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Students covered the globe ministering to children and adults alike during Union's annual GO (Global Outreach) Trips.

One of ten different trips that were taken over spring break through the Global Outreach (GO) ministry, Bell was part of a group of eleven students whose mission was to prayer-walk through Cairo.

"Open ministry is not allowed there," explains Bell, "so the main extent of what we did involved prayer."

One of their walks took them to a place called the Hussein Mosque, a worship center built by Muslims in honor of the grandson of Muhammad, a mosque that supposedly holds the head of Hussein. According to Bell, this is a very sacred and important place to devout Muslims, which holds a room where the head of Hussein supposedly is located.

As Bell and five other members of his team prepared to go in to that room, they were stopped by a Muslim and told to wait until other Muslims had finished worshipping. As the group sat down against a wall to wait, another Muslim man approached them, demanding to know why they were there.

"Even after explaining that we were just students touring Cairo, the man was getting madder by the second, and started attracting a crowd," adds Bell. "Some of us in the group weren't sure if we were going to be attacked or if someone was going to pull out a knife or a gun."

Surrounded by 20-25 Muslims, some yelling for them to leave the country, the head leader of the mosque appeared, dispersing the crowd and invited the group of Union students into his special room, where only he and his assistants were allowed.

After visiting with him for a little while, Bell said they were able to get the man's name.

"To be able to get a name is such a huge thing because a lot of these Muslims have never had anyone pray for them. This experience provided such a window of opportunity," says Bell, though he admits it didn't feel that way at the time when they were surrounded.

"God says this is how persecution feels," he adds, "and a lot of us had never experienced that before. But God is sovereign and all-powerful and it was awesome to see how He worked through that situation. It was nothing we did. It was all God."

Back across the world, Union sophomore Meredith Montgomery and Union junior Joshua Trent spent their spring break in a completely different setting from Egypt - on the campus of another university, Arizona State.

Assisting the Baptist Student Union there during "Rez Week" or Resurrection Week, the pair's team of 20 students passed out water to the ASU students, prayer walked, and talked with students about the meaning of the Resurrection.

"One of the students we talked with was a Muslim girl," says Trent. "She believed that there was a God and she had stopped praying to Allah but the neat thing was she had prayed the very night before that God would reveal Himself and his Truth to her." Trent and Montgomery were then able to share the Gospel with her and believe she is very close to accepting Christ.

Todd Brady, campus minister at Union, took a group to Honduras where they spent most of their time pouring concrete for a local orphanage of 216 children and assisted in leading Bible studies around the area.

The image that sticks out most in Brady's mind is one little boy in particular named Armando.

"It was really hot while we were working," says Brady, "but whenever we took a break, Armando was right there wanting to be picked up and hugged. And when you're sweaty and hot, the last thing you want to do is pick up a child. But God showed me that people just want to be loved. And meeting that little boy's need at that moment was more important than meeting any of my own."

More than 210 students went on GO Trips this year, the largest group ever to participate, according to Brady. Ministry locations included the international sites of Poland, Honduras, Israel, and Egypt, as well as cities closer to home such as Phoenix, Irving, Arlington, Chicago, Hilton Head, and Naples.
"Through mission trips, we try to integrate faith and learning and living for our students," says Brady. "Missions is not an auxiliary experience; it's an extension of the classroom, a way to put into practice what the math or physics instructor teaches from the perspective of the Christian faith."

The Office of Campus Ministries sole purpose, says Brady, is to help students see the Christian faith as the unifying principle around which everything revolves.

"We want students to see that missions is not something that happens on a short-term trip," Brady concludes. "Rather, it is a lifestyle to be embraced."

In related news, more than 260 students who will serve as summer missionaries this year were commissioned in a special chapel service earlier this month. Dr. Paige Patterson, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, was the keynote speaker.