Students embody Christ to Polish campers

By Cat Dugan (’23)

Led by MVNU Campus Pastor Stephanie Lobdell and her family, six MVNU students partnered with a nonprofit English immersion camp in Poznan, Poland, for the first time in July 2022.

Lobdell, knowing that she wanted to initiate a Service-Learning Trip in Europe, reached out to Jay and Teanna Sunberg, Nazarene missionaries in the European region and long-time colleagues of Lobdell.

A “profound spiritual poverty” in Poland leads the Sunbergs to invest in young people and cultivate a space in which they may encounter God in new ways. Each year, Jay and Teanna invite native English speakers from around the world to Lighthouse Camp.

Teanna, after teaching English at Lighthouse Camp for several years, mentioned the camp to Lobdell as a travel option.

“Founded by a Catholic group, the camp provides a meaningful place for students to learn English, grow in maturity and be exposed to the Gospel,” Lobdell explains.

While any students could join this Service-Learning team, Lobdell encouraged those who are pursuing vocational ministry and who are service-oriented to travel with her.

“I wanted them to understand what it looks like to engage people in a space where the existence of God is not assumed,” Lobdell said.

Students daily engaged the mission of the camp through morning staff meetings, shared meals, community-building games, English language workshops and “Clubs,” an evening gathering. Primarily,

MVNU’s team aimed to “open up conversations” with the teenage campers, providing a judgment-free outlet to learn about God’s goodness and grace.

Lobdell recalls the frequent 90-minute small group conversations to foster the most growth, noting how restorative they were for both the Polish teenagers and MVNU students.

“Students were authentic and present, embodying the Gospel to people who didn’t really understand it because of their limited exposure to faith and their suspicion of the Church,” Lobdell says.

One camper first understood God’s grace through a time of prayer with Lobdell.

“He had this profound desire to be perfect and serve God but had this sense of constantly falling short — almost like an obsession,” Lobdell said. “We talked a lot about holiness as a perfect love and devotion, and it offered him a sense of freedom and acceptance with God.”

Not only was this trip formational for the teenage campers, MVNU team members found inspiration and confirmations of their callings in the trip. Junior Elizabeth “Ziz” Heimbach, Youth and Family Ministry major, was reminded of the shared experiences of all humans.

“Despite language and culture barriers, we all have emotions and pressures, and we are all finding our identity, our purpose and how we belong in the world,” Heimbach said. “I was also shown that the same God we worship in America is already in other countries and already working in the lives of those we met.”

While some campers held a personal faith, other campers initially held a negative view of the Christian God and the Church. Junior

Youth and Family Ministry major Haley Schreiner led life-giving conversations with the campers, recognizing their hesitations and showing the reconciling grace of Jesus through her testimony and actions.

“We were able to just love them and show them that God is not a spiteful, angry God but rather a warm, welcoming, loving God,” Schreiner said.

Schreiner spoke at the last Club of the week, choosing anxiety as her topic.

“I was able to share some personal experiences with the campers and show them how God has helped me with my anxiety, even at the lowest points of my life,” Schreiner said. “Being able to tell the campers about God and how good He has been to me was such a blessing, and I was really able to see God move in some of the campers’ hearts that night.”

Ministry students who embarked on this Service-Learning Trip felt prepared through their academic programs to minister in new contexts. Heimbach and Schreiner both recalled lessons from Mission and Evangelism. “In class, we talked about how evangelism must begin with love and relationship,” Heimbach says. Schreiner adds, “Mission and Evangelism was helpful because it taught me how to contextualize and bring the Gospel into new environments.”

MVNU students remain marked by their trip to Poland. Schreiner says, “I now have a more open mind and understanding that not everyone sees the Church the same way as American Christians. For many people, going to church and talking about faith can feel like going to a foreign country and speaking a different language.” She concludes, “Now, when I have conversations with people about my faith, I don’t have the same expectation that they have a preexisting understanding of Christianity.”

Chelsea Porter, MVNU Faith Works Coordinator, and Joe Witosky, recent graduate and Director of Youth and Family Ministries at Grace Life Church of the Nazarene, look forward to co-leading MVNU’s 2023 trip to Poland. Next year, Porter will emphasize cultural immersion for the student travelers.

“I am excited for our students to be submerged into Polish culture through understanding church history, through food they will eat, through people they will meet and through architecture they will experience,” Porter envisions. “Service-Learning Trips are such a deeply important way to grow in cultural humility. They can expose you to new ways of living and being in the world and can open eyes to how to live and love like Jesus in brand new ways.”