Fall Break Trips Teach Lessons, Touch Lives
Bethany Brown
Issue date: 11/2/07 Section: News
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This year's Fall S.P.O.T.S. (Special Projects Other Than Summer) trips took people to two locations. The first was Pearlington, Mississippi, a small town mostly neglected in initial Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The trip was made in collaboration with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (C.B.F.) and the locally run Pearlington Recovery Center which operates out of a converted elementary school that is no longer used to host classes. The group worked on construction, painting, yard work, and digging for plumbing for people who haven't gotten back on their feet since Katrina.
The second location was in the Western Heights area of Knoxville. The group there worked through the Western Heights Baptist Center, run by Tennessee Southern Baptists. C-N students helped the Baptist Center with several of its ministries including clothing and food distribution centers. Their main focus, however, was a Vacation Bible School program for local kids during three days of the trip. People at the Knoxville location also had the opportunity to work with a volunteer group sent by the Baptist Collegiate Ministries of the University of Tennessee.
From their lists of accomplishments it is quite certain that the S.P.O.T.S. groups were able to do some very practical things in order to help people. Eighth time returner Joanna Tillman mentioned "how much a difference one person can make." C-N students also found that they learned a great deal that had personal implications on their spiritual lives. People with long term involvement in student missions like Tillman and Ginny Bodine mention things they've learned through all these years that have changed their perspectives, ranging from community and passionate leadership to the needs outside our own back doors, respectively.
Four first time S.P.O.T.S. missionaries also brought very different perspectives on the experience.
Sophomore Rachel Burris spoke of the importance of her personal Christian walk in ministering to others. "In order to reach the lost" she says, "I must put Christ first and spend intimate time with Him in developing our relationship so that an overflow of Jesus will radiate from me as a witness of Christ." She recognized the difficulties in this statement on the Knoxville trip which she describes as both physically and spiritually draining. The physical aspect made her tired enough to neglect time with Christ during down time on the trip which she says she saw reflected in the spiritual energy she had to put into ministry the next day. She spoke of the need to learn this lesson before she can expect new direction from God.
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