Spring Break Cross-Cultural Opportunities

April 5, 2022

During the University’s spring break in March, students participated in several Asbury-sponsored cross-cultural opportunities to be the hands and feet and Jesus.

Mayfield, Kentucky

The Asbury Outreach Coalition traveled to Mayfield, Ky., to aid in tornado relief following last year’s tragedy and ongoing destruction recovery. In a thank-you note sent to Greg Martin ’01, executive director of DRAW (Disaster Relief at Work), Mayfield Mayor Kathy Stewart O’Nan expressed her thanks to the students and alumni who served.

“I am so honored by the blessings spread upon us by DRAW and those adorable Asbury students,” said O’Nan. “I know there have been many and will be many more volunteers to come to help us, but none will stay in my heart like each of you. You will always be the first who put color and hope into that grey, desolate area which will serve as a beacon of what our town will become again.”

Arizona

A group of students and alumni partnered with Word Made Flesh and traveled to Arizona to immerse themselves in the Navajo culture and community.

“Team members were encouraged to explore what long-term missional engagement looks like while getting to know the culture and people of the community,” shared trip participant Cindy Dean MBA ’20. “Through spiritual formation opportunities, our relationship with Christ was deepened and our love for others grew.”

Led by a Navajo community member, the group learned about the present and past by viewing ancient rock drawings, cooking traditional Navajo food and engaging in cultural activities. The team also worked with orphans, performed repairs at a church and experienced a completely Navaho-speaking church.

Visiting attractions such as the Grand Canyon and the southwest’s Four Corners, the group traveled to five states and walked nearly 1,500 miles.

Colombia

The One Mission Society (OMS) Asbury Student Leadership Development Center in Wilmore took students to Medellin, Colombia, with the help of national partners, Satura Colombia and Asociacion Confraternidad Carclaria de Antioquia (Prison Fellowship).

The team served and ministered to the community of Amaga. Students visited a boarding school for children of miners and helped a local church conduct outreach to children and youth. The team also visited a poverty-stricken barrio where they fed and ministered to more than 60 children and their families. They learned about the house church planting movement in Colombia and experienced one firsthand.

While on the cross-cultural trip, students shared their testimonies and encouraged prisoners and prison pastors at Bellavista Prison, once ranked as one of the most dangerous prisons in the world. The team also ministered to children of prisoners through sports, games and sharing the Gospel.

“Our team of Asbury students did an amazing job of adapting to challenging cross-cultural mission’s experiences working with the house church movement and in prison ministry,” said David Schnake, director of Asbury’s OMS campus ministry. “They did an amazing job of sharing their testimonies and the Gospel wherever we were, even in the airports during travel.”

Camden, New Jersey

The Salvation Army Student Fellowship (SASF) campus ministry traveled with a group of students to serve in Camden, N.J. The team engaged in a variety of activities, including Operation Uplift, an evening where community members in need received meals and haircuts while enjoying music. The SASF group also packed drive-by meals and delivered food boxes for community members.

“I was very proud of the students at Asbury because they were a wonderful example of Jesus Christ,” said Major Paul Cain of Asbury’s SASF. “They shared a lot of love and laughs with those in the community.”