Opportunities in missions bring great returns
Every year, the Global Projects department of Trinity Western University sends out teams of students to cities around North America to bring helping hands wherever they are needed. These teams go out to serve both over the spring reading break and the first part of the summer. This means that the students sacrifice their break from classes and other opportunities to give of themselves. However, the returns from these mission trips are usually more than the students themselves expected or could have imagined.
Photo credit: Tim Andries
The key to missions is the initiation and transformation that can happen in students’ relationships with God and the people that they serve. Katelyn James, who has served in Calgary, said that her Global Project was a “challenging experience that stretched [her] to see God through the stories of homeless men and women.” Andrea Smith, a recent TWU graduate, went down to San Francisco twice. “The second time I was there it was really awesome that people remembered me and it was cool to see how people had changed in a year. It was great to see how even just volunteering for a week had shaped people.”
The teams heading out this spring reading break are going to seven different locations. Within their own backyard of Canada, students will have the opportunity to serve in the inner city areas of Calgary, Victoria, and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. If they choose to head south across the border, the service opportunities awaiting them will be endless in the Californian cities of Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Finally, a team will fly over the ocean to work with Habitat for Humanity on the islands of Hawaii. Applications for spring break trips are now being accepted online until December 1st.
The four teams being sent out this summer are going into cross-cultural ministry in Ft. Babine BC, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Israel. The foci of these trips will vary by location but will include children’s ministry, civil development, linguistic work, and medical aid. TWU students have been returning to Ft. Babine, for example, year after year for 15 years and have had a deep and lasting impact on the people of that village. Also, a team of four students went south to Brazil this last summer for the first time ever, and Global Projects is hoping to maintain that established relationship. Applications for summer trips are now being accepted online only until November 18.
Frankie Emrick
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