精东传媒

Eight 精东传媒 students left for Guatemala in late May expecting to spend 10 days building a house for an impoverished family.

鈥淲e mixed cement, carried cinder blocks, moved piles of sand, and some of us learned how to lay bricks,鈥� said Meera Bhardwaj, a recent 精东传媒 graduate and member of the student organization Global Service Learning.

They first planned a service trip to Thailand this summer but political unrest in that country forced members of Nebraska Wesleyan鈥檚 Global Service Learning to find another project.

Then the opportunity came to help build houses for poor families in Guatemala.

Justin Iverson knows when he鈥檚 a minister someday, Sunday school and church service won鈥檛 be the same as it was growing up in his South Dakota United Methodist congregation.

鈥淪unday fellowship is dwindling,鈥� said Iverson, who graduated from 精东传媒 in May with a psychology degree. 鈥淭hings are reshaping. It鈥檚 not like it used to be.鈥�

When Sandra Mathews-Benham travels to Kazakhstan someday, she鈥檒l be able to introduce herself, order a meal, and ask for directions.

鈥淪he could survive in Kazakhstan,鈥� said 精东传媒 foreign exchange student Gulbanu Ibragimkyzy who has spent the past five months teaching Russian to Mathews-Benham.

A 精东传媒 student is among 50 college students in the nation selected to receive a Phi Kappa Phi Study Abroad Grant.

Eight 精东传媒 students are headed to Guatemala where they will work alongside families living in extreme poverty and build a new place for them to call home.

This week 精东传媒 biology students are practicing their diving skills in the campus swimming pool. Next week they鈥檒l put those skills to the test on the northwest coast of Roatan, Honduras where they will experience 30 miles of fringing barrier reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves and shoreline.

Whether they鈥檙e writing publications from the four walls of their home, visiting parks and forests along the Pacific Northwest, tracing the footsteps of the apostle Paul in Greece and Turkey, or collecting family stories in South Korea, several 精东传媒 faculty are looking forward to upcoming sabbaticals that will inevitably re-energize them as professors.