Written by Gina Cielo
Harding sent out more than 10 mission campaigns to cities across America during spring break to provide various services to places that needed encouragement, officials said.
During their week of service, each team had a theme representing the type of work they would be doing.
In Stockton, Calif., the students represented themselves through service and participated in many outreach programs involving the city’s homeless. The team helped cook and serve the homeless breakfast and lunch for four days of the week.
Matt Voss, leader of the Stockton trip, said throughout the week many people on the team talked to the homeless people not only about their life, but also about their faith.
“It wasn’t so much our service that mattered. Having been able to spend six hours for four days with these people, several of us got to built pretty solid relationships with the people there and that would be the best thing that happened,” Voss said.
With a similar theme, the mission team sent to Poncha Springs, Colo., dedicated themselves to serving others through fellowship.
The team painted a church building, played with kids, built a shed for an older member of the church, and helped build a house for a local church member. The students also had the opportunity to lead church services on Sunday and Wednesday.
Slade Hickmon, a member of the mission team, said he was impressed with the people he met on the trip and really enjoyed having fellowship with another church.
“I like just being around good Christian people that are concerned about you just because of the bond of Christ not because they have known you for years,” Hickmon said.
The team sent to Chandler, Ariz., devoted themselves to a much different focus. The students worked preparing for a VBS that would take place on Saturday.
Karye Saegert, a member of the mission trip, said their work seemed successful. During VBS, 140 kids participated.
Saegert said she remembered how shocked and touched one mother was at VBS when she found out that the students were using their spring break to help teach her little boy about God.
With “Synergy” as their theme, the Augusta, Maine, mission team members devoted themselves to talking to various people in the community.
On the first Saturday, the team hosted a youth rally where more than 30 people attended. After this event, the students promoted the local church’s upcoming gospel meeting by hanging flyers in the community and inviting people they met.
Many of the people they came in contact with included the elderly. Each morning the team went to nursing homes to sing and talk to the residents.
“It was a really cool experience to hear their stories or just be with them if they couldn’t even talk. Just having someone there next to them holding their hand meant the world,” said Madison Redding, a member of the mission team.
Spring break campaign groups also traveled to Federal Way, Wash.; Gainesville, Ark.; Manchester, N.H.; Natick, Mass.; New Albany, Ind.; Orlando, Flo.; Silver Springs, Md.; and Sacramento, Calif.
