NEWS & PRESS RELEASES

Students Make the Most of Spring Break

Not all BBC students chose to use their spring break as a time to recuperate from overloaded schedules and weighted assignments. Two large groups of students participated in various pursuits, touching lives and changing their own in the process. Several students connected themselves with Heritage Baptist Church’s missions trip to Biloxi, MS, to continue aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Other students hit the Appalachian Trail to experience the physical and spiritual challenges of outdoor living.

Heritage Baptist Church funded the Katrina Relief Trip and invited its members, as well as College students, to become a part of the effort to assist and encourage the families still affected by the hurricane.

BBC Junior Jessica Bennet noted that when she heard of the trip, she felt compelled to go, but the lack of funds proved to be an obstacle. “I just knew that if God wanted me to go on the trip, He would provide,” Jessica said. “Although I was relieved when I heard that Heritage was financially supporting the entire trip, and we just needed to pay $25 for food, I was still was discouraged because I didn’t even have that much. Yet God provided again through the generosity of my grandmom. Even before the trip, I was watching God at work.”

Jessica reflected that one of the highlights of the trips was watching strangers come together for a common goal. “At one point, a friend of mine, a man whom I didn’t know, and I began singing hymns and praise songs as we worked. It was amazing to realize that although we were strangers we are bound to each other through the body of Christ.”

Fifty-three students and faculty experienced hiking and camping in the Appalachian Mountains. Junior Jake Tipton, one of the leaders of the excursion, explained what the Wilderness adventure is all about. “In my mind,” Tipton said, “Wilderness is anyplace outdoors away from urbanization where hardly any interaction between people and the ‘real world’ takes place.”

Tipton continued to define Wilderness as “a place that draws believers who go on the trip back to their roots as presented in Scripture as being pilgrims on a journey.” For most of the hikers, Wilderness provided a time of escape from life’s routines and focused thoughts and hearts on Christ.

Most individuals were physically stretched as they averaged at least 10 miles a day. Many realized that their physical strength came from God, and only He could enable them to complete the trail—mentally, physically, and spiritually. As Tipton added, “Wilderness is about growing and changing and becoming who we were meant to be in Christ.”  

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