As most people know, I am a campus missionary at the Baptist Student Ministry at the University of Houston. I started in fall 2011 and my term ends in May of this year- 2012. One of the privileges of working there is that I get to go on "trips" a lot. I have been on countless retreats, (I think I am pretty much set for the next 2 years!) and I have had a lot of fun.
The most fun week however, was last week. Spring Break 2012. I participated in a trip called Beach Reach at South Padre Island, along with about 699 other folks. Let this one thing be known- this was not a normal trip. This was a mind blowing, gospel sharing, people loving experience that I will never forget.
And this is how it worked: Students from across Texas, and one group from Colorado (i think) came to SPI (south padre island) with their BSM or church group to serve all the other college students that come to the Island to party. We come in 15 passenger vans that are used to transport all the beach goers where ever they want.
On the first day we pass out business cards that have a hotline number and information about free pancakes on the front, and a bible verse, question, and quote on the back. We were able to have some conversations with ppl about why we were there and what the number is for, which was good practice for the rest of the week.
So each van makes up one team of Beach Reachers (that was me and the 699 others). Each team is about 10 or so ppl. Each van has a name; most of the names are using the word Van in a funny manner. Our van name was U.S.S. Vanterprise! (Live long and prosper with free van rides!) So we did a play off of U.S.S Enterprise- all of you star trek fans out there know what I am talking about. Other vans were: the Grand Vanale, Los Vanquistadores, Advanture Time.... and many many others. Here is a picture of our van:
Here is the quick run down of what we did. I am going to post more personal experiences in another post- I don't want to 1. make you read a humongously long blog post 2. write a humongously long blog post. 3. I don't even think humongously is a word.
Here it is: We gave people rides! Wherever they wanted to go. We either picked them up because they called the hotline number (that is called an assignment) or we went fishing (picking ppl up off the side of the road.) Sounds creepy, but being on the vans is probably the safest place they could be- honestly. We would take them to the beach, their hotel, gas station, even the liquor store- it didn't matter.
What mattered was the ride there. The people would get on and we would get to know them, do the whole "so, where ya from?" deal and so on. Then we would turn the conversation to spiritual matters. Here is a sample conversation:
Spring breaker- "Wow what you guys doing here is great! Way safer than driving drunk! Why are y'all doing this anyway??"
Beach reacher- "We are doing this to serve you guys. We believe in Jesus and wanted to serve you guys and tell you about him a little bit. So what do you you believe in?"
And the conversation goes on from there. And it is awesome. Sometimes it is not fun, just because not everyone wants to talk about spiritual things, but awesome over all.
Other things we did: serve ppl pancakes, hang out with people on the beach, spend time in the prayer room, and worship. But I'll write more about all that later.
I'll leave you with a pic of my team. (Team Alpha!) Ok, just kidding. I was super impressed with everyone on my team. They represented Jesus like nothing I have seen. And because of that there are more souls in the Kingdom of Heaven. :) Praise Jesus!
-Sincerely,
Kelsey
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