I will go. I will go.
Hey, watch me. Watch me go.
I will go. I will go.
He said, ‘Go.’ So I will go!

During the North American Division’s HeSaidGoXP Conference on March 12 to 14, 2026, at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas, these words were more than a refrain — they became a commitment. With “XP” short for “experience,” more than 200 attendees were invited to “come and see” mission firsthand, then respond to Jesus’ call to go.

The first conference hosted by the NAD Office of Volunteer Ministries (OVM) since 2016, HeSaidGoXP focused on motivating members of Generation Z to engage in missions. The program featured praise and worship, storytelling, a prayer room inviting participants to say yes to mission, workshops, and interactive experiences such as arts and crafts, ukulele lessons, and nature-based virtual reality. Additionally, outreach projects, from serving meals to the homeless to packing more than 13,000 pounds of food at a county food bank, allowed participants to serve in real time.

Throughout the program, mission videos from around the world — including the Guam-Micronesia Mission, Middle East and North Africa Union, North Peru Union Mission, South American Division, and South Asia Pacific Division, supporting ministries, and Adventist colleges and universities — highlighted service initiatives and opportunities.

Representatives from these organizations, as well as the NAD missions and volunteer departments and the General Conference’s Adventist Volunteer Services department, provided exhibits where attendees could learn more. Through OVM, they could also sign up for volunteer opportunities on site. University presidents from schools across the NAD also attended, sharing their personal mission experiences and commitment to graduating mission-minded students.

Workshops and presentations explored various pathways to mission. One session introduced the NAD’s STARS Tutoring and Mentoring program. Coordinator Gladys Guerrero told the story of Elsa May Gordon Whitfield, a retired teacher from St. Louis, Missouri, who now helps children learn to read through an online curriculum. With more than 40 percent of U.S. students[1] unable to read at a basic level, Guerrero urged attendees to consider serving in this critical mission field.

An Adventist Christian Fellowship seminar highlighted North American public campuses as a fertile mission field, with 5,700 campuses serving 25 million students. John Weis, Washington Conference’s Public Campus Ministry director, shared that a 2025 pilot project placing student missionaries on campuses for a year was expanding to five sites, and invited attendees to join.

Orna Garnett, NAD associate secretary for missionary services, outlined a career missionary pathway for those interested in serving for three to five years, emphasizing how it differs from, yet complements volunteer missions. “Both are designed to work hand in hand toward one powerful, shared mission goal,” she stated.

For Shanah Euraoba, a third-year elementary education student and student chaplain for missions at Burman University in Alberta, Canada, Garnett’s workshop affirmed a calling to career missions that she has sensed since childhood. She noted that she has aligned her education and extracurricular experiences, including mission trips, toward this goal.

“The two-week mission trips have been very fulfilling, but every time I leave, I want more,” she said.

She added that HeSaidGoXP helped her connect with peers from other campuses and gather ideas to help rebuild her school’s student missionary program.

For Ernest Hernandez, OVM director, the event marked the fulfillment of a long-held dream: reigniting a passion for mission among young people, particularly college and university students. Whereas the office once sent more than 1,000 students annually to 65-70 countries, today it deploys an average of 550 individuals to roughly 15 nations. Hernandez attributed the loss of momentum to COVID-19, leadership turnover, and the church’s struggle to reach this generation.

Hernandez and Leah Jordache, associate director of OVM and event coordinator, see HeSaidGoXP as a launching pad to reestablish a culture of volunteer service. They plan to host this event every few years with that objective in mind.

Jordache added, “The success measurement is not how many people we had in attendance here. It will be how many people are inspired to go.”

Hernandez was especially pleased by the mix of students, mission leaders, and stakeholders present. “We had a network of people coming together [who] represented a microcosm of missions, both domestic and around the world,” he reflected later.

At HeSaidGoXP, attendees could also interact with returned student missionaries, including Lauren Fenwick, a 2024 Southern Adventist University alum. She accepted an opportunity to serve as a volunteer communication director in Guam last year when her plans to kickstart her career and life after graduating a year early fell through.

While initially hesitant about missions, Fenwick experienced unexpected spiritual, personal, and professional growth, as well as a changed perspective. The experience later helped open the door to a dream job in her field, but more importantly, her time in Guam taught her that “nothing you do for God is ever a waste,” and that “what really matters is people, not things.”

On opening night, NAD president G. Alexander Bryant reflected on his mission story. “One of the most transformative experiences of my life was going to serve as a student missionary,” he stated.

In his first year at Oakwood University, Bryant had been inspired to serve by the testimonies of returned student missionaries. While his application was initially turned down because he was a freshman, he said yes when asked to be a last-minute replacement.

When he learned he would be teaching conversational English and Bible classes to top Japanese executives, Bryant nearly declined because of a severe stutter that worsened when speaking in public. He persisted, and miraculously, he said, “It was in Japan, teaching English, that I lost my stutter.” Since then, he has preached to tens of thousands globally —stutter-free.

Bryant ended with an appeal, stating, “God doesn’t look at our weaknesses. He doesn’t look at our insufficiencies. God looks at our heart. He says, give me your heart, and I can transform the world.”

As the event continued, participants were led to respond in tangible ways. On Friday morning, Steve Case, pastor and president of Involve Youth, guided participants to pair up, discuss their faith journey and heart for mission, then anoint one another with oil.

Later, Jordache recalled a story that hit close to home. A few years ago, she encountered a woman at the airport who had lost everything to addiction. When the woman asked for help getting food, Jordache, believing it was her mission to help her, purchased a meal at the nearby McDonald’s.

When the woman said, “I was hungry,” while taking a bite, Jordache was humbled. Raised in a loving Adventist home, with all the opportunities, she had failed to recognize her own need.

“I didn’t know that I was hungry. I didn’t know that I was starving for a real understanding of God’s love and of the gospel,” she said.

In that moment, she recognized that all her blessings did not matter if she hoarded them. “God’s people look like a people who understand that every privilege and every opportunity in their lives is for sharing, for the blessing of another person,” she noted.

Her message hit home with students such as Melquisedec, a biology pre-med student at Washington Adventist University (WAU). “Sometimes we think we have to do something big,” he reflected. “But even something simple —like giving food to someone —that’s mission too.”

Merchan was among a group of WAU students involved in “Gideon 300,” a student-led initiative to revive a spirit of mission on campus. To date, the group has grown to 70 members. Supported by chaplain Jiwan Moon, also a former student missionary, the group has engaged in short-term missions and led a Pentecost 2025 tent series resulting in two students getting baptized.

Adeline Malaguit, a psychology major who made the decision for baptism during Pentecost 2025, now views mission as an expression of her love for God. While raised Adventist, she long struggled with feeling “not good enough” to be baptized and approached service from a sense of obligation.

She reached a turning point in her faith during a young adult class called “Only Jesus” at a camp meeting she attended the summer of 2025. “I remember sitting up at night, staring at the tent ceiling, and feeling this deep gratitude that I could come to God as I am. And I thought, I want to tell everyone about this.”

The messages and connections made at HeSaidGoXP reassured her that she was on the right path. “Hearing all these stories of miracles and spiritual growth, I can’t see a reason not to [go].”

During the Sabbath divine hour, Abner Sanchez, pastor at the Keene Seventh-day Adventist Church, shared his testimony of spiritual growth as a student missionary, then as a career missionary with his wife, in Palau. “Service is one of the main keys that unlocks a life of spiritual fulfillment,” he said.

Using the example of Dorcas, a believer who made clothes for widows and others in need, he also reminded attendees that God uses ordinary abilities to do extraordinary things.

Sanchez challenged listeners, wherever they are in life, whatever their gifts, to embrace a life of service as “part of the DNA of being a follower of Christ.” He concluded, “God calls every one of us.”

As the final speaker on Sabbath evening, Benjamin Lundquist, associate pastoral ministries director for the Oregon Conference, coach, and motivational speaker, offered a powerful thought: “One yes can change your life. And one yes can change generations. Every yes matters.”

His yes was going to Pohnpei as a missionary after drifting through 10 majors on four Adventist campuses, anxious about his future. While teaching fourth graders, he realized he loved talking to them about Jesus. Then, he shocked himself by volunteering when the school principal asked for student missionaries to teach and preach at church. People spoke into his life, seeing him as a pastor. While he initially rejected the idea, he eventually accepted God’s call.

Eighteen hours after committing to pastoral ministry, he fell 50 feet off a cliff while hiking. Amazingly, he walked away with no lasting physical damage, affirming God’s hand on his life.

Years later, his yes is impacting not only him but also the next generation, including his teenage son, who recently expressed a desire to follow in his footsteps and serve as a student missionary.

He closed with a final reminder: “Your yes can become the motivation for somebody else’s yes.”

Lundquist called Hernandez and Jordache forward to lead a final altar call. They offered prayers of thanksgiving for the event and asked that God would give participants courage to say yes to Jesus and His call to mission, wherever it might be.

Hernandez then asked everyone to rise from their seats, and as participants gathered en masse, he had them repeat, quietly at first, then louder, until their voices filled the room:

 I will go! I will go! I will go!

He then concluded, simply, “I will go because He said go. So go in the name of Jesus.”

Rewatch all the HeSaidGoXP plenaries here. 

Click here for resources and current OVM volunteer opportunities:

Click here to learn more about the STARS Tutoring and Mentoring program.

Click here for career missionary opportunities, and here for the Missionary Services website.

Learn more about Adventist Christian Fellowship here.

[1] Literacy data taken from research by the National Assessment of Education Progress: https://www.nagb.gov/news-and-events/news-releases/2025/nations-report-card-decline-in-reading-progress-in-math.html