'A pretty easy decision’: TWR interns up for a challenge
[Estimated reading time: 5 minutes]
Former TWR engineering intern Emma Fanning grins from the top of one of TWR's towers on Guam, where she served in the summer of 2024.
When she’s seeking college students to serve as interns for TWR, Jennifer Bozeman uses a variety of tools.
There’s the online job platform called Handshake. There’s a partnership with The Traveling Team, which visits state campuses to show Christian students how they can get involved in fulfilling the Great Commission. Included, also, are her own visits to campuses, along with those of other TWR representatives.
And this year, there was Lifted.
“My roommate, here in Lawrence, sent me the TWR documentary, their Lifted documentary,” said Brenic Beggs, a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Kansas.
That was in November, or perhaps December 2024, Beggs isn’t quite sure. But he does know it changed his plans for the coming summer.
Welcome to the TWR 2025 intern class, Beggs and 18 other students from 14 schools, majoring in everything from strategic communications to engineering science to economics and business analytics, who will be serving at sites in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as at TWR U.S. offices in Cary, North Carolina.
All are forgoing what they might have made from summer jobs or more traditional internships and are raising the financial support they’ll need for eight weeks involvement in the global ministry of TWR. But there’s a tradeoff, said Bozeman, who’s in her fourth year with TWR as U.S. coordinator of short-term missions and college recruiting.
Serving with a global organization is a unique benefit, Bozeman said, and a major learning opportunity, even more so for the cross-cultural exposure of the nine who will serve internationally. “And I think also just working within a Christian ministry, there’s a huge opportunity for spiritual growth, because you’re really forced to think about the world and the way God thinks about the world.”
The choice
Beggs, 22, was unfamiliar with TWR until he saw Lifted, he said. The TWR-produced feature film tells the story of a family’s mission to bring Jesus to an unreached South American tribe.
Impressed by the film, Beggs started to research TWR and was surprised to discover all that it is doing in so many places. He applied for an internship and was accepted to serve with TWR’s Broadcast Operations team on Guam. His mentors in the University of Kansas Engineering department, where he is a graduate research assistant, would have preferred that he take a well-paying internship with one of their contractors, he acknowledged.
Nonetheless, “It was a pretty easy decision to make to take the summer and go to Guam and serve the Lord.”
Grace Hamilton had a similar decision to make. The 21-year-old mechanical engineering student at the University of Idaho received a summer internship offer from a large company last year. It would pay well, and it was guaranteed: All she had to do was accept.
On the same day, she got notice inviting her to continue the application process for a TWR summer internship. That wasn’t a sure thing.
Hamilton, who will be a senior in the fall, wrestled with the decision, asking God in prayer what she should do. “And he was kind of like: 'You can choose, but one has the greater glory,'” she related.
She turned down the lucrative offer, continued the TWR application and will be serving this summer at TWR’s West Africa Transmitting Station.
The 19 interns this year are the most with TWR since at least before COVID, Bozeman said. It’s the first time interns will be serving with national partners in South Korea and Brazil. A third intern will serve with our national partner in Colombia, although from the Cary office.
You can help
Like all missionaries, TWR summer interns don’t go alone. It’s vital for each of them to have a support network. Even if you don’t know any of them personally, you can be part of that network. Bozeman has three suggestions:
- Pray – Prayer warriors are needed. You could pray for the entire group as they raise support now and from the time they arrive in Cary for orientation on May 20 until they depart following debriefing on Aug. 7. Or you could be a warrior on behalf of one intern. You can contact Bozeman at [email protected], and she’ll be happy to point you to one of the interns.
- Give – The interns are responsible for raising their own support, but if any fall a little short we’d like to be able to get them to the finish line. Find out how to be part of that solution here.
- Send a note – What an encouragement it would be for our interns to receive a few notes of support when they arrive for orientation, perhaps from individuals who already have been praying for them. Again, you can contact Bozeman for more information, and you can send notes to TWR, P.O. Box 8700, Cary, NC, 27512-8700, attention Jennifer Bozeman.
Paul Freed, TWR’s founder, boldly stated: “By God’s grace, we will reach the whole world.” Perhaps God is calling you to come alongside this summer’s TWR interns as they help continue in that great mission.
Images: (top, banner) Former TWR engineering intern Emma Fanning grins from the top of one of TWR's towers on Guam, where she served in the summer of 2024, (middle, right) 2024 TWR intern Luke Bantz works on machinery where he served during his internship with TWR in West Africa.
