The beaches of South Padre Island, Texas, were reported to be the top spring break travel destination this year. But a number of InterVarsity students skipped the beach trip in order to accomplish something more fulfilling, such as working with Habitat for Humanity. Habitat’s Collegiate Challenge Coordinator Mike Nestor reported at least 13 InterVarsity groups, with just over 200 participants, traveled to nine states to pound nails, pour concrete and paint wood.
More than a dozen students from Rochester Institute of Technology, for example, worked on a Habitat home in Penn’s Grove, New Jersey, in early March for the chapter’s third annual Habitat Spring Break trip.
Yale Campus Staff Member Tom Sharp reported 55 students and staff spent Spring Break in Jacksonville. “It was our largest trip ever,” he reported. “We are in our 5th year of this habitat evangelism project, and the curriculum and experience have been well developed. God met people big time.”
The Habitat project is becoming an annual tradition on some campuses. Writing in the Winter/Spring 2005 Student Leadership journal, University of Illinois Campus Staff Member Mindy Meier said last year’s project not only built some houses but also gave “a life-giving transfusion for the fellowships back on campus.”
InterVarsity Evangelism Director Terry Erickson said at least 14 chapters sent about 300 students to Habitat projects last year. InterVarsity encourages more of this type of spring break activity, rather than evangelizing students at popular beaches, which was a common spring break project in the past.
“A downside to beach evangelism is students weren’t being followed up back on campus, and students didn’t continue doing evangelism once they were back home,” he said. “The Habitat project allows students to continue building relationships with non-Christians from the project once they return to campus.” However, he added that InterVarsity may still reevaluate beach evangelism in the future.
At least one InterVarsity spring break project did have a beach assignment this year. Los Angeles Campus Staff Member Eddy Ekmekji led a group of 16 volunteers to southern India, from March 25-April 3, to work with local college students who were helping in the tsunami recovery effort.
For the tenth year in a row, students from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire InterVarsity chapter did spring break ministry outreach in Mexico. Eighteen students spent a week in Sabinas, about 120 miles south of the U.S. border, working with local churches on construction projects and children’s ministry. As many as 40 students have gone on the trip in past years.
A group of 22 University of North Dakota InterVarsity students traveled to Tijuana, Mexico to do ministry on spring break. The Grand Forks Herald reported that they partnered with a church in an area where people have suffered from the effects of heavy rainfall. They also worked at an orphanage.
“These projects accomplish so much toward our overall purpose and vision on campus,” says Terry Erickson, “building authentic community, revealing Jesus in actions and words to our non-Christian friends, demonstrating our faith by serving the poor, encouraging racial reconciliation and developing future leaders.”
Further details in a report on Mission Network News
