LoveWorks Handbook

Team members give LoveWorks e-mail addresses for updates, which are received by the program from team leaders and hosts every three to four days during the trip and forwarded. For three-week teams we do not allow direct communication home. This cuts way down on distractions, homesickness, missed connections, and high phone bills. It allows most students to leave their very expensive phone with us for safekeeping. It makes students and their families safer when there are emergencies because they are in the mindset of routing communication through PLNU LoveWorks.

Program staff are on call 24 hours a day while teams are traveling. We are ready to respond on behalf of PLNU to make necessary connections and arrangements in the event of an emergency back at home or with the team.

Yes, PLNU LoveWorks provides for travel insurance, including medical care, emergency medical evacuation, and emergency political evacuation. Please contact us if you have questions about travel insurance.

Our hosts are church leaders, pastors, and missionaries. Most of our hosts are leaders in the Church of the Nazarene, our sponsoring denomination. This is not an attempt to be exclusive; it is simply the Christian network we belong to institutionally. We are better able to maintain long-term connection and know reporting structures, expectations, and coherence. In most cases, our hosts are residents of or frequent visitors to the areas they invite us to. Listening to them is usually our best decision for safety.

LoveWorks will facilitate your needs but may ask you to sacrifice many of your personal preferences. We will ask you to sacrifice vegetarian or other dietary preferences for the duration of the LoveWorks trip. This is to be culturally sensitive and accommodating to our hosts.  

Documented dietary needs will be accommodated whenever and however reasonably possible. To clarify medical necessity, we require a note from the general practitioner or specialist who manages the participant’s care. This note should simply express that the dietary need is medically documented. For religious belief-related dietary needs, a meeting should be arranged with the program director to discuss the need and begin planning to accommodate it whenever reasonably possible. Physician/dietician notes cannot be provided by the PLNU Wellness Center staff.

Yes, LoveWorks encourages persons with disabilities to participate as team members or co-leaders. LoveWorks is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation to persons with disabilities. LoveWorks often serves in international settings where access and reasonable ability to accommodate varies by country. If you may require an accommodation to access LoveWorks, inform the program on the application form, the informational sheet, health information updates, and/or by meeting with us. LoveWorks will consult with the PLNU Educational Access Center to facilitate successful participation.

A limited number of students and team leaders may apply for and be approved to alter their LoveWorks travel itinerary to accommodate for additional personal travel. Request forms will be available at the start of training. Deviation upon the conclusion of a trip is preferred over deviation before the start of a trip. The program reserves the right to refuse deviation requests for any reason. Participants are required to pay cash for expenses associated with deviation travel and to pay before the trip. Donations may not be used to pay for deviation travel unless such travel is for ministry associated with LoveWorks and is approved as such. If participants would like to deviate from the group itinerary to visit LoveWorks — or Church of the Nazarene — affiliated people or ministries, the program and church structure must give prior approval. When deviating from the team itinerary, the participant must purchase their own travel insurance policy and provide proof of purchase to LoveWorks. The deviation travel is in no way part of PLNU or LoveWorks activity. LoveWorks asks that participants refrain from behavior on deviation travel that would damage their mission and Christian witness as well as that of PLNU and LoveWorks.

Please refer to the program handbook and if your questions or concerns are unanswered there, please do contact our staff.