Baylor Students Take Part in Mission Trips Across the Globe

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Media contact: Lori Fogleman, (254) 710-6275
WACO, Texas (July 13, 2015) – Throughout the summer, 259 Baylor University students, staff and faculty have spread across the globe to 15 different countries as they took part in some of the 16 different global mission trips offered by Baylor Missions.
Baylor Missions collaborates with faculty and staff from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, along with their global partners, to implement spiritually rich and challenging experiences for the students. It is their hope that the students who participate in the trips not only enjoy the experience, but also discover a sense of vocation and calling as they see first-hand how they can use their discipline to serve.
"Mission trips through Baylor Missions are a great way for Baylor faculty, staff and students to integrate faith with discipline-specific learning and hands-on service," said Holly Widick, assistant director for missions at Baylor Missions. "While actively applying what you are learning in the Baylor classroom to aid in creating solutions to real world problems like poverty, hunger, access to education and a host of other iniquities."
This summer, mission trips destinations included Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Zambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Malawi, Peru, Uganda and Washington, D.C.
In May, student-athletes led by Baylor athletics chaplain Wes Yeary, traveled to Brazil to take part in a sports ministry program. Forty-five student-athletes, club-sport athletes, managers, trainers, coaches and staff took part in the program, which is Baylor's largest mission trip.
"We partnered with churches in Maceio and Rio de Janeiro and helped them develop their sports ministries by creating sports clinics and sharing the gospel with students in the surrounding community schools and favelas, or slums," Yeary said.
A group of 13 students traveled to Haiti in May for the engineering mission trip. Engineering students, who are studying mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, biomedical engineering or humanitarian engineering, took part. The group flew into Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, to purchase supplies before crossing the border the next day into the small town of Ferrier, Haiti.
"The primary goal of the trip was to establish cellphone-charging businesses in the area that would benefit not only the business owners but also the surrounding community," said trip leader Brian Thomas, senior lecturer and assistant chair of electrical and computer engineering.
"With the help of a Haitian pastor, we identified five families that live in outlying communities around Ferrier with reputations for being leaders in the church and community," Thomas said. "We installed a solar panel and the associated electrical equipment to enable these families to start a business charging cellphones and also encouraged them to reach out to their local communities by providing electric light at their homes for school children to use for studying at night."
Jason MacGregor, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting and business law, lead a team of 19 students to Uganda as part of the Uganda accounting mission trip. During the mission, students worked with pastors and local business people, hosted a conference and helped with business consulting. Students also spent time with children in poverty, attended church services and designed tourism activities.
"Students who attend gain an understanding of how business can advance the kingdoms of Uganda," MacGregor said.
Among the other mission trips are social work trips to the Dominican Republic, an El Salvador music mission, a Zambia women's leadership mission, a Ghana community development trip and a Guatemala nutrition trip.
A full list of every mission trip offered this summer can be found on the Baylor Missions' website.
by Spencer Cutright, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 16,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.