The History

In 1994, a current board member picked up a poorly produced flyer advertising an evangelism trip to Nicaragua and thought,  "Why do they spend all this money to travel?  We should send the money and evangelize here?"  Days passed by and he began to feel convinced that he should go.  Overcoming his biases, he paid the fees and attended the two planning meetings to travel with 30 people for 10 days.

The trip was a disaster. He ended up in a small town with no translator and three team members counting on him to be the "preacher" when he had never preached must less worked with a translator.  Ten days of black beans, illness and many hours of using a computer translator - the team left thankful that some had received Christ.

The trip debriefing was over dinner and involved certificates and some Q&A.  Our board member (a bank officer working to support the board of a regional bank with a degree in Decision Sciences and years in project development) gave an honest answer when he was asked how things went.  The room of 30 went quiet for a few seconds and then others began to share their trials.

The journey began within months.  Convinced of the need for better training and preparation before entering the mission field (foreign or domestic) a team of people began preparing training material and participating as trip leaders.  The training materials and methods used by ECMA stem were developed over a ten year period of intensive work and preparation.  Now these materials are used across the street, across the U.S. and around the globe.

In 1998, our organization began supporting small missionaries through a donations Co-op that shared extra monies collected via grants to others in the co-op.  This grew into the Donation Processing Department that now provides customized services at no or a very small fee.  We are still in the business of helping small organizations launch their new mission.

In 2001, the training and certification model was deployed and made available free of charge to the world.  This launched our efforts into training leaders to train followers to be the greatest short term missionaries that every hit the field.  The reputation began to precede the workers and ECMA teams were highly requested around the world. 

In 2005, ECMA, increasingly aware of the value of a network of accredited organizations both sending and receiving people and support, began to undergo an internal structure and strategy change to take the very successful ideas and distribute them. 

In 2006, the ECMA training program and certification program was launched into a full accrediting program based on the model of ECFA which focuses on financial accountability. The private network went public with this move and continues to expand with ECMA members now receiving ECMA support and volunteers.  Both those sending and receiving are confident of the excellence of the mission.