Spring Break—beaches, warm weather, sleeping late. . . . This is the tape that runs through the brains of students at Tri-State U. But I wanted them to hear another script—work project, inner city, being stretched, serving Jesus. That’s why I told them about the great opportunity each of them had to spend spring break in downtown Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Some students accepted the challenge, and they had a spring break they will never forget!
Last spring, our small but dedicated group of five students and me teamed up with the ministry of Love Church in Ft. Wayne. Love Church is located in an inner city neighborhood that is multi-ethnic in makeup, reflecting a natural mix of Hispanics, African Americans and Caucasians in its congregation. As an outreach to its neighbors, the church sponsors a clothing ministry and a food pantry, as well as many other ministries.
Our service to the church took place in two parts. First, we spent four exhausting days doing construction work for the church, helping them build a new multipurpose area. Students got dirty sanding rough drywall, hauling garbage and painting the new walls inside the structure. Due in part to the construction help we offered, the church also hopes to open a recreation center and computer lab for single moms in the future.
In addition to construction, we also went out into the community and handed out fliers about the carnival we were sponsoring for the neighborhood two weeks later. We hoped to share Christ while we were handing out the fliers. As we visited the neighborhood surrounding the church, we ran into some interesting people! They usually welcomed us, and many brought their kids to the carnival at the church a couple of Saturdays later.
Late one afternoon, we went to Eden Green Apartments, which are notorious in Fort Wayne as a drug dealers’ paradise. We helped people carry their groceries in, handed out invitations to the carnival, and talked with residents in the complex. About an hour after we got there, several police officers suddenly arrived for a surprise drug bust, actually a fairly regular occurrence there.
There were children all around, and our hearts went out to them as we realized they had to face the rough environment of drugs and police busts regularly at Eden Green. At one point, the police came over to ask us why our group was there. In fact, they were pretty forceful at first and thought we were in on the dealing! (Apparently they didn’t see the Jesus and InterVarsity T-shirts we had on.)
We told them who we were and what we were doing. They thought we were crazy to be handing out fliers there, and reminded us how dangerous the place was. We knew it was somewhat dangerous, yet God was obviously building bridges into a very rough community. Even the police seemed afraid to be there, yet God had given us a perfect peace about what we were doing. He opened the door for many good conversations with the tenants. It saddened us that we encountered scared police officers at the same time we saw little kids running around playing. Most of the InterVarsity students came from fairly peaceful, rural environments. What a great opportunity to be exposed to a very different, very needy culture only an hour away from campus!
Two weeks later we returned to Love Church to co-sponsor “The Carnival” with them. It was a big success. The pastor’s wife commented on how efficient and hard-working our students were to help pull off the all-day event. We had games, clowns, face painting, free food, fastball pitches and water games. The I-V chapter’s worship team played music. Additionally, Love Church gave away free clothing at the event. Several hundred people made their way to the church that day, and many promised to come back on Sunday to hear more.
Senior Joe Langston learned a lot through the project. “The best part was planning for a neighborhood carnival. We were forced to trust in God for all the finances and donations we needed,” he admits. “As we trusted God, he provided everything, and we were able to minister to dozens of inner city children and show them not only a good time, but also the love of Christ.” Joe adds, “I was humbled by how much something as little as a hug or a piece of candy meant to the children. I think God ministered to me through the experience as much as—if not more than—I ministered to them.”
The spring break experience opened up students’ eyes to see a bigger picture of the world God loves. They saw the difficult, often frightening, life of an inner city resident. Sophomore Steve Fick observed, “Love Church and the surrounding neighborhood was a great experience. The ability to reach out to people and meet their needs in some small way was truly rewarding. Our week in the Love Church neighborhood opened my eyes to the fact that the United States is also a mission field and that we need God just as much as any other country.”
Students appreciated the mix of opportunities to share Jesus through service evangelism as well as out on the streets of the community. They gave themselves to the people they met, and found that they received back more than they gave. Most of all, students saw the redemptive power of the gospel at work in some very unexpected places.
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