05 Mar HU Students Serving During Spring Break

Several students from Huntington University plan to spend their spring break traveling. Some will see the lights of the big city, while others will venture to exotic locations–all with the goal to serve.

HU’s Joe Mertz Center for Volunteer Service will send three teams of students to Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Philadelphia; and Zacapa, Guatemala, from March 12-16. These groups will volunteer in area orphanages, clinics, schools, and with local missionaries. The HU softball team will travel to Tucson, Ariz., where head coach Doug Gower hopes to find small ways for the softball team to minister on top of training for the upcoming season.

“We try to do little things while traveling such as anonymously pay for an unsuspecting person’s meal when we go out to eat,” Gower said. “It could be an older couple or anyone, really. We try to make it a team choice. We try to represent Huntington in all we do while out for an extended period.”

Jessica Stearns, an HU graduate counseling student and assistant for the Joe Mertz Center, organized all the mission trips this year.

Rebecca McIlwain, a sophomore psychology major from Albany, Ind., will lead six students in a trip to Guatemala, where they will volunteer with His Hands International Inc.

The Guatemala team will serve lunch to the community and volunteer at the local children’s home and malnutrition center.

Mallory Jones, resident director for Baker and Roush halls, also feels exhilarated about advising a missions team to Haiti. Jones and her team will work with Mission of Hope, one of the largest missions organizations in Haiti.

“I have a big passion for travel, ministry and other cultures, so it was an easy answer to give when I was asked if I wanted to lead the trip,” she said. “I want to help students experience something that could impact their lives and change their worldviews.”

The group traveling to Philadelphia will serve with the Center for Student Missions, which is an organization that connects students wanting to volunteer with various projects around the community. The team also will assist with afterschool programs.

“I hope our team will be able to get out of our comfort zone and get a feel for inner-city life in the U.S.,” said Doris Walker, student leader for the trip and a junior entrepreneurial small business management and business management double major from Kandern, Germany. “I want our team to see how the Philadelphia inner-city population experiences poverty and for them to experience Christ in that environment.”