While sharing laughter and smiles with a couple of village children, Erin Joseph, a student at Union University, saw firsthand the hunger and poverty of the Marense.

For a group of nine Union University students and one sponsor from Jackson, Tenn., finding their way in the darkness is challenging. Glimmers of light from flashlights the team brought with them help. With songs and testimonies, the group hopes to shine some brightness into the spiritual darkness as well.

This is the last night for the team. Tomorrow they fold their tents, break camp, throw their backpacks in the back of two pickup trucks—along with a complimentary goat and two chickens—and begin their journey home in the morning. It’s been a tough week.

“Everything that we planned didn’t work out as we thought,” says team member Naomi Girrard, who will be a sophomore this fall.

The evening isn’t going well. Shadowy faces, a Muslim minority in the darkness, snicker and comment back and forth in garbled Marense (mahr-ON-say) as the team presents the gospel. The underlying disruption soon spreads, and before long, it is evident that no one will come forward this night to accept Christ.

For the Union team, it is a disappointing end to an entire week that hasn’t seemed to go right. One obstacle after another has reared its ugly head. Their sponsor, Roger Glidewell, left the village that morning to rest in a hotel in Kaya after becoming ill and spending the previous night throwing up.

But the Union team has continued on, hoping and praying their actions will show the love of Christ.

“When God shuts the door, He always opens a door,” says team member Phil Smith, a senior majoring in early-childhood education.

For the past few years, Union’s GO Trips have taken students all over the world. Each year, the school sends students overseas to share the gospel and to learn more about overseas missions.

“When I was a student here, [Union] was missions driven, but the focus was West Tennessee and the Mid-south region,” says Charles Fowler, vice president for development, church relations/denominational support and assistant professor of education at the school. “To move forward 15 years, that has changed dramatically since then.”

Perspectives
On the final night, there was no parade of villagers coming forward to accept Christ or much affirmation. But the lives of the team were changed, and they came away with a new respect for missions.

April Bermudez, a Christian studies major, shared earlier that week about how God has shown her what loving people like the Marensé is all about.

“Christians in general say they love every people group, and we are gung ho on these mission trips,” she says. “They say, ‘Oh, that is so sad that they have flies in their face.’ But unless you honestly pray to love these people as Christ has loved them, it’s not cute when you are here because the flies are on you.”

Bermudez believes God will have His day in the village when the time is right.

“We sometimes assume we are going to bring the Word to these people,” she says. “But God is already at work here.”

“We just came to join in.”

Editor’s note: A short time after the Union team left the village, five people were baptized after accepting Christ into their lives.

The writer and photographer may be reached by e-mail at shendricks@imb.org and wjohnson@imb.org.

Without being able to communicate through the same language, a team of Union students found simple ways to share the love of Christ. The students had help from some International Mission Board journeymen working with the Marense.

‘Go’ program catches vision

Whether through the classroom or the office of campus ministries, Union University in Jackson, Tenn., wants their students to have a desire to “go”— on missions that is.

Since 1996, the school has expanded its missions program to give students more opportunities to travel and learn about missions overseas and around the country. Students participate through campus efforts known as GO Trips.

“When you step on the campus, we want you to see the passion and to catch the vision for missions,” says Todd Brady, minister to the university. “We don’t want to delegate missions to one department on campus. We want all of our [students] to have an understanding of why missions is important —to be connected and to understand the motivation behind it.”

Last year, the university sent 200 students on mission trips to 15 different locations around the world and in country, explains Suzanne Mosley, director of student outreach. This is a sharp increase from less than 100 students who participated in mission trips in 1995.

Venezuela, Boston, Thailand, Indonesia, Seattle and Egypt were just a few of the areas spotlighted during the school’s annual “GO Week” last fall. The event immerses students in opportunities to go on mission during the winter, spring and summer.

The university’s office of campus ministries—which heads up the missions program—is different from similar programs because its ministry staff are employed by the university, says Mosley.

“It’s something that comes from inside,” she says. “We want missions to be who we are, not what we do.”