1. Relationships - CALMS' ministries including our work with US and Central American partners and short-term volunteers and staff, seeks to work in respectful ways with people of other cultures. We value relationships and seek to build new friendships as we work with others. We do all that we can to help our US partners develop strong relationships with Central American partners.

2. Sound Missiology - Through training and dialog, we seek to help our own staff and short-term volunteers who serve with us and we seek to help participants learn the difference between good and bad mission practices. We do all we can to help them avoid doing things that might create dependency or uneven relationships and to act as mission servants and co-workers who are building the capacity of others.

3. Strategic Focus - CALMS helps Central American partners think about their work strategically in order to advance mission field objectives and partner church needs. We work with our short-term teams to help them understand how they can best assist our Central American partners to grow in discipleship and numbers of new disciples and avoid any action or activity that might hinder the outcome of a healthy church. We also avoid random activities in favor of focusing on strategic mission outcomes such as leadership development and helping establish healthy churches.

4. Transformed People, Churches and Organizations - Through the power of the Holy Spirit, CALMS helps congregations and institutions to be God's instruments for effective outreach. Along with our partners, we seek to study God's Word, pray and to listen to what the Lord of the Harvest is telling us. We also work deliberately with short-term teams to help them move from being merely passive observers toward being active and excited participants in God's mission. By focusing on the above three values, we are seeing an increasing number of transformed people both in North America and in Central America.