by Camryn Given | May 17, 2021 | News, News Slider, Travel
After more than a year and 50 cancelled trips, Lipscomb Missions finally got to announce some good news. The program is set to resume in San Francisco this summer after recieving a green light on domestic travel. This mission trip will take place at the end of July in San Francisco with an organization called City Impact. The group focuses primarily on poverty, hunger and at-risk youth in the community. According to an email sent to students, “[City Impact] has been serving the city of San Francisco since 1984 addressing poverty, hunger, education, community outreach, and homelessness.” Some of their specific projects include a health clinic and academic programs for children. For more information about the work of this organization, their website can be found here. There is also a podcast available from Lipscomb members in conversation with City Impact’s Mission Director. They address the impactful work of the program and the partnership between Lipscomb and City Impact that began in 2013. If you’re interested in joining the team on Lipscomb’s first mission trip post-COVID, the Google Form to express your interest can be accessed on the email sent May 13. Since one mission has now been planned, the question arises if more will continue to be announced soon or if the missions department will take a slower return to their usual packed mission schedule. Lumination will continue to update you with Lipscomb Missions and the resuming of programs post-COVID. Photo via...
by Brianne Welch | Feb 10, 2015 | Sports
What started out as a fun team bonding activity has turned into a small hand lettering art business for junior volleyball player Molly Spitznagle. “This summer we as a volleyball team had a lot of off time, and we all are here in the summer, so we had this thing called art club,” Spitznagle said. “We would do it and Jewell Dobson and I just kind of stuck to it.” Spitznagle credited senior Jewell Dobson for helping her get started in hand lettering. Once she got her start over the summer, she kept at it, and now does different kinds of lettering on canvases. “A lot of them are like Bible verses or quotes or sayings. I’ve done some name canvases for rooms or something like that, but they’re mostly lettering quotes.” The initial idea didn’t involve making any money, but it slowly turned in to a fundraising outlet to raise money for her yearly mission trip to Honduras. “I wanted to find a way that I could fundraise for myself, and I really enjoy art and painting and lettering and stuff like that, so I thought that I could make money off of canvases,” Spitznagle said. “It’s really popular right now, so it’s kind of expanded from there and blown up.” Now that Spitznagle has raised enough money for her mission trip, she has other plans for the canvases. As an athlete, it is hard for her to find time for a job to make spending money, so she decided to share her talents with the public. “I’ve just kind of tried to make it into a little side...
by Brianne Welch | Dec 29, 2014 | News Slider, Sports
The Bison baseball team returned home from the Dominican Republic with a stronger sense of appreciation for what they have and formed bonds with one another that they believe will carry on into the season. The team served together on their first all-team mission trip where they renovated a local sandlot field. The guys built dugouts, put up a backstop, leveled the playing surface and spruced up the field. They worked from Dec. 12 to Dec. 19 alongside a pastor named Michel. When the team wasn’t hard at work they had some free time to kill. “When we weren’t working, we spent a lot of time playing with the kids in the local community,” senior Josh Lee said. Senior J Hwang talked about the impact simply spending time with the kids had on him. “The biggest impact for me was the relationship that I got to build with the community and the teammates that I went with,” Hwang said. “I spent a lot of time with the kids, just hanging out hours after hours even though I couldn’t speak Spanish.” Lee said he was most impacted by the lifestyle the people of the community lived, and the joy he saw in their lives. “The biggest impact the trip had on me was how happy and appreciative the people in the community were, especially the kids,” Lee said. “They have very little, but you wouldn’t know that because they never stopped smiling while we were there.” Not only did the trip impact the individual players on the team, but it also helped the team form strong bonds with one another....
by Carter Sanderson | Jul 18, 2013 | News Slider, Sports
In early May, the Lipscomb volleyball team embarked on an 11-day mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Head coach Brandon Rosenthal said that the trip was an exciting time for the group. “There was a tremendous amount of excitement,” Rosenthal said. “It was the first mission trip for a lot of the players and for six of them it was their first time out of the country.” Rosenthal’s main goal for the trip was the get to know each of his players better, and the girls wanted the same thing from each other. “We are already a team,” Rosenthal said. “This is a close team, but I urged them to break down the walls and develop an even deeper relationship as a team.” Work at the church, a stop at the legendary Christ the Redeemer statue and a hike up the Sugarloaf Mountians all played huge roles into making this such an unforgettable trip for all who went. However, the deeper connections formed and lives changed throughout their time in Brazil made this a truly invigorating expedition. “I really had no expectations going into it,” teammate Lauren Ford said. “I wanted to grow in my relationships with the team more than anything.” Playing only one game while over there, the girls had ample time to grow both mentally and spiritually. “Experiencing another culture with my teammates while getting to serve the Lord was the best part of being gone,” teammate Jordan Huston said. “It was cool how we were able to get closer as a team while we were helping others,” teammate Jewell Dobson added. As the week...
by Janice Ng | Jun 12, 2013 | News Slider
The huge tornado that swept through parts of Oklahoma on May 20, 2013, destroyed schools, hundreds of homes and a hospital. 24 people lost their lives, and 377 people were injured. Almost immediately, a multitude of volunteers from across the country set out to help the fallen city of Moore, Okla., the site that sustained the most damage. One of those people was Lipscomb student Lydia Yau. “The devastation is like a war zone,” Yau said. “People’s lives are wiped out in a matter of hours. Everything that is familiar to them; homes, schools, hospitals; it’s like some demolition ball came and knocked them to splinters. “The first time I reached the sites, it was like a nightmare,” Yau said. “You see cars that are dented beyond recognition and houses that have only a wall standing. It’s very horrifying to see that. It’s a feeling that grips your heart. It’s hauntingly sad.” Yau, who graduated from Lipscomb this past December with a bachelor of social work, plans to return to Lipscomb in August for her masters in professional counseling. “This is social work, pure and simple,” Yau said. “It’s hands on social work. Not only do we go and clean up debris, but we talk to house owners, too. You’re helping people pick up pieces of their lives, giving them ‘talk therapy,’ because the more times they retell it, that’s when the healing comes.” Yau was one of 12 other volunteers from Living To Go churches in Goodlettsville, Tenn., and Paragould, Ark., who teamed up with Operation Blessing, a non-profit human need and suffering relief organization affiliated with the Christian...
