A GenSend Story Still in the Making
In 2022, Matthew and Katie Asplund and Jeffrey and Taylor Wills joined GenSend, Send Network’s summer missions experience for college students, to serve alongside church planters in Boston.
Four years later, both couples are moving back to Boston to begin church planting residencies with Life Community Church, the same church they served alongside during GenSend summer. Their long-term vision is to help plant churches with Send Network in the region.
Their story offers a glimpse into what GenSend was designed to do: help students discover how God may use their lives for His mission long after a summer experience ends.
Seeing the Need
Like many GenSend participants, neither couple arrived in Boston expecting it to shape the course of their future.
What they encountered, however, left a lasting impression.
“There was such a great need in Boston,” Matthew Asplund said. “There was so much lostness, far beyond what you can imagine is possible in America.”
Jeffrey Wills experienced many of the same realities while serving in local community ministries.
“It’s such a different environment than where we’re from in Alabama. The lack of interest in religion was startling. It made it very difficult. We had to find unique inroads into conversations to share about Jesus,” Jeffrey said.
Rather than discouraging them, those experiences opened their eyes to the need for more gospel presence in Boston and challenged them to consider how God might use them in that work.
More Than a Summer
For both couples, the impact of that summer continued long after they returned home.
For years, they remained connected to Life Community Church through a partnership between First Baptist Church Opelika and the church planting work taking place in Boston. Matthew and Katie even returned for a second summer in 2024, serving in an internship role that further strengthened their sense of calling.
The ongoing relationship gave both couples a front-row seat to church planting and the opportunity to continue learning from pastors, church members, and ministry leaders in Boston.
“It really showed me the power of a church in the South partnering with a church plant where there’s such a great need for the gospel,” Matthew said. “Partnership isn’t just collecting a paycheck. It makes a congregation more missionally minded because people get to see the need and what it looks like to live on mission.”
Over time, what began as a summer assignment became something deeper. The church members they served alongside in Boston became friends, mentors, and eventually like family.
“GenSend is a really cool way of learning how to love a city,” Katie said. “There are so many opportunities to connect with the local church community and build real relationships.”
For Jeffrey and Taylor, GenSend also changed the way they viewed everyday mission work at home.
“It really opens your eyes to your own community and the gospel need there,” Taylor said. “You come back with fresh eyes and realize there are things you can be doing at home, too. It’s not just for the summer; it’s not just in Boston. We can do it in Auburn, Opelika, and anywhere else the Lord calls.”
Their perspective shifted from seeing mission work as a short-term experience to understanding that living on mission could shape every season of life.
The Next Step
Now, both couples are taking that next step.
Over the next two years, they will participate in residencies designed to equip future church planting couples through hands-on ministry experience, mentoring, discipleship, and leadership development. Their hope is that this season will prepare them for future church planting opportunities in the greater Boston area.
But they are careful not to see residency as a finish line. They know that church planting will require perseverance.
“I’m ready to grow and be challenged,” Jeffrey said. “Church planting is a really hard version of ministry, but it’s a really fruitful one.”
Their story is a reminder that GenSend is not simply about a summer in a city. It is about helping students learn to live on mission wherever God leads.
As Matthew reflected on the impact of GenSend, he described it this way: “It’s a lifestyle. You spend the summer in GenSend, and it equips you to see everything as an everyday, Spirit-led missionary. And it gets you thinking about how you can move somewhere strategically for the gospel.”
For the Asplunds and the Wills, that journey began during a GenSend summer in 2022.
Today, four years later, it has led them back to the city where God first expanded their vision for ministry.
And if the Lord continues leading as He has so far, the seeds planted during those eight weeks may eventually result in new churches and new gospel communities throughout Greater Boston.
That’s the long game of GenSend.
And this story is still being written.
Maybe your story is just beginning.
GenSend helps students serve alongside Send Network church planters, grow as disciples, and explore how God may be leading them to leverage their lives for His mission.
Learn more about the GenSend Pathway and apply for GenSend.
Published September 16, 2026