Wet and wild Spring Breaks belongs on MTV and in the movies – not real life, at least not mine. I never imagined myself getting to experience it, let alone evangelize during the famed vacation. I spent the week in Panama City Beach, Fla. with Campus Crusade for Christ – an interdenominational movement with ministries on more than 1,000 college campuses worldwide – to share my faith with college students partying on the beach.

Yes, MTV was there. So were the Ying Yang Twins and Playboy bunnies, but so was the Holy Spirit. I traveled on a bus with 30 other Syracuse University students to join 600 students from all over the East Coast to make a difference.

In the four weeks of Spring Break, college students turn Panama City Beach into a rowdy haven of alcohol, sex and drugs. Tipsy drivers swerved on the roads. College students played beer pong on the beach. Victoria’s Secret sponsored a bikini contest. MTV held a Lupe Fiasco and Flo Rida concert and handed out free bikinis. Even the U.S. Army and Navy were there to recruit. We weren’t the only ones who saw the potential in this crowd.

We were terrified. How can you talk about God to inebriated college students? We got a bit of training, but we left it to God to work through us. A lot of students came from the Bible Belt -home to billboards like ‘Go to church or the devil will get you.’ We reassured them we weren’t there to judge or make them feel guilty.

Surprisingly, many were willing to go into hour-long conversations about God while lounging on the beach. We delved into deep spiritual questions and personal religious struggles. Some even rededicated their lives to Christ as we saved them from succumbing to immediate thrills they may later regret.

But sometimes, we were just there as messengers of God’s love. I spoke to a struggling homosexual and prayed with him for God to shine his light on the life partner He has planned for him. I prayed with a military man for the safe delivery of his daughter. I helped an English woman move ice cream into her brand new restaurant and prayed with her family for a successful opening the next day. I talked with a Moroccan-American boy struggling between a Muslim mother and Mormon father.

But they were not my efforts – God was working and speaking through me and touched each of their hearts through our prayers together. I came back to Syracuse with not just a tan, but with renewed faith.

jtchenng@syr.edu

Published on March 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm