This upcoming December term BreakAway is sending out two service trips—one domestically to Jonesville, Va., with Appalachia Service Project (ASP) and the other internationally to La Florida, Peru, with The Fuller Center for Housing.
BreakAway is a student organization that operates as a resource for service trips over D-term, Spring Break and summer vacation. This experience fosters educational, cultural and spiritual growth opportunities for students.
The vice president of BreakAway, Miranda Milne, did her first D-term trip in 2013. Not only did the trip change her life, but it changed the lives of the people she helped as well.
“It was a very eye-opening and fulfilling trip knowing I was helping people in need and making a true difference in someone’s life,” said Milne.
Jonesville
Domestically, the BreakAway team will be working with ASP, a ministry in central Appalachia that inspires hope and service through home repair. The goal is to make homes warmer, safer and drier.
The BreakAway team will be working alongside the community on a specific project assigned to the group. This may include building new floors, installing insulation and possibly doing roofing repair. The students will have many opportunities to give back as well as get to know the hearts of the homeowners.
Karli Saner, the assistant director of ministry and service and the person in charge of BreakAway says, “many think you have to go abroad to truly experience the depths of poverty when really it’s all around us and our “neighbors” (so to speak) are hurting too.”
La Florida
The other BreakAway team will be working with the Fuller Center for Housing, a Christian non-profit that builds and renovates houses in partnership with families in need both globally and domestically. Homeowners will work hand-in-hand with the BreakAway team in Peru to build and renovate homes, which they then can pay for on terms that they can afford with no interest charged.
The team will live in a camp just outside of their worksite where they will rest from the long hours in the heat. Going abroad will introduce culture shock to the students—it’s one thing to talk about it and another to actually go and experience it.
This will be the first time Breakaway has offered Peru as a service trip. The Fuller Center for Housing is both faith-and service-driven, and it will open many student’s eyes culturally and spiritually.
Saner says, “These trips, like every BreakAway trip, we are expectant for students and staff to be challenged—not only spiritually or in one’s own faith, but vocationally and intellectually. These trips provide opportunity for the lenses in which we see the world to be stripped bare bone down to the heart of the wounds and wonders alike. It’s my hope for all involved to not just see the world, but learn to love it and find their place in it.”
