By Mallory Sherwood, Staff Writer
Melanie Morrison remembers the first homeless person she met in Chicago while on a Spring Break Campaign.
The experience changed her life in 2002, and she has been returning ever since as both a campaigner and a Spring Break Campaign leader.
“I watched God working in the lives of not only the homeless and the people on the campaign with me, but in my own life as well,” said Morrison, second-time SBC leader and senior elementary education major from Houston.
Morrison is one of more than 70 Spring Break Campaign leaders traveling to 33 locations to lead over 500 people on short-term mission trips around the world during spring break.
Jessica Masters, SBC advertising and public relations manager and junior English major from Tallahassee, Fla., said that anything is possible on a Spring Break Campaign.
“It is really a short-term mission trip,” Masters said. “Students go to a bunch of different locations and do everything from hard labor, to holding vacation Bible schools, to knocking on doors and working at food banks.”
On Nov. 4, students interested in participating in a campaign can choose where they want to go through a lottery to places such as Mexico City, Atlanta, El Salvador, Colorado, Maine, Chicago, California and Scotland.
Next week, brochures with each campaign’s location, cost, which could range from $250- $1,300, and what work will be done during the week will be sent to all ACU mailboxes.
SBC co-chair Clay Rich, senior financial accounting major from Abilene, and Masters said their goal for this year is for more than 500 students to participate.
Masters said she wants to encourage students to go on a campaign to experience the impact God will have on their lives.
“We want to impact lives for Christ-like service and leadership throughout the world,” Masters said, quoting the SBC mission statement, “as well as to impact the lives of the campaigners and the lives of the people they are touching.”
Andy Williams, an SBC leader to Unity, Maine, for the second year, said he had a great experience with his first campaign to Maine three years ago.
“I decided to go to Maine because I had never thought of going there before,” said Williams, senior exercise and sport science major from Abilene. “It was an incredible year, and nine of us went back that summer to keep working with the church and to hang out together again.”
Morrison, Williams and the other SBC leaders will be available to answer questions about their campaigns on Nov. 2 at the SBC info fair in the Hilton Room. Students can learn what they will be doing as well as meet with other people interested in going.
“You only have four years to do something like this with this group of people,” Morrison said. “Go out, serve God and see what he is doing in places other than Abilene.”
