George Fox sends students to Swaziland for month of service
May 7th, 2012
Now in its 23rd year, George Fox University’s May Serve program has offered humanitarian aid to countries all over the globe
NEWBERG, Ore. – A team of 17 George Fox University students and staff will return to Swaziland in May to work with Adventures in Missions (AIM) Ministries, an outreach dedicated to serving the poor around the world.
The team will visit the African country from May 7 to June 1 as part of the university’s annual May Serve program. While there, the group will partner with AIM, an interdenominational missions organization that focuses on discipleship. AIM plans, organizes and leads short-term mission trips with the goal of mobilizing people into life-long discipleship and long-term missions.
The George Fox visitors will partner with missionaries and Swaziland nationals to assist with various projects, according to Andrea Macleod, the university’s director of outreach and service.
“We will work in conjunction with AIM to find the best fit for our team and ways that we can be a support and encouragement to those daily ministering and living in Swaziland,” MacLeod said.
MacLeod added that, currently, Swaziland nationals and missionaries are ministering through their medical clinic, soccer ministry and educational resources, helping to meet basic needs. “(AIM) believes that by giving people the opportunity to hold orphans, bring hope to the hopeless, and pray for the sick, lives are transformed,” she said.
Now in its 23rd year, the George Fox May Serve program allows students to spend a month in volunteer service in cross-cultural settings. Previous May Serve trips have gone to Swaziland, Peru, Thailand, Ukraine, Brazil, India, Cuba, Jamaica, Romania and the Philippines.
Students are selected through an application process, and each traveler pays his or her own way. Part of the fundraising includes garage sales, auctions, raffles, car washes and charity dinners. To learn more about the program or donate to this year’s trip, contact MacLeod at 503-554-2323.
This is the first of two trips scheduled this spring. In June, George Fox is sending a team of 15 students to Romania and Moldova to work with the ministry Word Made Flesh. The group will volunteer alongside WMF missionaries with at-risk Romanian and Moldovan children in various after-school/summer camp opportunities.
“That team will participate in the life of the WMF missionaries in daily worship and routine work tasks,” MacLeod said. “They will develop an awareness and compassionate heart for the children of Romania and Moldova that face severe threats of trafficking, abandonment, drug abuse and exploitation.”
George Fox also sponsors weeklong service trips during Christmas break and spring break.
MacLeod says she is always amazed by what transpires on each trip. “Most of the students have no idea how the trip will impact them,” she said. “Time and time again, we are blown away by how the Lord moves and works among and through our students.”
George Fox University is ranked by Forbes and Kiplinger’s among the top Christian universities in the country and is a Christian college classified by U.S. News & World Report as a first tier regional university and a “Best Value” school. More than 3,500 students attend classes on the university’s campus in Newberg, Ore., and at teaching centers in Portland, Salem, and Redmond, Ore., and Boise, Idaho. George Fox offers bachelor’s degrees in more than 40 majors, degree-completion programs for working adults, five seminary degrees, and 11 master’s and doctoral degrees.
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Contact:
Andrea MacLeod
Director of Outreach and Service
503-554-2323