When Monday afternoons roll around, it’s a sure bet volunteers in Mobile will have their own international missions field ready and waiting — for a ride to Wal-Mart.
For the past 10 years, the Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) at the University of South Alabama (USA) in Mobile has been running a van ministry that takes international students for weekly shopping trips.
"Many international students are without cars, and our campus is not centrally located to shopping," said Jerrod Brown, USA’s senior Baptist campus minister. So BCM volunteers began the van ministry as a way to reach out to the international community.
While Brown drives, Roger Martin, a fourth-year meteorology student at USA, serves as van host. He talks with the students, invites them to BCM ministry events, helps them with groceries and distributes Bibles.
Martin’s goal is to engage each of them and build relationships. "I want to let them know we’re not just picking them up like a taxi but we’re more relational," he said.
Each week, anywhere from eight to 30 students, representing countries such as Japan, Kenya, India and Korea, use the van ministry.
Some come every week; others come more sporadically. "A lot of international students are still kind of timid and like to stay in their own little circles," Martin said. "They come as a group, and the van ministry is a way to get in their group."
Baptists in Mobile Baptist Association have caught the vision for reaching internationals, Brown said. West Mobile Baptist Church, Mobile, provides the use of a van for the ministry. And last semester, the ministry had more riders than van seats. That’s when New Hope Baptist Church, Mobile, stepped in and began providing a second van and driver each week. The church also assists the BCM with monthly outreach events in local apartment complexes that house many internationals.
On average, 20 to 50 students attend these events, complete with food and music. "We have had the opportunity to meet many students — many Hindu and Muslim — and share food and conversation with them and place a Bible in their hands," Brown said, noting that recently one volunteer was able to have a conversation concerning Christianity with a Hindu young man, which is the ultimate goal.
In addition to the van rides and regular outreach events, the BCM ministers to international students by partnering with area Baptists to collect and distribute used furniture — particularly mattresses — to those in need.
"We want to show the real love of Jesus Christ through meeting real needs," Brown said. "We want to earn the right to be heard by building real relationships."
It was through delivering a mattress to a student that God showed him the need for these ministries when he saw a shrine to a Hindu deity in the corner of the apartment. "It reminded me of my call to take the truth of Jesus Christ and the possibility of a real, personal relationship with an omnipotent God into every corner of the world," Brown said. "In this case, the world has come to us, and it was found in an apartment in Mobile, Ala."
And the opportunities for outreach continue to grow. The association’s new missionary-in-residence is Gerald Burch, a retired missionary to Japan. "He is excited to begin partnering with us to reach the many Japanese students who we are serving with the ministry, and he will be traveling with us in the coming weeks," Brown said.
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