The pilot version of the REACH course took place at the end of 2025 in the city of Algeciras in southern Spain. The training, which combined classroom-based teaching and practical missions experiences, showed participants how to share the gospel with Spaniards and with North Africans from a Muslim background. 

Putting learning into practice 

Sasha travelled from Hong Kong to take part in the training. She said, “I would describe the REACH programme as a journey — I had a great team of people who relied on each other, shared and prayed for one another. I missed my family and friends in Hong Kong during the programme but also enjoyed learning with my team and interacting with locals in a foreign environment. 

“I found that language barriers and culture shock made my journey hard. Sharing my faith and the love of Jesus in an unfamiliar language environment was challenging, but it still made me excited to do it! For me, the highlight from the programme was the outreach trip to Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, because we could apply what we had learnt from the training, including sharing our faith with people from other faith backgrounds.” 

Sasha’s experience has now led to the formation of prayer groups back in her home church. She said, “I learnt more about prayer during the programme and I am really applying it in my life now. I do this not only by myself but also with my church. We organise prayer walks regularly and we have a prayer group every week to pray for the church and for people to hear the gospel.” 

Personal change 

Hannah, who lives in Germany, said she learnt a lot from her classmates and saw changes within herself as a result of the experience. 

“How the others on the team live out their faith taught me a lot,” she shared. “I was amazed by the passionate prayers from some of my team, as well as the obedience, humbleness and serving heart of one member, the joyful and light-hearted personality of another person and the peaceful, logical thinking of another teammate. 

“I learnt humility and patience, and my attitude in the morning changed. Living with other people in a small space made it really important to communicate well and learn from others. I have to say I’m not a morning person, but during REACH I learnt to say a friendly good morning to my roommates even when I did not always feel like it, because that was important for one of them.” 

And she said she now feels better equipped to talk to others about her faith and Jesus. “I learnt a lot about different cultures, it made me understand other cultures better. Also, the teaching helped me in that and in the fact of understanding different religions and how to talk with them,” she said. “From that teaching, but also from the experience we had during the programme, I now know better how to interact and talk with people from different countries and how to talk with new people I meet about the topic of faith and Jesus.”

OM in Spain is working towards offering a full four-and-a-half-month REACH training programme from February to June 2027. To find out more, contact the OM office in your own country.