Messiah College: Parents Progress

Josh Wethli '06 with Filipino children during a Summer Service and Mission trip to the Philippines in June

(Left to right) Hannah Edmunds '07 of Manassas, Va., and Michael Steadman '05 of Marblehead, Mass., help to build a courtyard and play area for kindergarten students at the Roberto Pace School and Puerto Montt, Chile.

Funding helps students serve in Chile and Zimbabwe

On June 1, Michael Steadman joined six other students and one professor on a Summer Service and Mission Team to Puerto Montt, Chile, but he did not return with the group on July 29. Instead, Steadman will stay for a year, helping with construction at Roberto Pace Elementary and Middle School and teaching English to local children.

“I have my degree from Messiah and I am very thankful for how I have changed through my four years at Messiah,” Steadman wrote in an e-mail from Chile. “But this trip is more looking forward to my adult life and preparing me and changing me to be what God wants me to be.”

Sponsored through the Student Mission Endowment Fund, Steadman received $1,000 to help offset the cost of the trip. Steadman has been on one other mission trip to Jamaica four years ago, but he is interested in ministry work in the future—wherever he is.

“In the future, I want to be a kingdom-builder, no matter where I am,” he said. “I intend on being a part of different ministries even if I am not able to be there physically. I see missions as just being a Christian and taking advantage of the opportunities I am given by God.”

Brandon Dunkle ’05 of Greencastle, Pa., and Brendon Earl ’05 of Hillsdale, N.J., also received funding through the Student Mission Endowment Fund. They are both engineering majors and part of the Dokimoi Ergatai project—an interdisciplinary service-learning group that encourages students to apply their academic curriculum to missions and service projects. Together they received $700 to use toward travel expenses to Zimbabwe this summer. While there, they helped at the Theological School of Zimbabwe and began the installation of alternative energy sources to help create consistent and cost-saving power for the seminary.

If you would like to contribute to the Student Mission Endowment Fund, please contact Michelle Blackford, coordinator of regional leadership programs, by e-mail at MBlackfo@messiah.edu; by phone at (717) 796-5252; or by post at Office of Alumni and Parent Relations, P.O. Box 3023, Messiah College, One College Ave., Grantham, PA 17027.