This was the last thing I expected when I (Andrew Nimmo) left for Russia in January 1996.  Here it is January 2008 and my family and I are at Auckland airport to see off Kayleene Thorburn.  At the beginning of the month Brent Houghton (OMS Board member) saw Mark Grimmer and the Johannes family off.
From the first enquires

, during the application process, through the training and fundraising times, for us here at the office we have been working up to this time – to sending the missionaries on their way.  This isn’t the end for us, just a role change from sending to supporting.
Here at the office I look after the finances, missionary logistics, coordinating short-term teams, as well as things like putting together this newsletter.  Eileen Bodle does the receipting and banking of all the donations.  I look after paying the bills, forwarding donations for overseas projects, doing the financial month end processing and forwarding the monthly reports to the OMS Board Members and the missionary reports to each missionary.  This sort of work is pretty routine, but the sort of thing I love to do.
Missionary logistics offer a lot more variety as the need for each person is different.  For example there were three different airline itineraries and I applied for two different lots of visas for the guys who left in January.
Coordinating short-term teams is very time consuming.  I am now at the stage of recruiting people for a Russia Work team and Hungary English camps (see page 5 for details).  I send out the information sheets as people enquire, and then the application packs.  As the team forms I start working on the airline bookings, visas etc for each team member.  And where possible I see them off at the airport.