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Breaking Spring Traditions
By Jennifer Joy Carter, Class of 2005
Photos provided by Stephanie Zarlengo and ORU Missions Offi
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A student of Alamance Community College (N.C.), who was quoted in The Sun News ("Spring Break Pandemonium," posted on March 21), said that students don't want to be reminded about the dangers of excessive drinking, even if it is true. "Everyone's here to party," she said. "It's a break from life."
While statements like these describe the average student's spring break experience, a number of Oral Roberts University students set out to challenge the norm. By going on several different missions trips and self-organized outreaches during the week of March 14, these students gave of their time and offered their "breaks from life" to those who were poor in spirit.
ORU spring break trips included summer missions team leader training in Juarez, Mexico, a weeklong visit to Mercy Ministries in Nashville, Tenn., by fourteen female students, and a sojourn to the L.A. Dream Center by two student volunteers.
Fifty-six summer missions team leaders and assistant team leaders for 2004, Missions office staff members, ropes course coordinators, and the director of Missions, Dennis Russell, spent their time in Juarez learning about the heart of the people.
Part of their learning came through challenging themselves in leadership, group work, and ministering. For every activity, a different student was put in charge of the group--to convey the benefits of experience under different styles of leadership.
According to sophomore Cheryl Brenneman, "Our days were busy with construction work, painting, street ministry, skits and dramas, church ministry, and visiting an orphanage." At the orphanage, students hosted a fiesta and carnival for the children to enjoy carefree fun.
The entire team spent the evenings in church ministry and witnessed miracles such as a blind man being healed, two deaf residents who gained their hearing, and a lame man who, after being healed, proceeded to run around the church, according to Brenneman.
Mercy Ministries operates homes and licensed adoption agencies in various cities around the world. It is a nonprofit restoration program for young women from the ages of 14 to 27 who have attempted suicide, or have suffered from addictions, eating disorders, sexual abuse, or unplanned pregnancies.
One group of ORU female students went to the Nashville location and ministered by cleaning, filing, organizing, clearing out the basement, helping with the grocery shopping, performing dramas and skits, and sharing through music and testimonies.
According to freshman Jimena Almeida, "The house represents who the girls are in Christ; they are beautiful, spotless, clean, and put back in order." Almeida is staying in touch with one 19-year-old Mercy girl in particular--by letter and phone--thanks to their quickly ignited friendship.
About 2,000 miles from Nashville is the Los Angeles Dream Center and its restoration program for homeless and downcast people who have a desire to change by believing for a better way of life. That's where ORU juniors Josh Zajac and Nicole Emo ministered, assisting in the center's outreaches by joining their on-staff friends, ORU graduates Michael Hirsch and Selah Davis.
Several of those who have been transformed by these outreaches are now on the center's staff. According to Zajac, these staff members' past experience helps them relate and witness to others on a personal level.
Ironically, while many of the nation's college students were wallowing in the muck of drunkenness and promiscuity, many ORU students were doing their best to help those whose past may have consisted of the same.
