Students go global with 18 university-sponsored Spring Break trips

More than 500 Liberty University students, faculty, and staff are currently traveling the globe this Spring Break on 18 trips planned by the university’s LU Send office. The trips cover 16 countries.

LU Send crafts unique learning and travel opportunities that allow students to engage with new cultures while applying their academic knowledge. Each trip gives students a chance to earn class credit or participate in service projects.

In addition, the university’s LU Send Now disaster relief initiative dispatched a team of 21 students to Texas this week to partner with Samaritan’s Purse in continued cleanup efforts from Hurricane Harvey last summer.

Here is an overview of where Liberty students will be this week:

• Italy: The Rawlings School of Divinity will visit historical sites, such as the Colosseum, the Cathedral of Florence, St. Peters Basilica, Mars Hill, the Acropolis and the Mamertine Prison (where Paul was imprisoned in Rome). The trip will allow them to walk in the footsteps of Paul and other writers of the New Testament.
• England and Ireland: The Department of Philosophy will take students on a trip to trace the steps of C. S. Lewis. Highlights include the city of Dublin, Lewis’ childhood home, his adult home at Oxford, his plaque in the Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, Addison’s Walk (where Lewis became a theist while walking with J.R.R. Tolkien) and the universities where Lewis attended and later taught classes.
• Japan: The School of Engineering will explore Tokyo and visit historical sites in the Kanto area.
• Israel: School of Business and the Rawlings School of Divinity will have more than 80 students in Israel this week. The students and faculty will explore the sites of the Holy Land.
• Greece: Professors from the College of General Studies will take students on a tour of Greece to learn how Athens shaped Western civilization. They will also visit Corinth and Mars Hill, both places where the Apostle Paul preached and ministered.
• France and Belgium: Students from the Theatre Arts Department will be in France and Belgium to learn more about western European culture. Students will perform a short play for locals on the trip as they integrate faith and academic learning.
• Jamaica: Students from the School of Education will visit several Jamaican schools where they will observe and teach. They will be responsible for planning and teaching three instructional lessons in a supervised setting and evaluate their own teaching through team collaboration, professor support, and a local teacher-administrator.
• Costa Rica: Students from the Department of Psychology will work with local ministries, including Face of Justice. This ministry is dedicated to sheltering, empowering, and loving survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation and to the men, women, and children working in prostitution in Costa Rica.
• Haiti: School of Business students will learn about how they can engage the people of Haiti through business projects.
• Nicaragua: Led by faculty from the School of Music, students and Liberty’s Latin American Worship Ensemble will be in Somotillo, Nicaragua, to help facilitate a worship seminar for local worship pastors.
• Kenya: School of Nursing students are currently in Kenya where they will help those in need through community clinics and outreach.
• Dominican Republic: The Rawlings School of Divinity and the Department of Social Work students will be touring the country and engaged with the culture of the Caribbean island. Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine will also be sending a medical missions team to the Dominican Republic.
• Central and South America: Student-doctors from Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine will be serving on different medical outreach trips in Honduras, Guatemala, and Peru.
• Rwanda: More than 90 students, faculty, and staff are currently serving the country of Rwanda as part of the university’s G5 initiative. The project is based on the attributes of Galatians 5 and focuses on a specific country each year. The Rwanda team is made up of students and professors representing several schools and departments. While there, the team will partner with Compassion International and conduct a series of service projects, including building two homes for those in need. Nursing students will be working specifically with local clinics and have donated a new ultrasound machine to a clinic in Changugu. (Follow the team on Facebook or Instagram.)