Steven's Scribbles

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Beach Reach in Panama City Beach, Fla.


So it's been awhile since I've posted on here. A good reason lately is that I've been gone on spring break. I traveled with a group of nine other students from the BSU to Panama City Beach for seven days to reach out to other college students (mostly drunk ones, ha) with God's word.

We joined about 400 other college students from across the country to give free nightly van rides and do face-to-face street ministry until 2 a.m. each night, then got up each morning to go to a free pancake breakfast to make new friendships and build on the ones we established in the vans and on the streets. We had free time each afternoon for about four hours to go play on the beach or whatever. We did spend some time on the putt-putt greens, in the batting cages and at a nearby lake spotlighting gators. All in all, a pretty exhausting week, but 18 people in PCB on spring break ended up giving their lives to Christ through the Beach Reach ministry, so that's all that matters.

Most people were really open to talking about their faith, although most were drunk. One girl from Chicago, who crammed into our van with 14 other people – two-thirds of them drunk – told me that earlier in the day she had pooped in the ocean and thrown it at her friends (while she was drunk, of course). Another girl hopped aboard the Dodgeballa (our Chevy Express van) bawling her eyes out cause she had just thrown up in front of her newfound guy friends after she drank too much. And of course, the hippies/convicted felons we befriended who are driving around the country living in their van and smoking pot at night. The stories could go on for days...

The weather was awesome...80s the first few days we were there, then kinda cool around 70 on Wednesday and Thursday with no waves at all in the ocean. But it was still 10 times nicer than the rain and 40s we've got in Oxford right now.

You can keep up with the crew down there this week doing van rides and their prayer needs in real time at this site: Beach Reach Live

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