As Upland lay blanketed with snow this J-term, 471 students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, ventured on 19 trips across five continents.
From door-to-door evangelism to a safari, to shared testimonies, junior Ben Mosher found his faith growing during his time in Kenya with the Lighthouse trip.
One of his highlights of the trip was spending a few days in Nakuru at the Baby Centre, a place that rescues abandoned children aged 0 to 4, he said.
Mosher said various members of his team struggled with whether they were doing enough for the kids.
“We can love them, and we can love them fully,” Mosher said. “We can love them like God would. And that will always stick with me, those moments with kids there.”
Julianne Cowart spent two weeks of J-term travelling in Italy with the honors freshmen.
She said, the opportunity to study in Italy shed a whole new light on the country’s history.
“I was reading the book of Acts at the same time as being in Rome,” Cowart said, “so to be in the place where the early church was catching fire just made those people feel so much more real and alive.”
Cowart felt a strong connection with God through the artwork, especially the paintings, she said.
Similarly, freshman Scheaffer Ott, who went on the Footsteps of Paul trip through Greece and Italy, said she really connected with the beauty of the places she visited.
“I would just stop and think about how great God is, and that He not only made the physical elements of what we're seeing, but He made humans so intricately that they then are also able to feed into his creation,” Ott said. “We are created to create, and that was so wildly evident in many of the places that we visited.”
Something both Cowart and Ott experienced on their trips was God working through the development of relationships within the traveling group.
Ott said the group dynamic changed from the first flight to the last.
“On the way to Europe, we were all making small talk: What's your name, what's your major, where do you live on campus? And then by the end, we were having conversations that would make us double over in laughter,” she said.
It wasn’t just the community that grew, but also the knowledge and understanding of the students on the trip.
A benefit of many J-term trips is the opportunity to earn course credits while abroad. Ott fulfilled her Biblical Literature II requirement on this trip while walking in the footsteps of Paul across Europe.
“The distance that Paul covered was wild,” Ott said. “Just thinking about the enormous scale and how inspired he was to go and spread the word of God is a really incredible thing… And even with that, he persisted and listened and was vigilant in making sure he was following exactly what the Lord's plan was for him, and I think that that's a really great example for us.”
Amidst the incredibly meaningful time students had abroad, there were many fun moments. Freshman Faith Fausnight caught a pigeon for the prize of ten euros and sophomore Mark Cosgrove sang Il Fervido Desiderio and gave a Shrek performance in a 2000-year-old theatre in Philippi. AI photos of inside jokes also showed up in group chats.
The opportunity to travel abroad over J-term is an incredible experience that leaves students with unforgettable memories and lifelong friends.
“Anybody reading this should go on a Lighthouse trip,” Mosher said. “You should pray about it and be open to the ways that new culture can grow you in your faith and your cultural perspective at the church.”
