Baylor students again circle the globe in service through Baylor Missions
What bonds Baylor musicians in Scotland with business students in Zambia, or student-athletes in Louisiana with nurses in India?
They’re all part of this summer’s Baylor Missions trips, which are again deploying abroad after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. Already, Baylor students have completed a handful of domestic summer mission trips, and soon teams of students will be headed to three other continents to employ their unique disciplines and skills to show the love of Christ through service.
Baylor summer mission trips are discipline-specific, meaning they bring together students with similar majors, passions or interests to grow in their calling as they address significant needs. On each trip, Baylor connects trip leaders and students with Baylor partner organizations, ensuring that the work students do will make a lasting difference in the communities they serve and in the lives of the students themselves.
“Even when our students are only gone for a week, we want to know that the work they do is something that is long-lasting,” says Sarah Nelson, assistant director for missions and public life. “We want to make sure that the work we do makes a lasting difference in the community, and we have long-term partners that make that possible. And through discipline-specific trips, students experience how they can use their calling or vocation to serve.”
Summer 2022 experiences, both international and domestic, include:
- Nursing trips to India, Zambia and the Rio Grande Valley
- Student-athlete hurricane relief work with a local church in LaPlace, La.
- Student-athlete home-building and sport ministry trip to Costa Rica
- Baylor jazz band ensemble travels to Scotland to perform in churches for Ukrainian refugee relief
- Pre-vet trip to work at an animal sanctuary in Utah
- Education trip to partner with a school in Costa Rica
- Baylor Religious Hour Choir on tornado clean-up trip to Kentucky
- Baylor Kappa Kappa Gamma working with single mothers in the Miami area
Each of these multifaceted trips involves experiences far from the most obvious forms of service. While providing tornado relief in Kentucky, for example, BRH students not only sang in nursing homes, but volunteered in food distribution sites, worked at an animal shelter, and participated in debris cleanup. Student-athletes spent two days installing sheetrock and insulation in a woman’s home and worked with children in after-school programs.
As students deploy abroad once again, many students — both those on campus and those planning to come to Baylor — are already thinking about how they can plug in to missions opportunities in the future. Nelson hopes they won’t hesitate to connect early in their Baylor careers.
“I would encourage students to reach out to us so we know they are interested and can keep them engaged in opportunities. We’re working on faculty proposals for next year, and will have plenty of opportunities for students to get to put their passions to work and see how all of these things work together.”
Sic ’em, Baylor Missions!
BONUS: What’s it like to travel and serve with Baylor Missions? Sophomore Sai Sagireddy took us inside a spring break trip to Kentucky, where students were helping with tornado damage clean-up: