Senior education major Rebecca Burris will return to Cozumel, Mexico for her fourth spring break to serve the orphans at City of Angels.
The City of Angels is a Christian children’s home where young children who have been orphaned, abandoned or abused can find a permanent home.
Originally from Mitchell, Indiana, Burris had not heard of the City of Angels until she arrived at Lipscomb. The missions fair introduced her to the opportunity.
“I went to the info meeting and as I heard more about it, I realized I would love to go on this trip,” Burris said.
As an education major, Burris was naturally attracted to the trip because of the emphasis put on spending time with children. “It’s a super laid back trip,” she said. “We do VBS two days and ESL [English as second language] classes two days and the last day is carnival day.”
After her first trip, she decided to get more involved as a student leader. “Mark Jent is the leader and he asked me to be a student leader [my sophomore year] so I started doing that and I’ve been that ever since, so I have gotten to be a little more involved each year,” she said.
Burris has had a hand in planning the VBS portion of the trip for the last two years. Her and the team spend time teaching, singing and doing arts and crafts. This year Burris will be playing a new role on the trip, though.
“This is my first year to be on the [ESL] group,” she said. “We will be giving them English vocabulary words and Mad Libs for them to fill out. With the younger group, we are doing relay races with action words.”
The preparation for the ESL work the group will be doing is second nature to Burris. She is a Spanish double major and is currently student teaching in a school with the majority of its students being Hispanic and English language learners.
Burris’ strengths and experiences work well with the other team members. The interview process helps piece together a team with the same mission, but also helps to include different personalities that will work well together.
“Our team is very relational,” she said. “We meet two or three times before Christmas and then once every other week up until the trip so we can all know each other and be friends before we get there. Then we can focus on the kids when we get there.”
Although this is Burris’ last year at Lipscomb, she said she hopes to continue growing the relationships she has made with the people in Mexico.
“Even if it’s not right away, I want to [go back] in the future.”
Lipscomb’s Cozumel mission team leaves Saturday, March 14 and will return Saturday, March 21.
Photo courtesy of Burris