TORONTO — Kesevan Balasingham knows firsthand that he doesn’t have to look far from his Toronto home to find a mission field. It’s because he was once part of the mission field.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Balasingham has lived in three countries, learned four languages, became involved in gang violence and was sentenced to nine years in prison all before he was 20 years old.

“While I was incarcerated, God providentially placed a Bible in my hands, and I began to read the Bible for the first time,” Balasingham said. “And in God’s mercy, I never put it down.”

Today, Balasingham is the pastor of Fellowship Church Rouge Park in Toronto, and it’s his church’s goal to help each member — from the college student to the single mother — find their missional pathway. This desire led Balasingham to participate in Send Network’s Global Vision Trip to North Africa earlier this year.

“I was with a unique group of pastors on this trip that live all over North America but had very diverse backgrounds. We had planters from Japan, Congo, Puerto Rico, Venezuela … it was very humbling to see how God brought a group of pastors from different nations to go to the nations to share the gospel,” Balasingham said.

Global Vision Trips for church planters are an initiative propelled by the partnership of Send Network, the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) church planting arm, with the International Mission Board (IMB). They enable church planters in North America to experience ministry among the nations by traveling to and learning from IMB missionary teams worldwide.

“We want Send Network churches to pursue a culture of reaching the nations from the very beginning,” said Mike Laughrun, director of global engagement for Send Network. “We desire every Send Network planter and the churches they lead to know God’s call to reach our neighbors nearby as well as the nations of the world. It’s always our neighbors and the nations.”

As church planters spend time on the ground with seasoned missionary teams and national partners, they learn more about varied missionary strategies to use in their own city, and they take back a global vision to share with their church.

“During the trip, I was reminded of the importance of prayer and gospel partnerships,” said Balasingham, whose church started an internship program for young adults. “As I train future missionaries from our church, I want to train them in such a way that they are better prepared as we send them out.”

To that end, when he returned from the trip, Balasingham shared a presentation with his church, challenging congregants and specifically young people to consider God’s calling on their lives to be a part of His global mission.

“My hope is that God would use trips like this to birth leaders that we can identify, train, develop and then send out as missionaries in partnership with the IMB,” Balasingham said.

Of the planters who have participated in a Global Vision Trip, 92% had no previous experience with the IMB, said Travis Ogle, executive vice president of Send Network. One of the goals of these trips is to help church planters form gospel partnerships with IMB missionaries and send mission teams from their churches in the future.

“The deep dive into Southern Baptist cross-cultural church planting efforts overseas has affected how these church planters and their church members are now engaging their backyards with the gospel,” said Chris Derry, the IMB’s director of church and campus engagement, who co-leads the Global Vision Trips initiative alongside Laughrun.

“We hear updates on how they’re studying their cities, looking for people groups, developing local partnerships and adapting to new strategies to reach and disciple a generation longing for hope — all with a vision toward multiplication,” Laughrun said. “Many have planned return trips for this year and next.”

Balasingham believes that the next church planters in North Africa, just like the next church planters in Toronto, are yet to be discovered.

“They might be like me — lost in gangs or drugs — living a life of darkness,” he said. “And God can use us to reach out and disciple them so they can reach their family and community and become the next church planter.”

To discover how churches can reach their neighbors and the nations through church planting, visit SendNetwork.com/Mobilize. To meet other pastors and ministry leaders joining God’s activity to mobilize their church and to learn from the top church-planting experts of today, register for a Send Network Gathering near you.