Many of you who went to college remember how you spent that week off in between known as Spring Break. You either:
Went home and worked for a week at the job that put you through college
Did community service projects, or if you were like I was during my time at Slippery Rock, or:
Spent it on a warm beach in the panhandle of Florida sharing your faith with other fellow Spring breakers hoping to win them over to Christ.
For me, I did the last one. When I came to Slippery Rock in the Fall of 2003, one of the first things I asked about was what faith-based organizations were on campus. I belonged to a lot of them in my first semester.
I spent a lot of my time and energy at the Rock being involved in a non-denominational organization called Campus Crusade for Christ. While most kids abandon their faith when they get to college, I began to build mine when I arrived at the Hiram G. Andrews Center in the Fall of 2000. I went to church while I was in Johnstown and began to listen to more religious music by my last year there. I also sported a holier-than-thou attitude while I was starting out in my walk with God. So I was hungry for more when I got to Slippery Rock on that warm and humid day in August of 2003.
One of the things I was told about when it came to “CRU” were the trips that they took. That school year of 2003-2004, I took plenty of trips with this organization and made many friends. Here’s where my Campus Crusade adventures took me:
A weekend retreat in the Fall to Camp Sequanota (a camp that my cousins worked at and attended for many summers).
An event over the holidays called Christmas Conference which was held in Washington DC. I attended workshops, met many CRU staff members and students, rode the subway through the DC suburbs, and shared my faith with other people near the Washington monument.
A big Spring Break event called Big Break that was held in Panama City Beach.
Out of the three events I attended that first year with CRU, Big Break was the one I loved going to the most. It was a week on the beach in the warm Florida sun listening to worship music, learning from speakers, and sharing our faith with other beach-goers. We were the light in the dark Spring Break climate that inhabited the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast. Our emcee for the week wowed me with his humor and his parodies of popular songs and he had a girls’ name. I’m dating myself as I type this so I don’t remember exactly everything as it’s been 20 years since.
Being real, that trip to the panhandle was a break away from a stressful first year adjusting to a new school with a more stressful course load than I was used to. I had made more friends in that first year at Slippery Rock than I did in my three years in Johnstown and the Community College. But, the things which I took for granted while in Johnstown weren’t really at my disposal when I got to Slippery Rock. When the week ended, I was happy I got to go but sad that I had to leave and come back to cold and snow on the ground. I always say that getting there is the fun, and getting to ride down to Florida in a coach bus was always interesting, even though I didn’t get much sleep on the way down and coming back up. I’ll say one thing about the South though, and that is there are a lot of Waffle Houses and other breakfast houses.
I went back the next year but it wasn’t as fun as the year before and we had a much smaller turnout. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast the next summer, Spring Break became a time for cleanup and so students went down there to help out and volunteer their time the next couple of years. I graduated from college in December of 2005 without a clue of what to do with my life and no job leads. That would tell the next few years of my life and the remainder of my 20s. For years, I questioned whether or not SRU was the right choice for me.
Knowing what I know now, I would have worked more to raise the money needed to go on these trips and, I would have taken my foot off the gas and split my attendance at these events over the two years to save money. Also, I think I took the advice to not stop being a Christian a little too far. I know now that joining a faith-based organization helps, but living a Godly, moral life is even better.
Stylish 🍒 