Students have opportunity to stand in the gap
Spring break mission trips provide opportunities for students such as resume benefits, traveling experience, culture experience and can change the way student view and impact the world.
By: Shayla Norgaard | Royal Report
Sophomore Alicia Barlage stood in the gap. The gap between money, race, and culture. Barlage woke up every morning this summer in the south side of Chicago in the middle of gang territory to serve the community. She would get up and be at Sunshine Gospel Ministry at 7:30 a.m. to start making breakfast for volunteer groups.
Barlage spent this past summer interning for Sunshine Gospel Ministry, a connection she made during a spring break mission trip, in Chicago because she felt God calling her to help a broken city.
“Inner cities of our societies get overlooked and these places are seen as super dangerous and that you should stay away from,” Barlage said. “I feel like that’s not at all what God wants for them.”
Barlage’s passion for Chicago started one day when she was home sick from high school. She spent the afternoon watching gang documentaries. In one of those films, she saw a little boy named Ralph weep for his grandma who was shot in the crossfire of a gang war. Barlage saw a lot of brokenness and wanted to learn more about the inner cities.
Bethel University’s spring break mission trip was the perfect opportunity for Barlage to follow through on what God put on her heart to do. Last year Barlage went on the Chicago mission trip which led her to the opportunity to intern in Chicago this summer.
Now Barlage is leading the Chicago mission trip with her friend and co leader Mitch Muras.
“I’m really looking forward to getting into the community and making relationships with the people that are there,” Muras said.
During the spring break trip last year the students were able to sit and eat lunch on the streets of downtown Chicago with a homeless women named Bonnie. Sharing her hardships with the students, Bonnie explained the difficulty of finding a job with no phone and no place to clean up.
“You get to know the city through the eyes of someone else,” Barlage said. “Meeting Bonnie really broke down a lot of things that I never really thought about. It was impacting. It takes a lot courage to stand on a corner and panhandle for money.”
Spring break trips like Chicago allow students to gain new experiences is a different environment. The spring break trip not only pushed Barlage out of her comfort zone but also it changed her life. After going on the trip Barlage started to reconsider what God was calling her to do in life. After her Internship this summer she came back to Bethel to change her communication major to social work, hoping one day to work full time in Chicago to help the community.
“It’s a great way to learn about and appreciate things God is doing around the world in places that are generally pretty different from Bethel,” Associate Dean of Campus Ministries Matthew Runion said. “These trips wreck student’s lives a little bit, brings in a little bit of crisis and a little disequilibrium. It causes students to depend on each other and depend on God in ways that are unique. You Reprioritize things and get perspective.”
Over the years the spring break trips have provided multiple internship opportunities, like Barlage’s, for students who felt moved to continue the work.
The trips also provide opportunities for students who do not have the schedule to study abroad or travel such as athletes and nursing majors to be able to travel and serve.
“The end result I hope for a lot of students is that they realize because they see God working in this place they will recognize work of God in their own life in a new way,” Runion said.
“The issues happening there (in Chicago) affect people in our own backyards here. The willingness to stand in the gap with people. That what we are called to do as Christians.”– Alicia Barlage, sophomore
The spring break mission trips are places for students to experience a new culture whether it is international or domestic, and see a new perspective.
“I hope people not only become aware of issues that are actual issues in our society like racial injustice and how systematic oppression affects people, but also that it burdens them so much that they can’t just sit and be indifferent towards it, and it motivates them to get connected to communities similar to the south side in Minneapolis,” Barlage said. “The issues happening there (Chicago) affect people in our own backyards here. The willingness to stand in the gap with people. That’s what we are called to do as Christians.”
