Andrews University Students Call on Leaders to Support Missions Initiative

After being spiritually inspired by their participation in student mission trips, two Andrews University students, Evan Keyes and Seth McKelvey, have started an initiative to recruit new student missionaries and garner prayerful and financial support from Lake Union churches for 2026.

After their mission trips as a part of Andrews University’s Student Missions in the Center for Faith Engagement (CFE), students Keyes (junior, religion) and McKelvey (junior, theology) returned to campus inspired. The duo, with the support of the CFE and university chaplain Jonathan Fetrick, has created Project Launch, an initiative that seeks to help finance upcoming student mission trips and encourage more people to contribute in spiritually fulfilling ways to charitable work and the spread of the gospel both domestically and internationally. With support from Andrews leaders and budding partnerships with the Lake Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and their churches, Keyes and McKelvey seek to change the world in 2026 and beyond.

Keyes shared that his mission trip as a teacher on the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia was an opportunity for him to benefit spiritually, in addition to offering his own services and care. When asked what initially inspired him to join Student Missions, Keyes shared that a “lack of purpose” and loss of religious identity led him to eventually pursue going on a mission trip. “After starting college, I had less of a spiritual structure around me, and I was feeling that a lot,” said Keyes. Leaving the stricter arrangements of daily chapel programs at Great Lakes Adventist Academy (GLAA), where he attended high school, left him looking to reaffirm his faith for himself at Andrews. “I found that [being a student missionary] carried a lot of purpose, and it really changed my life, because even though I was the same person, I found that God was still using me, and I was identifying myself publicly with Him in a new way.” 

McKelvey, who worked as a domestic student missionary at GLAA as a chaplain, shared that he had been interested in being a student missionary for years, and was excited to get the opportunity to do so after arriving at Andrews. “The beauty of student missions is that it helps you understand that there’s more to your four years in college than yourself,” he said. “When you take that pause and you take that break, it really helps you clarify in [your] mind your relationship with God, your relationship with people, [and] your place on the earth.” 

Project Launch was formally announced to the Andrews University community on November 15 at Pioneer Memorial church, where McKelvey preached for both the morning and midday service during a Student Missions-themed Sabbath. Project Launch’s main goal is to get 26 churches to partner with 26 student missionaries during 2026. These partnerships can be prayer partners, churches who intercede prayerfully for a specific student missionary, mission partners, churches who commit to sending care packages, letters, videos and other forms of tangible support to a designated missionary, and launch partners who financially sponsor a student missionary’s journey.

The original version of this story was posted on Lake Union Herald.