Mission trips can be a valuable and unforgettable part of the college experience. They help you grow as a person, provide you with the opportunity to spread the Word of God, and allow you bring aid to those in need around the world. You help others, while the Lord grows your faith.
Mission Trips: Learn to Place Service Above Self
Much of your college experience is necessarily self-centered. You take courses, you receive grades, you participate in activities, you make friends. But college can also be a time of self-reflection where you think beyond self. A mission trip teaches that the world does not revolve around you, and that you may be built for a higher purpose. What is your life’s mission and how will you get there?
“I never felt so much love in my whole entire life. This trip showed me the face of God in every smiling face I encountered.” Harleigh Stillwell
Spread the Gospel on a Mission Trip
More than 42% of the world’s population hasn’t learned of the Gospel. Mission trips give you the opportunity to share the Gospel with the unreached. Just imagine how you’d feel if you didn’t have the Gospel in your life. Introduce people to Christ and his teachings, and it can completely change their lives.
Help Others
Travel the world and provide aid, assistance, and education to those who need it most. Your mission trip will require dedication, hard work, and an uplifting attitude. You may be called upon to build buildings or bridges—in the figurative and literal sense—or you may teach English. The mission field provides the need, and you provide the helping hands. This service contribution can leave a lifelong impact on the people you help and on you too.
Strengthen Your Own Faith Through a Mission Trip
Mission trips serve others, while helping you to grow as well. You can build your own knowledge and beliefs the more you talk about them. In school, one of the best ways to strengthen comprehension is to explain course content to someone else. This same effect can happen when you explain and interpret faith in Christ to others. You strengthen your own understanding in the process.
Experience Cross-Cultural Relationships
Your mission trip could be to an inner city, around the country, or across the globe. You’ll meet and interact with diverse populations, forging connections with people who may not look or think like you. Especially if you travel abroad, you’ll learn about different cultures, experiences, and ways of life. You’ll hear stories and learn about people whose experiences are much different from your own. You’ll also get to share who are, where you come from, and what you think and believe. It’s a two-way experience that builds greater awareness on both sides. You can develop new relationships that will help to broaden your horizons and expand your worldview, creating bonds and memories that can last a lifetime. And the more you realize that people are people the world over, the more you can be a beacon for peace and fellowship.
Apply What You’ve Learned in the Classroom on a Mission Trip
Whether you major in nursing, philosophy, counseling or any number of other fields, mission trips help you gain practical experience while you also help others. Reach underserved populations, apply your knowledge to different cultures, and get real-life experience using your classroom skills in settings you may have never thought you would.
See the World During a Mission Trip
From South America and Asia to Europe and Africa, mission trips can send you all over the world. Many Americans may never leave their own state, let alone our country. Mission trips can get you well out of your comfort zone and into places you never thought you’d see in your lifetime.
Grow as a Leader
While you will be a student of life on your mission trip, you will also become a teacher and a leader for those you serve. This opportunity helps you develop a new side of yourself that can prepare you for leadership roles in work and later life.
Mission Trips Impact the World Long After They End
Many mission trips are short-term affairs that take place as alternative spring breaks, but once you’ve had the experience of one, you may choose to embrace many more. Or it may impact how you become a servant leader. Mission trips early in life are strong predictors of later volunteerism or mission work. Christian college students who went on mission trips are stronger in faith and more likely to help others than those who do not go on missions. College mission trips increase cultural competency, foster personal growth, and more.
Bluefield University is a Christian University based in rural Virginia. Our mission is to help our students become servant leaders that transform the world. Through our Christ-centered learning community, we offer many ways for you to learn, serve, and grow. Mission trips are one way you might give back to the world and learn more about themselves. Contact our Campus Ministries to learn more about how we serve the community and the world.
“I’ve heard that God is the God of the universe time and time again, and it was something that I’ve always understood, but never realized.” Emily Carlisle