More than 400 Lipscomb students, volunteers gearing up to serve on mission trips over spring break
Lacey Klotz |
Since 2002, Lipscomb Missions has provided short-term mission opportunities with long-term vision and partnerships for the Lipscomb community and beyond. As a result, thousands of students have utilized their unique gifts and passions to share the Gospel through service and ministry.
This month, Lipscomb Missions is gearing up for spring break, sending 22 teams and 430 students, faculty, staff and friends to serve in both domestic and international locations, March 12-16.
Teams between 10 to 30 students will head to California, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Florida, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nevis, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Saba and Scotland.
“Lipscomb missions has now had more than 10,000 students, faculty, staff and volunteers participate in a trip and wonderful things are happening, both domestically and around the world,” said Tyler Kemmerer, director of Lipscomb Missions.
“This spring break, we will be sending 16 teams to our international partnerships and six teams to locations here in the U.S. We are very excited for each team to engage with what God is already doing in each of those locations.”
This year, Lipscomb Missions is celebrating 15 years of service and partnership in nine of our more than 40 locations.
For the past 15 years, Lipscomb has partnered with Baja Missions to encourage and assist local churches of Baja California, Mexico. This year, two teams will serve in Baja, one will work in a local community and the other will provide a medical clinic for native families throughout the week.
A team of 14 Lipscomb student-athletes from Lipscomb Athletics will partner with a local elementary school and apartment complex to serve Nashville families, and a team of 14 women’s soccer players will serve families in El Salvador for the fifth-consecutive year; each sharing the same goal of spreading the Gospel through the platform of sports ministry. Three teams will go head to Guatemala to serve and a team will return to Saba for its 16th year.
“The connection with Saba runs deep with our students and alumni. It’s really amazing that children from Saba, who met our students over a decade ago, are now actually Lipscomb students themselves. We get to hear so many cool stories like that and impact that these mission trips have had on countless lives throughout the years.”
Learn more about the other spring break mission trips here.
Kemmerer, who transitioned into the role as the director of Lipscomb Missions this past October, says while the department sends out short-term mission trips throughout the year, Lipscomb Missions is focused on its long-term vision.
“The heart of Lipscomb Missions is to engage and encourage communities on the short-term, but we are always thinking about the long-term,” said Kemmerer. “As an educational community, we get to help students learn through these experiences, which enhances their worldview, and creates opportunities for spiritual growth. We are also thinking about how faith will transform our students’ in the future and in their careers.”
Kemmerer says some of the most unique and exciting things happening within Lipscomb Missions is when an engineering student gets to help build a bridge, or a nursing major serves on a medical mission trip; or even when a business student gets to help a native with their business or an athlete gets to share their passion for Christ with others through their sport.
“With partnerships, like the Peugeot Center for Engineering Service in Developing Communities in the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering or the Business as Mission program within the College of Business to name a few – we are showing students how to be missionaries in their field,” said Kemmerer. “We want to encourage students to use their gifts and passions to help others and maintain a long-term vision.”
Lipscomb Missions works to provide ample opportunities for Lipscomb students to serve on a variety of mission trips, as well as several options for Lipscomb Academy high school students. This year, the missions staff has also coordinated several hurricane relief trips.
“All mission efforts are a kind of short-term mission, and what God is doing is the real long-term,” Kemmerer continued. “We are all entering into what He is already doing. For me, my experience on the mission field was the first time I really became aware of the work God is doing around the world, and how He invites us into his story of redemption. Sometimes it takes going to the other side of the world and getting out of our comfort zones to finally see the bigger picture of what God is doing in the world.”
Want to learn more about Lipscomb Missions? Visit missions.lipscomb.edu.