With education abroad programs in more than 40 countries worldwide, Messiah College has touted international travel as an integral part of the academic experience for some time—something that benefits students as well as professors. Just ask Biblical studies professor Meg Ramey, who traveled to five continents in less than one year from May 2011 to January 2012. (more…)
After suffering through a terrorist bombing in Uganda during a missions trip in 2010, Messiah College student Kris Sledge ‘13 remains on a journey to restore healing to the emotional scars left by the attack.
The Back Story
Sledge, a Christian Ministries major, first visited the country of Uganda in 2006. Fourteen years old and eager to serve, he went on his first missions trip to Uganda with Christ Community Methodist Church in Selinsgrove, Pa. A speaker in chapel at Messiah College challenged Sledge to re-visit the country four years later. The speaker charged Christians to go out and help the world and Sledge responded, heading back to Uganda that summer. During the first two weeks, Sledge spent time with families and worked on building a fence around the school that his church planted. Towards the end of the trip, Sledge looked into the possibility of staying in Uganda longer and when he realized it was feasible, convinced five team members to stay one additional week longer. (more…)
In America, giving thanks and spending money, eating turkey and going shopping, have become seemingly interchangeable. Thanksgiving now stands as a two-package deal: a day to indulge in delicious food and a day to splurge at the mall on the deals of a lifetime.
While some roll their eyes in disgust at this display of American consumerism, others create strategic plans to conquer the masses at their local mall. Either way, Black Friday tops the charts as the biggest shopping day of the year.
By the numbers
The concept “Black Friday” originated in Philadelphia and refers to police and bus drivers stuck in a huge traffic mess caused by the convergence of holiday shoppers and football fans arriving in town for the annual Army-Navy football game. Since then, people claim retails stores use this day to bump their sales “into the black,” making them profitable for the year. In fact, Black Friday and Christmas sales account for 20 percent of retailers’ annual profit. (more…)
An exotic Belizean escape from the United States’ hustle and bustle presents senior public relations major Nick Hemming `13 with countless adventures as he studies abroad this fall. As Hemming dives into the culture-rich Belizean lifestyle (and the natural waterfall, Monkey Falls), he is studying sustainability and reconciliation, primarily through the relationship between God and man/creation, while learning ways to serve the land instead of recklessly mastering it.
Hemming’s Belizean adventure began five weeks ago, when he and 17 students from various colleges departed with a program run through the Creation Care Studies Program, promoting environmental stewardship and creation care. Under program director and ’09 Messiah graduate Jeff Fisher’s leadership, the students take classes in Santa Elena. About the campus location, Hemming said, “When we pulled up, it felt as though I was on a Disney safari ride. Our ¼-mile-long driveway is covered in broom trees and tropical plants, as well as geckos and other native creatures. The campus itself houses jungle hiking trails, a stretch of the Macal River, and the perfect scenery for birding. I haven’t gotten into the ‘sport’ quite yet, but I have a feeling this place will pull it out of me sooner or later.”
Student Rachel Morris reflects on her summer 2012 trip to Nicaragua with Messiah’s Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research
Anticipation rose as we turned off the bumpy dirt highway into off-road country surrounded by roaming farm animals, tiny huts and clotheslines. A swarm of kids chased after the big yellow bus that carried our diverse team of Messiah College students, Living Water educators and newly trained village leaders, welcoming us to the community. After spending time in Puerto Cabezas preparing, we finally arrived with the mission of bringing pure water and The Living Water to the small community of Awas Tigni, Nicaragua. The next two days spent in the beautiful land of Awas flew by like a blur. Community members were eager to learn all we had to share. Classrooms were filled, and people completed a variety of activities and lessons on everything from hand-washing, to making a tippy tap to using one of our filters! (more…)
Working half a mile underground in an old Minnesota mine, two engineering students and their physics professor described the subterranean lab as pretty typical … except for the occasional bat flying overhead.
Messiah College Physics Professor Abaz Kryemadhi and two engineering students, Joel Love ‘14 and Nick Martin ‘14, were awarded a Department of Energy Visiting Faculty Program grant to spend 10 weeks at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago. There they worked with the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment which is located half a mile underground in an old mine in Soudan, MN. The Messiah College team worked on simulation and detector design for a new generation detector called SuperCDMS. (more…)
For followers of Messiah College soccer, success is as mysterious as it is impressive. “It is a unique, yet fulfilling moment to look down at your chest and see the word ‘Messiah,’ knowing that there is a greater meaning serving as your motivation,” explains senior defender Jordan Sands ’12. This drive — hidden behind 12 combined national championships and 24 straight NCAA Tournament appearances — communicates the difference between Messiah College and much of the rest of the Division III soccer world. On this team, success begins with motivation.
For the men and women who compete each fall, the game of soccer follows this principal value: God represents the purpose and the pursuit; winning only serves as a tool to fulfill this mission. “Playing for God gives us the bond of a common purpose rather than simply a common sport,” responds senior Erin Hench ’12, who received NSCAA National Player of the Year honors in 2009. “It’s more than just a soccer team. We strive to worship God through soccer by returning the gifts he’s given to us.”
But for loyal supporters of this celebrated program, a common purpose is not enough to explain the Falcons’ profound success. To truly solve the mystery — and discover what makes these two teams excel — each coach moves beyond soccer. “Winning doesn’t define us,” states women’s head coach Scott Frey ’84, with a noticeable hint of passion in his voice. Instead, Frey identifies his team’s leadership culture as a principal drive toward excellence. “It blows the underclassmen away,” he continues. “They step into an environment where they are immediately loved, wanted and accepted.”
For head coach Brad McCarty ’93, a 12-year veteran of the men’s program, leadership represents an uncompromising quality. “It all starts with the recruits,” he says. “Our players have maturity and a desire to be disciplined.” Upon arriving, these underclassmen experience an unorthodox approach to collegiate athletics. They are not treated as strangers; they are not expected to perform lowly tasks for approval, and they do not ride the bench until their teammates have exhausted their eligibility. “Here I am as a freshman … and it’s the senior All-American who is the first to the water bottles, filling them up and handing them out to the underclassmen,” describes senior forward Danny Thompson ’12, who scored six game-winning goals during his storied Messiah career. For Thompson and his fellow recruits, playing time was earned out of the gate, allowing the future national champions to mature during their first season in Grantham.
Time on the field without integration, though, would impress few observers. These Falcons play for more than individual glory. “We want to make it to the national championship every season, not because we want another trophy, but [because] we want to maximize the length of time we get to spend playing and training together,” says Thompson. Recognition and accolades will continue to pour in, though this group prefers to spread the love around. Sands — a three-time national champion — believes his teammates mean more than any of his three rings. “I enjoy that moment of being able to see the joy on each of my teammates’ faces, knowing that in our hearts, we have been fighting for one another the entire time,” he says.
Here lies the secret of Messiah College soccer. For this program, success does not rely on five-star recruits or innovative training regimes. Instead, these men and women impress with character, an often forgotten trait in the world of collegiate athletics. “You can take away soccer, the field, the fans, the goals, the uniforms,” begins senior midfielder Sam Woodworth ’12. “You can take that all away, and I still have what truly matters: my teammates.”
By Nick Hemming `13. This article was originally printed in the March 5, 2012 issue of Mennonite Weekly Review.
While dance currently is an accepted form of both recreation and study — a dance minor began in the fall of 2010, and this past fall a dance major was added — for many years Messiah College, as a part of its founding Brethren in Christ denomination, took a firm standpoint against it. “The major source for opposition to dancing over the years basically came from the denomination, which was opposed to a number of ‘worldly’ activities, including dancing, playing cards, attending movies,” said Morris Sider, a member of the College’s faculty from 1963 to 2009. (more…)
Writing a person’s biography can be a form of service, an assignment and even a gift. Combining a desire to improve her students’ writing skills with a desire to encourage multigenerational relationships, Helen Walker, an associate professor of writing at Messiah College, created a unique first-year seminar course. The Chosen Road, offered for the third consecutive year and the fifth year overall, brings together two very different generations through the act of writing. (more…)
You might not expect a historian of Medieval and Renaissance Europe to be among the first educators at Messiah College to volunteer to lead a pilot project exploring the impact of mobile technology—in this case, the iPad—on students’ ability to learn. But that’s exactly what happened.
Joseph Huffman, distinguished professor of European history, and the eight students in his fall 2011 Intermediate Latin course exchanged their paper textbooks for iPads loaded with the required texts, relevant apps, supplementary PDFs and a Latin-English dictionary. The primary goal was to advance the learning of Latin. The secondary goal was to determine whether the use of the iPad improved, inhibited or did not affect their ability to learn a foreign language. (more…)