Guatemala
Central America's largest country and one of its poorest. Guatemala's highlands are home to indigenous Mayan communities where poverty runs generations deep. You will serve alongside local churches running feeding programs, children's ministry, and community development in villages where the nearest hospital is hours away. Construction projects. VBS-style kids ministry. Home visits where you pray with families who have been waiting for someone to show up. Guatemala sets the tone for the entire Race: this is real ministry, and it starts on day one.
Costa Rica
Beneath the tourist surface is a country with growing income inequality and communities in the Central Valley and Caribbean coast where the church is doing frontline work with at-risk youth, addiction recovery, and immigrant communities from Nicaragua. You will partner with local ministries doing relational evangelism, youth outreach, and manual labor projects. Costa Rica teaches you that ministry does not always look like poverty - sometimes it looks like a teenager who has everything except hope.
Dominican Republic
The DR is the Caribbean you do not see in the resorts. In the bateyes - communities originally built for Haitian sugar cane workers - families live in extreme poverty without reliable electricity, clean water, or legal documentation. Children grow up stateless, without birth certificates, unable to attend school or access healthcare. You will serve in these communities alongside local churches and organizations doing children's ministry, construction, medical outreach, and gospel proclamation. The DR will break your understanding of who your neighbor is.
Brazil
The largest country in South America and one of the most spiritually dynamic nations on earth. The Brazilian church is vibrant, passionate, and growing. But behind the worship is staggering inequality - favelas stacked on hillsides above gleaming cities, indigenous communities in the Amazon fighting for survival, and millions of children in urban poverty. You will serve alongside Brazilian believers in community development, evangelism, youth ministry, and prayer. Brazil will show you what the church looks like when it worships with nothing held back.
Portugal
One of the least churched nations in Western Europe. The cathedrals are full of tourists and empty on Sundays. Portugal sent missionaries to every corner of the world for 500 years and now the church at home is fading. You will serve alongside tiny, faithful Portuguese congregations - some with fewer than twenty people - doing community outreach, elderly care, immigrant ministry, and relational evangelism. Ministry in Portugal asks a different question than ministry in Guatemala: not where is the church, but what happened to it.
Spain
The evangelical church in Spain is less than 1% of the population. In a country of 47 million, most cities have no evangelical witness at all. You will serve alongside church planting teams, immigrant community ministries, and refugee resettlement organizations doing the slow, relational work of making Jesus known in one of Europe's most secular nations. Spain teaches you that faithfulness does not require a crowd.
Italy
The seat of Roman Catholicism and one of the most spiritually paradoxical nations in Europe. Ancient churches on every corner, but actual faith practice has plummeted among young Italians. Immigrant communities from North Africa and the Middle East are creating new ministry opportunities. You will serve alongside local churches and ministries doing community outreach, refugee support, and evangelism in a culture that assumes it already knows Jesus. Italy will challenge everything you think you know about European Christianity.
Albania
Once the only officially atheist country on earth, Albania outlawed all religion under communist rule until 1991. The church here is young, raw, and growing from nothing. Albania is also one of Europe's poorest countries, with significant rural poverty and a youth population hungry for opportunity and meaning. Wild camping is legal everywhere. Ministry partners work in community development, church planting, youth outreach, and discipleship. Albania is where the World Race gets rugged - tent camping, manual labor, and serving a church that has existed for less than a generation.
North Macedonia
A small Balkan nation at the crossroads of Eastern and Western Christianity, North Macedonia is home to some of the oldest churches in the world alongside a significant Muslim population. The evangelical church is tiny - a few thousand believers in a country of two million. You will serve alongside local believers doing youth ministry, community outreach, and cross-cultural engagement in a nation most people have never heard of. North Macedonia teaches you that God is at work in the places nobody is watching.
Romania
A country still emerging from decades of communist repression. Romania's orphan crisis of the 1990s left deep scars. Today the needs have shifted - rural poverty, Roma community marginalization, aging populations in emptying villages, and a young generation leaving the country for Western Europe. You will serve alongside Romanian churches doing community development, children's ministry, elderly care, and evangelism. Romania will show you that healing takes generations and the church has to be the one that stays.
Greece
Where the Apostle Paul planted churches two thousand years ago. The Greek church today is largely Orthodox with minimal evangelical presence. Economic crisis, refugee waves from the Middle East and North Africa, and youth unemployment have created enormous need. You will serve alongside ministries doing refugee outreach, community meals, youth engagement, and gospel proclamation in the very cities where the New Testament was written. Walking where Paul walked while doing what Paul did - that is Greece on the World Race.
