College students Journey on Mission to Texas

“It’s impossible for you to feel what happened last week,” Director of Campus Ministries Jamie Williams advised the gathered viewers at Fleet Fellowship on March 17. “But, I want to do my best to describe the impact that one of these trips has on us as believers.”

Less than per week previous to addressing the Erskine pupil physique, Williams returned to campus with a bunch of scholars who spent their spring break on a mission journey to Laredo, Texas. Williams and Erskine workers members Izzy Yuskis and Tucker Curfman have been joined by college students Zane Brooks, Grace Roberts, Joy Williams, and Landon Ziegler. On March 6, the group departed Due West for Laredo—1,300 miles southwest of Erskine.

“There were eight of us in a 12-person van, which made for a lot of fun memories!” says Yuskis, Erskine’s resident director for honors housing. “We loved taking lots of stops at Buc-ee’s, blasting Dr. Jamie Williams’s high school era playlist (which we would lovingly call ‘oldies music’), and snacking on Bundt cakes. There were deep, heartfelt talks, attempts to learn Spanish with the help of one of our bilingual teammates, and lots of late-night laughter.”

After an extended drive and an in a single day keep in Baton Rouge, the staff arrived in Laredo. The metropolis sits astride the Rio Grande, alongside a bend within the river separating it from the Mexican metropolis of Nuevo Laredo. It struggles with an growing older infrastructure and excessive poverty charges, and one of many group’s objectives was to help with a church plant in a north-central Laredo neighborhood.

“When we first got to the site where we were going to receive training from missionaries and meet the people we would be serving with, we were greeted by them as brothers and sisters in Christ,” Yuskis says.

Freshman biology main Grace Roberts additionally discovered a heat welcome awaiting the staff in Laredo. “I was expecting to go up to people and approach them, but they would just come up to me and ask me how I was doing and how they could pray for me,” Roberts says.

The group undertook a variety of ministry efforts that included main public worship in parks, offering ready meals and clothes for the world’s homeless and refugee populations, and taking part in native block events and festivals to share the gospel and private testimonies. They additionally held a yard trip Bible faculty to introduce the brand new church plant’s location. The church, Iglesia Christiana Eben-Ezer, efficiently opened on Easter in a metropolis neighborhood only a mile east of the Rio Grande.

“I don’t have a best memory of the trip, because it was all amazing, but if I had to pick one it would be giving out popsicles to kids attending Laredo’s annual kite festival,” Yuskis says. “It was just fun to interact with all of the kids while their parents were ministered to by other people on our team.”

Roberts additionally discovered the kite competition to be probably the most memorable.

“I was stationed [at the festival] helping kids. It was really encouraging for me to see, even though a lot of them came from broken families, almost every kid I talked to knew Jesus and really wanted to know more about him and wanted to follow him,” Roberts says. Despite the poverty throughout them, “they always saw the positive instead of focusing on their hardships.”

The staff attended an genuine yard Mexican cookout, and there was unanimous settlement among the many group that it was top-of-the-line meals they’d ever eaten.

“Teaming up with current ministries in Laredo was a huge blessing, and working with the missionaries and the new church plant was very meaningful,” Williams says. “Our students actively sharing their testimonies and the gospel for the first time really opened their eyes to what living their lives for the gospel could and should look like when they return home.”

The group departed Laredo on March 12, stopping once more in Baton Rouge in a single day. The subsequent morning, they started the ultimate leg house to Due West.

Though a few of the staff members had not identified one another properly previous to the journey, “we certainly felt like old friends afterward,” Yuskis says. “While we were eager to leave the van at the end of the trip, we were not so fast to leave each other when it was time to return to Erskine.”

Roberts, who describes herself as not particularly outgoing, would suggest a mission journey even to those that might need some preliminary trepidation.

“Everyone that you work with is easy to get along with, and they make sure you’re comfortable with where you are,” Roberts says. “I would encourage people to come because God will work through you, even if you don’t know what to say. You can show Christ’s love through your actions.”

At the March 17 Fleet Fellowship, Williams mentioned plans for a fall break mission journey later this 12 months. The vacation spot can be Myrtle Beach to work with Impact Ministries, specializing in meals pantries, garments closets, and sports activities camps for kids.

A spring break 2027 journey is deliberate to Clarkston, Georgia, close to Atlanta, to work with refugees. The area has one of many largest per-capita refugee populations within the U.S., and Williams and his staff will carry out ministry in a wide range of places within the area.

Those fascinated about listening to extra about future mission journeys ought to contact Jamie at jamie.williams@erskine.edu