2009 Break for Change looks long term

April 08, 2009
During last month's spring break, Bryan sent out 50 students, faculty, and staff to 5 ministry sites around the globe--Latvia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and two domestic locations. Bryan students served those communities in relevant ways, including providing meals to the homeless in California, playing with children in an orphanage in Nicaragua, painting homes in Louisiana, film-making in Latvia, and preaching in Haiti. Assistant director of spiritual formation Ben Norquist explains the values behind Break for Change: “BFC exists to shape students to value the global and local work of God, so they will be actively engaged in God’s kingdom after their time at Bryan.”

BFC co-president Caleb Beasley develops that thought: “We want to join in what God is already doing in the world, and have our hearts shaped for a life of service in which the seeds of the Gospel are scattered and God glorified.”
 

All of the 2009 teams worked with organizations that BFC has partnered with in past years. Norquist explains, “Our strategic focus this year is on cultivating long-term, mutually-beneficial relationships with our BFC partners. Because the trips are for such a short period of time, we really want to make the most of the opportunity. One way to do that is to return teams to work with the same excellent ministries year after year.” 

 

Many students do return to the same ministry and develop deep friendships with community members and ministry leaders there. Norquist, telling of the benefits of return trips: “Our ministry partners have less training to do, and we get to know our ministry partners and the people they work with really well. That is one of the most valuable ways that Bryan students are impacted by their Break for Change experience. They see the lives of these ministers of the Gospel living and working strategically for the sake of the Kingdom--people who are putting ‘Christ Above All’ every day, and see fruit over time.”
  

Through an existing connection to the missions sending agency Advancing the Ministries of the Gospel, a team worked in Grand Bassin, Haiti, for the first time this year. This team helped build a stone wall on the church property, played music and preached in the church services, and built relationships with their translators.

The team that worked in California, partnered for the third year with City of Refuge, an intentional Christian Community ministering to the homeless living in San Diego. These Bryan students came back with their eyes wide open to God’s special care for the socially neglected.

The Latvia team returned to Limbazi, Latvia, for their third year in partnership. The team, comprised partly of communications majors, worked with a Latvian church youth group on a creative film project. Team leader Bryan Boling explains: “We divided into project groups, incorporating the Latvian youth, and made short films. The Latvians wrote the scripts and we facilitated their vision and direction. Some of the groups filmed all through the night. At the end of the week we hosted a film festival, screening that week's films and giving awards for Best Picture, Best Actor/Actress and so on.”

 

Boling went on to identify the deeper significance of their visit: “They [the Latvian youth] saw Christianity lived out—it’s nice to see how some of the kids have become interested in the Church and things of God.”

 

Students working with Hope for Opelousas in Louisiana tutored and played basketball with children after school and painted the ministry home.

 

Upon their return from the ministry sites, BFC co-president Rachel Smith encourages participants that the Break for Change mindset is not just about one week of service: “God is helping us to learn that we need to surrender our lives to him and always be missionaries wherever he calls us, which right now is Tennessee!”

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