The first day of Missions Conference concluded Wednesday night not with a charge to bring about taking drastic action in rural towns thousands of miles away, but with a call to take small steps in cities.

With the flags of 50 nations hanging over his head and a packed-out gym, Tim Svoboda exhorted students to consider how God can use their majors amid the masses of people without a savior. Svoboda, who has worked with Youth With a Mission for more than 14 years, couldn’t emphasize enough how God uses “micro-focus leaders,” like one woman he knows who paints nails for prostitutes and prays for them, to spread light in a dark world.

“It starts small,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be super professional. It has to be passionate.”

Earlier in the day, President Corey’s announcement of a new program granting up to $5,000 to students for investing in Haiti relief and the procession of national flags set the morning in motion. In between sessions, students could be found browsing mission organizations’ booths, milling around the Marketplace and surviving the heat and long lines for Global Awareness. In the second half of the day, before Svoboda’s message at night, Beth Grant stirred emotions with her story about one small girl’s faith.

This year’s theme centers around Isaiah 42: 6-7 and John 9:5, which demonstrate how God has called Christians into righteousness and opened the eyes of those who are blind to show them the love of God. John 9:5 is about the blind man Jesus healed by putting mud into his eyes and telling him to go and wash it out.

Missions Conference is in its 81st year at Biola since it began in the spring of 1929. It has been growing rapidly ever since. Now, between 60 and 80 different mission organizations work with the staff and volunteers, though not all come to campus.

Few people realize the amount of time, energy and volunteers the three-day conference requires. Missions Conference does not just happen overnight — at least, not all of it. Brainstorming for possible speakers and countries starts in October for SMU staffers. But it takes more people than just SMU staff to make this event; it takes more than 370 volunteers to be able to help build the most difficult parts of the conference. One thing did happen overnight, however — between Tuesday night classes and Wednesday morning, McNally classrooms were transformed for Global Awareness.

The conference staff and volunteers removed all the desks and chairs from the classrooms and made them into other countries, where Christians are persecuted around the clock. The McNally countries, which include India, Japan, Indonesia, Romania and Scotland, weren’t just chosen at random.

“These are some of the places that we’ve felt need to be highlight, said Maegan Taylor, Missions Conference director. “We think that about two-thirds of the world have heard of Jesus and about one-third of them are saved … The whole world is in need.”