CHARLESTON, S.C. (BP)–Heeding President Bush’s call for Americans to help their own — and mindful of Jesus’ command in Matthew 28 to “go ye therefore and teach all nations” — more than 20 students from Charleston Southern University spent Spring Break volunteering and ministering “at home” in Charleston, S.C., and in snowy Charleston, West Va.
It marked the fourth year that CSU students have traveled to West Virginia for Spring Break outreach projects, partnering each year with West Charleston Baptist Church.
Cleaning commodes, insulating windows, filling potholes in the driveway and painting were just a few of the activities the West Virginia team helped perform. They helped Fairlawn Baptist Church members renovate an elementary school the church bought to turn into new worship space. They visited a welfare office and a bus station, and they threw a block party for a mobile home park. And they also worked with two other churches, Lighthouse Baptist and Living Hope Baptist.
The team, led by Campus Ministries Assistant Jenny Dowdy, pulled up outside a welfare office one cold morning and unloaded boxes of doughnuts and jugs of coffee. They spent about two hours inside, handing out the food and talking to people.
“In many cases, it gave us an opportunity to sit down with them for a lengthy amount of time and pray with them and hear their life story,” said Heather Merwin, a CSU junior from Vermont who has gone to West Virginia every Spring Break since she came to the University.
The students did essentially the same activities at the Transit Mall, except they handed out cakes and sodas. Again, they saw a need for that kind of ministry. “Often, people are just hungry for someone to listen to them,” Merwin said. And sometimes the outreach takes hold. “Sometimes they do call [the church] back, or they do start coming to the church.”
Merwin praised the particular ministry of West Charleston Baptist. “It’s a very, very unique ministry,” she said. “Their motto is showing God’s love in a practical way. When they say that, they truly do it. When we’re there for that week, we take part in ongoing ministries. They do it throughout the year.”
The students’ final evening in West Virginia included a block party at a mobile home park. They cooked hamburgers, organized games and activities for the children who lived there and spent some time talking to the adults. They also handed out light bulbs as a visual reminder that Jesus is the light of the world.
Even though it was cold, “it was a good time,” Merwin said. “Everybody was talking and just enjoying themselves.”
Acting Campus Minister Keith Sharp led the Charleston, S.C. group, which spent the week witnessing to carriage drivers and street vendors, working with children in a low-income housing development and helping at construction projects coordinated through Charleston Outreach.
“I think the main value (of both trips) is that these students have developed relationships for ongoing ministry that will carry on long after Spring Break,” said Sharp, who is also CSU’s director of youth ministry. Beyond that, the students enjoyed fellowship with fellow believers and the sense of service enhanced by working outside of their comfort zones. Sharp thanked CSU and its supporters, in particular the South Carolina Baptist Convention, for enabling students to take these trips at no financial cost to themselves.
The students took bottled water and snacks through the historic district’s street markets, offering the refreshments to vendors and carriage drivers and talking to them. “You ask if you can pray about anything for them,” CSU Junior Jen Lambright said.
The students also held a day camp each afternoon in a Charleston apartment complex, “kind of like a backyard Bible club,” Lambright said. They worked with children in groups and individually throughout the week.
A group of students from the South Carolina team also painted a house during the week. The projects were all coordinated through Charleston Outreach, which will continue providing teams for these local ministries through the summer.
“I actually really liked it,” Lambright said of her at-home mission work. She went with a mission team to Daytona Beach, Fla., for Spring Break last year. “It was kind of weird at first, because these were all familiar places. I’ve always gone to the marketplace and just shopped. I never realized that there were people there.
“Now, I know that I can’t go back to the marketplace and think of it the same way,” Lambright continued. “And since these places are nearby, I can continue the ministry.”
All told, the students in both cities painted two buildings, made hundreds of contacts, ministered to 80 vendors, and reached dozens of children and hundreds of adults.
Joseph Roberson, a sophomore from the Charleston, S.C., area, served on the “home” mission trip this year and went to West Virginia for Spring Break 2001. “I went last year to West Virginia because that’s where God told me to go. I went this year to Charleston because that’s where God told me to go. I loved them both.”
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: SHARING THE LOVE
