Though spring break is a much-anticipated event for students to escape from the stresses of class and responsibility, hundreds of Alabama Baptist students chose to use it as an opportunity to live out Acts 1:8: to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the end of the earth.
Some students served in Birmingham through a partnership with Birmingham Baptist Association (BBA) and the North American Mission Board’s World Changers to renovate eight houses in the Dolomite and Wylam areas March 17–20.
Student groups from Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas also joined in the efforts.
“It is an opportunity for [students] to get into a new environment and give a little back to a community that is less fortunate than where they are,” said Butch Henderson, BBA associate executive director for church development, who noted the importance of students using their spring break to serve both domestically and abroad.
“It’s following the Great Commission but also helping them develop a lifelong lifestyle of service and being on mission,” Henderson added. “If they develop that as young teens, then they’re more likely to continue that on into adulthood.”
Serving in Birmingham with his student ministries group from Westwood Baptist Church, Alabaster, Andrew Wash said he was glad to be able to “dedicate my spring break to God.”
“I just figure this is a lot more important than going to the beach or doing whatever. It’s more important to help out other people and love others more than yourself.”
Quoting Matthew 5:1, Wash added, “That’s the reason why I do this … so that we can show ourselves to be the people we say we are and show ourselves to be Christ followers.”
Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) from Mobile and Tuscaloosa Baptist associations also opened opportunities for students to serve.
Jerrod Brown, BCM director for the University of South Alabama, Spring Hill College and Bishop State Community College, all in Mobile, took students to Guatemala March 13–22 to build homes and participate in evangelism, sports camps and prayer walking.
And Nate Young, BCM director for the University of Alabama, served with students March 16–17 as they helped with maintenance work at Tuscaloosa’s associational office.
Some students from Samford University in Birmingham and the University of Mobile (UM) also transformed their spring break into a time of service.
Twenty-three Samford students took advantage of missions efforts in New Orleans and Brooklyn, N.Y., March 16–20 where they helped with community projects, street evangelism, construction and tutoring. Thirty-two students also toured with the school’s Student Ministries Choir in South Carolina and helped churches with repair work.
And 34 students from UM ventured out to Hollywood, Calif.; Seattle; and Las Vegas during their March 2–6 break to work with new church plants.
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