FOR A GOOD CAUSE:Sowing seeds of hope on spring break

Like many college students, Vanguard University junior Daisy Navarro eagerly anticipates the arrival of spring break each year because it implies a trip to Mexico with several of her closest friends.

But Navarro and her companions don’t spend their vacation partying on Cancun’s beaches. They recently returned from Ensenada, where Navarro worked eight-hour days renovating a local orphanage and entertaining its children.

“I had a lot of papers to write and other things to study for, but it’s about leaving those things behind and taking the time to help others,” said Navarro, who also volunteers at House of Hope, a local shelter for battered women. “It’s such a rewarding experience just to see those kids smile and be happy.”

Navarro is one of about 100 Vanguard students who made use of the break to do philanthropic and outreach work in Mexico, San Francisco and Northern Ireland as part of the Christian university’s ministries program, which offers about 1,100 volunteer opportunities in locations around the globe, including Poland, India and El Salvador.

The program also sends teams of students to New Orleans during the winter and summer breaks to help with disaster relief since Hurricane Katrina.

“Vanguard has always stood on truth, virtue and service, and with these trips, we are really taking our faith and putting it into action, whether that means having a conversation with a homeless person, hanging out with children who don’t have fathers or going to Africa to work in an orphanage” said outreach ministries director Jamie Brownlee.

For her first trip overseas, film student Corri Vaughan took the opportunity to explore her cultural roots and simultaneously teach the youth of Northern Ireland about Christianity from a spiritual perspective as opposed to an academic one, adding that many students are skeptical of religion because of the ongoing conflicts between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

“I wanted to go there not only to see the country, but to serve the people,” said Vaughan, 21. “I just love to relate to others and make them feel loved.”

Overseeing the global outreach programs, coordinator Andrew Richey emphasized that the students do not feel they are sacrificing their vacation time by spending it in service.

“As Christians, we believe that pouring yourself out is the way to fullness,” he said. “There is so much joy found in pouring yourself out that it’s actually the most self-serving thing you can do.”

After being convinced by some friends to go on an outreach trip to San Francisco last spring, junior Eric Wilson just “had to go again this year.”

He and 30 other students assisted with homeless church services, worked with children affected by gang violence and handed out coffee, sandwiches and clothing in the streets of the Mission District, Haight-Ashbury and the Tenderloin.

“Mission trips are all about building relationships and making people feel like they mean something,” he said. “We work with the same people every day for a week so they can see we are investing time and energy into them.”

Wilson, who also hands out food at Lions Park in Costa Mesa and makes regular weekend trips to visit the homeless on Skid Row, feels most satisfied working locally.

“Some people think, ‘Oh, cool, I can go to India,’ but it’s easy to forget that there are homeless people here in Orange County,” he said.

“I think we could be a lot more effective in reaching the rest of the world if we improved the situation here at home.”