Spiritual Development announced the locations of the 2018 Fusion mission trips on September 29. In the past, Fusion trips have been held exclusively during spring break and present students with the option of serving in the states or internationally for one week. This year, however, students will have additional options.
Spiritual Development announced that trips will still be available during spring break, but there will also be two summer trips available for students to participate in. This gives many athletes the opportunity to take part in missions, since many athletes are competing in athletic competitions during the week of spring break. Another addition to this year’s Fusion trips will be Trevecca students’ participation on select teams.
During spring break, there will be four Fusion trips ministering to Boston, Mass., Houston, TX, Manila, Philippines, and another will explore southern culture and civil rights in various locations in the south. The trips during the summer will send teams to Ndola, Zambia, and Nairobi, Kenya.
Last year, a Fusion team served in Boston as helping hands and through learning about the homeless community. This year, students on the Boston team will learn about the continuum of human exploitation and trafficking. This trip would be a great fit for any students with an interest in social work, psychology, criminal justice, or ministry. The Boston team will be one of the teams with Trevecca students joining the mission.
The Southern Culture and Civil Rights Tour will be a trip exploring the role of civic participation in a democratic society. Students visit key historical cities such as Memphis, Jackson, New Orleans, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, and Atlanta. All of these cities were important in the struggle for the Civil Rights Movement. This tour will also consist of a combination of Trevecca and ENC students.
To help in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, ENC will be sending a mission team to Houston, TX, to work with Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and different pastors on the South Texas District to help remodel homes in communities of Lake Jackson.
The fourth spring break Fusion team will head overseas to Manila, Philippines. This team will visit two holistic child development centers in order to interact with children who have been affected by child labor, human trafficking, and HIV/AIDS. ENC students will have the opportunity to get to know affected children and help understand their stories.
In May, the first of the summer Fusion trips will journey to Ndola, Zambia, with Coach Mark Bell, the men’s soccer coach, and his wife, Dr. Catherine Bell. Students will be partnering with Jubilee Centre in Ndola to help lead a soccer ministry, a counseling psychology conference, food programs, and Bible studies. This trip combines Coach Bell’s passion for soccer as a way to ministry, and Dr. Bell’s specialty in Psychology to reach the people of Ndola.
The final Fusion trip will embark on a 3-week mission trip to Nairobi, Kenya. In a partnership with our sister school Africa Nazarene University, the main focus of the trip is to educate students on gender-based violence and help them understand community development. The first two weeks will be spent in an ANU experiential course focusing on peace initiatives in Kenya, and the third week will be spent at the Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya. This trip would be great for students who have an interest in global development, business, or issues of justice and gender equality.
Fusion trips can be a great way for students from all over campus to come together in different ways to serve God, and the Office of Spiritual Development has done an amazing job this year to make a large amount of locations, with many different focuses, available to as many students as possible.