Students step off campus, out in the community and across the world to serve others

Kurt McDowell didn't get service points in a fraternity when he helped to build a school in Haiti. Brandon Beck did not receive class credit for providing medical care to people living in poverty. The rewards these students received last summer were the smiles on the faces of people that could give them nothing in return, and that was more than enough for them.

Some Southeast Missouri State University students might seek out service organizations, go Greek or sign up for service courses if they want to volunteer, but other students are helping others through campus organizations or local churches.

McDowell has gone to Haiti twice and is anxious to return. On his most recent visit, he helped to construct a building that was to serve as a church and a school. The priority, however, was to build relationships with the local children, and that often involved leaving the construction site and joining in a game of soccer with children who were thrilled to have new friends.

The Southeast sophomore went to Port Au Prince with eight other people from New Mckendree United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mo. The work days involved waking up around 6 a.m. after sleeping on air mattresses on the ground in 100-degree heat, eating a plain breakfast, doing manual labor for four hours in the morning, taking a break for lunch and then playing with children for the remainder of the day.

Kurt McDowell holding a boy named Leson at Good Shepard orphanage in Haiti. Submitted photo

"We'd play for another three hours, which was way more exhausting than the church site," McDowell said. "Those kids, they're so much fun, but so exhausting, but it's worth every second."

The children were so enthusiastic that that they even helped the mission team with their projects. One way the team served the people was with a tree ministry. They gave Haitian people fruit trees, planted them and prayed over them. The goal is that the trees can provide food, shade and a product that the people can sell.

"The little kids just loved being around us and the attention and the love we had for them that they would, like, carry half of the tree for us," McDowell said.

Seeing people with so little being so content gave McDowell a new mindset that shed light on what is truly important. He said that his experience made him realize that there is so much more to life than the abundance we have in America that people aren't often satisfied with.

"It's so eye-opening, and it's so rewarding in its own sense," McDowell said. "Obviously it's not tangible. It's hard to describe. You go to a place that doesn't have shoes to put on their feet, that barely has any clothes to put on their back, no food to put in their stomach and they're so happy. They're so thankful for what they have, and it crushes you. It absolutely crushes you."

McDowell said the relationships that he built with the children and other Haitian people are like gold. When he left a boy from the orphanage who he knew he might not see again, he said he could barely hold back the tears as he was able to communicate to the child that he sincerely loved him.

Beck said that the children in Guatemala also were excited and welcoming to his team from Cape Bible Chapel. Beck, a Southeast nursing student, went on a trip focused on meeting medical needs of people in Guatemala as well as showing them love. Beck, along with nurses, doctors and others set up clinics where they did everything from performing minor surgeries to addressing ailments like the common cold.

The houses in the area had dirt floors, and the drinking water looked like a yellow pond, Beck said. The team came in and set up two three-day clinics where they were able to give out some medicines, fit people for glasses, give shots and cut out infections and much more. When they weren't working there, the team was meeting children that had been rescued from abusive homes and were living in an orphanage.

"The little kids they have one outfit, no shoes, walking around as dirty as can be, they probably haven't had a bath in a month, but they're so happy to see you," Beck said. "They're never going to complain to you. They're just going to want to have fun with you and play around with you. The reception was really great."

One factor involved in Beck's decision to go on his first medical mission trip was Cape Bible Chapel's emphasis on serving.

"At Cape Bible Chapel, the motto is 'Equipping to Serve,' so it's not just about let's learn to be great people, it's about equipping you to serve in your community and doing all those things," Beck said. "I think if you ask anybody who went on the trip, of course it was to serve the people but just showing God's love though that."

Cape Bible Chapel, like other area churches, also has an active ministry at Southeast called Campus Outreach. Campus Outreach seeks to serve in the community and ministries such as Ignite and Catholic Campus Ministries strive to do this as well.

Ignite, sponsored by Lacroix Church in Cape Girardeau, has groups called iFams, or Ignite families, that meet weekly and study the Bible, form friendships and find ways to actively do good in the community or on campus.

Ignite campus minister Jeffrey Waters said that members of each iFam group might work together as Big Brothers or Big Sisters, or they might help the Salvation Army, but the emphasis is for the students to do this service together.

"You have the opportunity to process that experience to help that experience not just be something that goes on a resume one day, but actually as you experience those service projects together you can process them and have them play a role in transforming who you are and how you think about the world and how you think about other people," Waters said.

LaCroix will send out hundreds of people on a serve day in Cape Girardeau on Oct. 5, helping people in their own community. Ignite also offers international mission trips so that students can learn and see even more.

"It gives them the opportunity to experience Christianity outside of the walls of southeast Missouri culture," Waters said. "What does the church or what does faith look like in other parts of the world?"

Kristen Rainey, the campus minister of the Catholic Campus Ministries also said that their organization is motivated because of their faith. She said that they serve because God calls them to be servants to people and meet needs physically, materially or spiritually.

"It is important for us to uphold the dignity of every human person, and often times doing that requires some sort of act of service whether that be helping an elderly person with their groceries or whether that be helping to uphold the right to life for everyone from conception to natural death or helping somebody who's homeless to have shelter for the night or even to go further with that and help them find a permanent home or feeding the hungry or clothing the naked," Rainey said.

What McDowell, Beck and the students in campus ministry have in common is that they are willing to give of their time, their energy and their comfort in some cases to help people. In some cases the assistance given comes in the form of life-saving medical care, and sometimes it is just a free hot cup of coffee on a cold day on campus. Regardless of the good deed, these students and ministries enjoy just being able to help others.