Service

Serving together

My favorite tradition as a Bethel College soccer player has been volunteering every November at the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) center. The entire team, coaches included, work for several hours together grinding, weighing, canning, cooking and labeling meat.

New players usually dread the thought of assembly line work and food processing. What appears to be tough manual labor, which it technically is at times, turns out to be an incredibly bonding experience for the entire team.

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Teammates vary in their responses to the work. Some are incredibly focused on their job and work at an intense pace, while others work with friends and can be seen smiling and laughing throughout the process.

Whatever method you choose to complete the work, you end up feeling accomplished and satisfied by the end of the shift. It has been an absolutely pivotal team bonding moment for the team before we head into another off-season.

However, the greatest value of this event is not in the benefits of the team. The thousands of pounds of meat canned at MCC are sent to impoverished countries where many people struggle to find meals.

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It is not just the soccer team who is involved with this process. Mennonite organizations provide several workers who travel with this project across the central USA in order to lead groups in food processing missions. Local community members volunteer their time to work shifts before, after and during the time soccer players are present.

Bethel’s emphasis on serving is not limited to donations and internal service projects. Bethel provides opportunities for students to volunteer their time among the community as we together serve one another,  our community, those in need and God.

Until next time-

Eric

Project Semicolon

Many of you may have seen people around campus wearing light grey shirts with a big maroon semicolon on them. Maybe you even have one yourself.

These shirts were given out last week at the National Suicide Awareness Day event here on campus. Do you know what the shirts really mean, though?

I got the idea to write about the semicolon project when my best friend asked me what the shirts actually mean.

I had a little bit of knowledge of what the semicolon meant already, but I decided to do a little more research into it.

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“;” represents a faith-based movement known as Project Semicolon. It was launched in 2013 by Amy Bleul. Amy lost her father to suicide, and she personally struggled with mental health crises such as bullying, depression and rape. Amy strives to share the love of Christ with the world, and she prays that her story will inspire others.

In grammatical terms, a semicolon is evidence of a pause that is longer than that of a comma, but is shorter than the full stop of a period, according to grammarbook.com. For Project Semicolon, the semicolon represents those who have suffered from mental illness, addiction and suicide, as well the stigmas associated with them. The semicolon also represents that their story is not over, and that life and hope will go on.

“A semicolon represents a sentence the author could have ended, but chose not to. 
The sentence is your life and the author is you.” 
– Project Semicolon

Project Semicolon has spread all around the world. Many musicians support the movement, and it has been widely spread through social media as well. People have even gotten tattoos of a semicolon to represent solidarity with the Semicolon Project, as well as to remind themselves that their story is not over.

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So there’s just a little bit of information about what those T-shirts are all about. Now if someone asks you why you’re wearing shirt with a on it, you can tell them what it means!

For more information on the Semicolon Project, visit www.projectsemicolon.org.

If you or someone you know needs immediate help, call 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433).

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“STAY STRONG; LOVE ENDLESSLY; CHANGE LIVES” -Project Semicolon

-Kiley

 

Profoundly Simple

At Bethel, you are bound to meet people who will take an interest in your life. There are friends you will make that will be there for you when you need someone to lend an ear.

I have seen many examples of students helping out a fellow friend or going out of their way to improve the lives of others. These people serve as role models for others. They are people that are to be looked up to in many respects.

Sometimes there is a person that is willing to do great things for those in need, and they are willing to do so without recognition. This can be very difficult because part of the reward of helping someone is receiving thanks and recognition. I am not taking away from deeds that are noticed. These are a very necessary part of community and certainly still require sacrifice.

Bethel is fortunate enough to have a friend amongst us that was willing to make a profound difference in another student’s life. There is a student that has been traveling back and forth to home almost every other weekend to spend time with his sick mother.

Someone on Bethel’s campus noticed this student’s tough situation. Their attention to the pain of others translated into a profoundly simple gift (a note of thoughtfulness and a bit of cash to help pay for gas). The note was left anonymous in order to keep the focus on the student who could use the money and reassurance that people cared.

The effect is widespread. Everyone who has heard this story and knows the student cannot help but tear up in joy for the selfless act. My hope is that it inspires more acts of generosity. All it took was a watchful eye and a mind determined to help with even most simple, and often overlooked, of burdens.

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The Bethel Blood Drive

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Nolan Corne donating blood

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Madelyn Weaver and myself

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Just some of the Red Cross blood drive crew!

1258 November has been a very busy month for me! As a co-leader of Bethel SCAN (Student Community Action Network) I was in charge of the blood drive this semester. While you might think this would not be very hard, there were actually many different tasks I had to finish before the blood drive could be a success.

First, I had to make sure we had pizza for people to eat after giving blood. Pizza Hut and Papa John’s were both extremely helpful and had no problem donating pizzas for the cause. We received four pizzas, plates, and napkins from both places. Any snack items besides the pizza were supplied by the Red Cross. I was also involved in multiple meetings and phone calls with our blood drive coordinator, Geneva Land.

Madelyn Weaver and I hung posters all over Bethel’s campus. Alyssa Scheuerman, Madelyn Weaver, Kathryn Kelman, and I handed out fliers after convo one day. But, by far the biggest duty I had was to get enough blood donors to sign up. So, Shianne DeFreese and I sat outside of the cafeteria almost everyday for two weeks. As I’m sure you all noticed! A few community members also called or emailed me and joined our cause to donate blood.

The day of the blood drive, some members of the Bethel football team, along with some other guys, came and helped unload the blood drive truck in the morning. There is a lot of equipment needed for a blood drive! Then, throughout the day I had volunteers coming in every hour. These volunteers included: Olivia Gehring, Javen Zellner, Alyssa Scheuerman, Katrina Regehr, Rachel Evans, Mallory Black, Jessica Ebenkamp, Aaron Topham, Lina Adame, Emily Wedel, Tana Myers, Koki Lane (who was also in charge of picture taking), Rachel Unruh, Raul Silva, Katelyn Melgren, Jared Regehr, Sarah Cunningham, and Madelyn Weaver. Michelle Unruh also picked up some supplies for the blood drive. After the blood drive was over, the Bethel tennis team came to help load all of the equipment back into the truck. Of course, I cannot forget all of the blood donors. Over all we had 68 people come to donate and of them, 57 were able to donate. This means we saved 171 lives in only four hours! Good job Bethel!

Lastly I would like to thank Ada Schmidt-Tieszen, Madelyn Weaver, and Shianne DeFreese for helping me plan the blood drive.

Fall at Bethel

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Leah and Danny

Life has become crazy on Bethel Campus! Where to start… First, I went to Camp Mennoscah for service day. This was a great trip! I went with a very diverse group: Leah Towle, who had never been to Camp Mennoscah before, Jared Regehr and Megan Siebert, my fellow staffers from this summer, and a few other great individuals with varying degrees of familiarity with Camp Mennoscah. We left Bethel at 8am and (mostly) stayed awake for the ride out. When we got to Camp Mennoscah we started working in the Bluestem house.

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The whole crew!

We scraped floors, swept floors, mopped floors, dusted furniture, cleaned bathrooms, took out recycling, and much much more. The day also included an awesome lunch and some time to check out the Ninnescah River.

Another series of events happening in my life are the many activities of the Bethel College Concert Choir. We sang at Faith Mennonite, BCMC, and Tabor Mennonite Church within the past few months. Just yesterday we sang at the President’s Club dinner. This semester has been my first experience of being in the Bethel College Concert Choir. I feel very blessed to have this opportunity to sing with all of the amazing people in the choir!

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This past week we also celebrated Halloween. The weekend before was the Halloween dance, which was quite fun! But, this past Thursday it was our turn to make Halloween fun for someone else! Bethel hosted trick-or-treat-off-the-streets. We had many young children come to our door for some goodies. We saw a wide range of costumes, from an out-house, to a sock monkey, to twin Cleopatra’s. Here is one of the Cleopatra’s with his three daughters and me. As you can see, I did not dress up as anything special. However, Katelyn Melgren did my hair in a “Princess Leia” fashion so I could almost claim I was from Star Wars.

The last project that has been keeping me busy is organizing the Bethel Blood Drive. As a co-leader of SCAN, my specific project is to run the blood drive that Bethel hosts once a semester. So, for the past two weeks, I have been sitting outside of the caf, asking people to donate blood. So far, Bethel has shown up! The blood drive is this Tuesday, November, 5th, so it is quickly approaching.

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Service Day, Serving for life

This past Wednesday was “Service day” for Bethel’s campus. There were lots of opportunities and ways to get involved including cleaning up Sand Creek Trail, landscaping, painting and deep cleaning the Agape House. Some people also went to Et Cetera shop to help price and put out clothing, others went to an Elementary school and cleaned and helped teachers with odd jobs and some even got to interact with the children as well. The tennis team also had a “service” going on where those that were available could help clean out the tennis shed and tie down the tennis windscreens.

Unfortunately I was not able to participate in service day this year but Maria Day my Spanish professor reminded our Spanish class of something very important. One of her philosophical thoughts. That was that not only should we do service one day for service day, but that we should serve every day whether it be in a big or small way. She said that even something as simple as a smile or a hello can brighten someone’s day and can be a form of service.

I think that is a good reminder for me and for us all of the kind of mind set that we should have about service and about one of the goals for our lives, not only giving back to our community on “Service day” or through volunteer work if you participate in that as well, but giving back to the people who are in your life, to those who are in your life permanently or those who just pass through, to those who are important to you and those who you might not know as well, even a simple smile or caring about how they are doing can be just what someone needs to get through the day.

Bigs in Schools

It is difficult to believe that we are over halfway through October already! The school year has continued to fly by. Fall Fest was only a week ago and I finished up all my midterm exams this week. Even amidst the neverending homework assignments and due dates one of the highlights of my week is still the same as every year — going to see my little sister for Bigs in Schools. Read More

Service Day

Bethel’s motto of “Seek, serve, grow” is lived out by its students every day, but every spring we set out one day to focus on the middle of that motto. On Service Day, daytime classes are cancelled so that students, faculty and staff can participate in a variety of service projects.

The projects range from on-campus service to working at Newton area agencies and traditionally a group also goes out to Camp Mennoscah, a Mennonite church camp about an hour away.

The projects are organized so that students can spend anywhere from one hour to the whole day on a project. The Camp Mennoscah group lasts until late afternoon, while many on campus projects are finished by lunch.  This year projects included painting an equipment shed, cleaning windows, painting other things on campus, working at the homeless shelter and women’s shelter, and many others.

While service is not required of students, the community atmosphere highly encourages it. It’s hard to not join in when all of your friends are out giving back to the community!

Standing on Holy Ground

Lately, my life has been filled with Holy moments.  These sacred moments shape my life as a person of faith, and remind me of my desired to seek, serve, and grow in my faith.  A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to serve communion at my home church in Wichita.  This particular Sunday, communion was taken by intinction (partly dipping the bread into the “wine”), so I had the job of holding the cup.  On my side of the sanctuary, the pastor held the bread, and people took from that before coming to me.  The whole thing was such a humbling experience!  Here I was, standing beside the pastor serving this community of faith that has watched me grow from a newborn into this young woman of faith who is considering a call to pastoral ministry.  It was such a humbling experience to serve communion to the adults I think of as my “other mothers and fathers.”  These are the adults who I have I looked up to and greatly respected for my entire life.  Now I was serving them, on Holy ground.

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We Love Camp Mennoscah!

One of the great things at Bethel College is the commitment to service and the love for a little place called Camp Mennoscah.  I’m sure you won’t be on campus long without seeing someone with a Mennoscah t-shirt, or hear a story that begins “last summer when I was counseling…”  It’s true, there are other camps where Bethel students volunteer or work and love, but as my brother once said, “Bethel goes to Camp Mennoscah.”  Last summer all 8 summer staffers were Bethel students and a large number of the counselors were.

Camp Mennoscah is a small camp owned by the area conference of Mennonite Church USA (with which Bethel is also affiliated).  It’s located in the middle of nowhere about an hour and a half away from Bethel.  In the summer, the cabins (without electricity) are beastly hot, but those who fall in love with Mennoscah love that place with a fierce devotion, proclaiming there’s no other camp worth talking about.

This month the 2012 catalogs rolled off the press and were ready for tabbing and addressing.  With a bare bones staff at Camp during the “off-season” (read, not summer), they turned to Bethel students to help get the job done.  A group of about 8 Bethel students came and went from the mod 4C to get help get the catalogs ready for the mail.  Check out a couple of the pictures of Bethel students hard at work.  It was a lot of fun to sit around, looking at the pictures from last year, talking about favorite memories and looking forward to next year.  You could feel the excitement in the room.

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