Faculty Involvement Enhances Baylor Missions
Once again this summer, hundreds of Baylor students have either recently returned or are currently engaged in Baylor mission trips around the globe. These experiences, which combine faith, service and vocation, are often described by students as transformational moments in their lives. Similarly, Baylor’s global missions partners routinely say there’s something different about Baylor students in the ways they serve, listen and build relationships.
Numerous factors play into these distinctions. Baylor Missions, Service and Public Life is intentional about creating discipline-specific trips which combine a student’s calling with service in settings that help students see the ways their vocation can be utilized to serve others for a lifetime. Baylor faculty play a significant role in this as well. Each trip is led by Baylor faculty who are dedicated to walking and serving alongside students as they participate on these trips—and committed to helping students make the most of these opportunities, both now and in the future.
Dr. Doug Henry, Dean of Baylor’s Honors College, recently returned from leading his fourth missions trip to Greece, where students served homeless individuals and refugees through a Christian meal ministry. For Dr. Henry’s students, preparation for the trip started long before the flight through regular meetings and a weekend retreat.
“From the very beginning, we try to set expectations high,” he says. “We want them to be thoughtful, and to be able to tie what they’re experiencing into that sense of calling—whether they’re in engineering, English or whatever they study.”
On the Honors College trip to Greece, a typical day might include preparing meals, serving tea, or handling whatever task is needed next. It’s not glamorous work, and that’s part of the point.
“Whether peeling potatoes, serving the hungry or mopping floors, we try to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” Henry says.
Students see their faculty leaders serving right alongside them in whatever roles are necessary as they lead, bridging the distance between faculty and students, leadership and service. And faculty are always there to discuss what they’ve seen, lead conversations or answer questions as students process their new experiences.
As Henry and his students were in Greece, Dr. Katy Vogelaar, clinical assistant professor of nursing, was helping to lead a multidisciplinary trip in Kenya, which provided opportunities for students from both nursing and engineering majors to serve together. There, they partnered with individuals to address clean water and indoor air quality health needs, provided practical health lessons to children and adults alike, promoted maternal health and more.
Although they were there in part to build and educate, Dr. Vogelaar and her fellow faculty leaders encouraged students to approach that through a different lens.
“We learned more than we could ever teach, and that’s something that is one of the goals of Baylor missions—that you go as a learner,” Vogelaar said. “That is sometimes a shift. We think, ‘I’m going to go and I’m going to make such a big impact.’ But really, I learned so much from the partners and the Kenyans on the ground.”
Among the moments they shared in Kenya, Vogelaar and her students provided support to expectant mothers, and experienced powerful moments when those soon-to-be mothers heard their baby’s heartbeat. Vogelaar, who specializes in allergy and asthma care, worked with individuals there who traditionally cook with wood indoors to promote better indoor air quality while maintaining their traditional cooking methods. In each case, professors say seeing students experience these moments in ways that will shape them for the future is incredibly powerful.
“I've been on a lot of medical mission trips, and there is something incredible about going with students,” Vogelaar said. “My students would ask me the best part of the trip, and I said, with total authenticity, ‘It's seeing you experience this for the first time.’ It's seeing you experience what it means to step out of your comfort zone and really care for somebody across cultures, to see somebody experience firsthand some of the things that we may not see very clearly here”
As professors seek to nurture and live out the intersection of service and vocation, faith and action, they provide students with a model for their own adult lives with intentionality that resonates. Long after students return home, those moments continue to shape how they approach their studies and careers.
“God sometimes uses these experiences to really refine your calling in life and help you learn more about your future profession and how those things come together,” Vogelaar says.
Similarly, Henry says Baylor is aiming to lead more than enjoyable trips: “We want experiences that help foster a clearer moral vision—something that’s going to shape their lives over the long term, how they live, how they serve, how they follow the Lord.”