel with you back to WOL property in NY.

We will communicate to you and your parents regarding your financial support, helping you communicate with your donors, and explaining future trip options to consider. Word of Life reserves the right to cancel a trip before departure for any reason whatsoever including too few participants or logistical problems such as political unrest, strikes, wars, acts of God, or any other circumstance that may make operation of the trip inadvisable.

If you have more questions, please email missions@wol.org. Thank you.

Student Fusion (SF) FAQ

General Questions

Financial Questions

Training Week Questions

Travel, Medical, and COVID Questions

Student Fusion (SF)
FAQ