The story of the Missions Academy

Elim’s Missions Academy is equipping a new generation for global mission through practical training, real-life experience and spiritual formation. Elim International Missions Director Marty Davison tells us about it..

The academy was relaunched in September 2025, with 26 students enrolling for the 2025/26 class.

I had been praying that God would give us 10 – perhaps even 16 – students, and that would have been wonderful, writes Marty Davison.

But our God is the God of overflow, doing above and beyond all we can ask or imagine, and that is certainly what happened.

Having served for more than 13 years as a missionary in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, my heart was to take the knowledge, wisdom and practical skills I had gained – alongside the experience of others – and shape them into meaningful, effective training through the Academy.

From a young age, I knew God had a call on my life – but doesn’t he have a call and purpose for everyone? Discovering, uncovering and outworking that calling is all part of the journey, and the timeline looks different for each of us.

I remember sitting in the back yard of a pastor’s house in Rio de Janeiro.

I had just finished my quiet time when I felt deeply convicted that God was calling me not simply to tick a virtual box in my head, but to leave dentistry in Northern Ireland, move to Brazil, learn the language and serve him there.

Saying yes was part of a journey that took me back to Northern Ireland to finish my time in dental practice before returning to Rio de Janeiro, then Manaus and finally Maués.

story continues…