Campus Currents

A Time to Serve, A Time to Learn

Located north of South Africa, the country of Botswana was host to more than 30 Walla Walla College students, parents, faculty, staff, and friends who devoted their spring breaks to mission trips.

With a population of 1.5 million, an economy largely dependent on cattle raising and mining, and a Christian population of 50 percent, mission team members found themselves immersed in a radically different culture than that found in the U.S.

Botswana is slightly smaller than Texas and has an unusually high mortality rate, taking into account the prevalence of AIDS-related deaths in the country. Also, with extreme poverty and lack of fresh water and other resources, Botswanans find faith to be an essential part of life often marked by little hope.

“[The trip] refocused my perspectives on what I really need to be doing for God and that I should be more content with the things that I have,” said Alisha Tsuchiya, sophomore nursing major.

The group members helped build the first Seventh-day Adventist school in Botswana, a preschool staffed by current student missionaries.

Additionally, the group conducted religious meetings for children, visited a local orphanage, and provided services for four local churches each Sabbath.

Meanwhile, on the northeastern tip of Central America, nearly 20 team members offered help in the former British colony of Belize.

Belize gained its independence in 1981 and now serves as a trades crossroads between the Caribbean and Latin America.

With primarily an agricultural population, this country too faces hardships as it battles with harmful waste in its water resources.

Members of the Belize group purchased a computer and constructed a radio tower and three wind turbines for the first SDA radio station there. They poured concrete for a new maternity wing at La Loma Luz Hospital, volunteered at an SDA elementary school, and entertained children in an orphanage. They also assisted with radio programming and gave away 1,500 pounds of children’s clothing.

Matthew Lane, senior mechanical engineering major, relished the opportunity. “I saw it as one of my last chances at WWC to go out and do a service for God in the mission field.” W

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