Service blesses 27 global studies students for overseas internships

Liberty University’s Global Studies Department held a Christmas commissioning service on Monday, Dec. 7, in recognition of the 27 global studies majors who will be completing their internships internationally during the Spring 2016 semester.

At the commissioning service, students and their families enjoyed Christmas refreshments, games, worship, and prayer.

In addition to the global studies major, the Department of Global Studies, which operates under the Rawlings School of Divinity, offers concentrations and cognates for programs such as aeronautics, business management information systems, youth ministry, religious studies, and music and world cultures. Additional cognates for nursing and biomedical sciences are in process. Students can also add global studies as a second major or a minor to their chosen degree program.

The 27 students will be interning in regions across the world — including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Southern Africa, Central America, and Europe — with an organization that has a need relevant to the students’ area of specialty.

The director of global studies internships said that commissioning interns allows the department to send them out “purposefully” and “prayerfully” in celebration of the journey they are on.

“While on their internships, students gain knowledge and skills, they pursue growth in cultural intelligence and cross-cultural interaction, they study a language, they research an aspect of culture that will give them insight into how to most effectively engage that culture, and they seek to live out all of these lessons as they serve the people they are surrounded by,” the director said. “The biggest thing that we hope is accomplished on these internships is that our students learn more of who Jesus is as redemptive provision for this world.”

A Global Studies and Teaching English as a Second Language student going to Eastern Europe to teach English at a local school said that this is a great opportunity to go overseas and put into practice what they will be doing long-term.

The Global Studies program is designed to produce Christ-centered leaders with the values, knowledge, and intercultural skills required to excel as individuals in their communities, lead as professionals in their fields, and serve as followers of Christ in the global context of the 21st century.