Freed to Go: Lifting the Burden of Student Loan Debt for the Sake of the Least-Reached

How Christar’s partnership with The Go Fund, a program of AIRO, enables workers to reach the field sooner and focus more fully on ministry

“Without The Go Fund I would have needed to continue to work and pay off loans for another three to five years,” says Ali, a Christar worker using her medical training in Central Asia. Like the majority of recent college graduates, she had student loan debt, and paying it off so she could begin cross-cultural ministry would first require several years of payments while working in family practice in the United States—or, it would have.

She continues, “I was grateful to hear about the possibility of having my student loans repaid while I served overseas early in my journey. This possibility was a huge relief and allowed me to really engage and full-heartedly pursue my path overseas immediately with joy and excitement after finishing my medical training.”

Able to Go Sooner

Ali is one of several Christar workers who are now on the field through our partnership with The Go Fund, a program of AIRO. This ministry pays 100% of student loan debt for approved cross-cultural workers serving long term among unreached people, covering their monthly payments. Thanks to Christar’s partnership with this program, qualified applicants who plan to serve with Christar are preapproved—which means that workers like Ali are already ministering in least-reached communities rather than working to pay off their debt.

This partnership not only allows workers to get to the field sooner, it frees them to devote more time to training before they leave and more energy to ministry once they arrive. “Before reaching the field I was able to stop working and attend an influential cross-cultural training program,” Ali shares. “Since arriving on the field, I have been able to study language full time while building relationships alongside young local ladies, grow in my cultural understanding, start working in a family medicine clinic part time and meet several college students. Throughout each of these experiences I have had opportunities to hear life stories, share my own story and share the good news.”

For workers like Ali, who are serving in places with little or no access to the gospel, each opportunity is precious. “I am forever grateful for those who helped make this possible,” she says. 

Free to Focus on Ministry

Andrew, who serves in Japan, has similar gratitude for the way The Go Fund has freed him to focus more fully on the unique ministry for which God has been preparing him. He first sensed God leading him to full-time ministry as high school freshman. That same year the Lord also sparked in him a passion that, unknown to him, would have a big role in the ministry for which he was being prepared: making pottery.

Believing he’d be a pastor, Andrew majored in church leadership in college. But, as visiting cross-cultural workers shared about their business and ministry in the Far East during a chapel service his junior year of college, the Lord began to steer Andrew in an unexpected direction. He recalls, “I just very clearly heard God tell me, ‘I gave you a gift and talent with ceramics. Go and use it.’”

Over the next few years, through a guest speaker from Japan in a college class and a residency at his church, God led him to serve with Christar in that country. And he discovered Christar already had a team in an area with a village known for its pottery. But, like Ali, Andrew also had student loan debt.

Though his church was committed to sending him to the field quickly, he knew he’d need to raise support that would cover not only his living expenses but also his loan payments. The Go Fund lifted that burden, reducing the amount he has needed to raise and allowing him to dedicate more mental space to learning the language and building relationships within the local pottery community.

This investment of time is a step toward Andrew’s long-term goal of starting a pottery studio as a means to connect with people and share the gospel in an arts community with no known followers of Jesus. “There are very few people in the arts who are believers,” Andrew explains, adding that there are likely no followers of Christ among those doing ceramics and pottery in Japan.

“It's just such a relief that I don't have to worry about [student debt] right now, that it's something that is taken care of and I can just fully focus on ministry.”

Participate Through Prayer:

• Praise God for the numerous Christar workers who have been able to leave for the field sooner thanks to The Go Fund.
• As Ali and Andrew use their skills to build relationships in their communities, ask God to open the hearts of people to the gospel.
• Ask the Lord to continue to provide the resources needed to partner with The Go Fund so that more cross-cultural workers can reach the field sooner and serve without the burden of student loan debt.

Christar’s partnership with the Go Fund is made possible through donations to the Clearing the Path Fund. A gift of $125 covers the cost of this partnership for one month.