Adam Long will never regret going on a short-term mission trip when he was a freshman.

In May of 1996, Long, now a senior in civil engineering, left Iowa to spend several weeks in Vilnius, the capitol of Lithuania.

“It really taught me to have a heart for people and open my eyes to the world,” he said.

Long is a member of the Iowa State Navigators, a Christian organization that has been sending students on mission trips since it began nearly two decades ago.

The Navigators send students on missions through the organization International Ministries Groups.

Each year, students from chapters of The Navigators at universities across the country go on mission trips that last anywhere from one week to three months.

In the last five years, more than 30 students from the ISU chapter have embarked on one of these journeys.

Many students leave for missions because of spiritual reasons.

“I realized that it was very clear from the Bible that Jesus says he wants us to follow him, and he would go to reach the lost of the world,” said Janina Brandt, senior in biology.

She also spent three weeks in Vilnius last summer, and she is considering going again this summer.

“The focus has been on the Baltic Republics in the past years,” said Kevin Randall, ministry director of the ISU Navigators.

Randall has gone on many mission trips with The Navigators, including trips to Russia, Latvia and Lithuania.

However, the Baltic Republics are not the only regions students have ventured.

“We have had folks anywhere in Europe, all over Africa, Asia and South America,” Randall said.

During the mission trips, students from the United States stay in dormitories with students native to the countries. While there, the American students interact with them any way they can, attempting to pass on their message about the love of God.

Randall said a main goal of these trips is to expose Americans to other cultures and teach them how to be sensitive.

“The objective is to go and learn,” he said. “We learn more from our host country than they learn from us.”

Even more important, Randall said, is that the trips give students an opportunity to see what God can do through their lives.

“It increases students’ dependency on the Lord because all cultural props are knocked out,” he said. “You are in a different environment. Toto, you are not in Kansas.”

Brandt said her trip gave her a new understanding of her faith.

“One thing that the trip taught me was that God really answers prayer,” she said. “When you are over there on your own, you really do not have anybody else.”

Randall also said he hopes students return home with a new friend for life.

“If you are going to have a heart for a country, you have got to have a heart for a person,” he said

Long, who returned to Vilnius for his second mission trip in May, took this advice to heart while he was in Vilnius, and he said his foreign friends are the main reasons he would like to return to Lithuania.

“I have a lot of friends there, and I would want to see them again. My heart is not with the city; it is with the people,” he said.