Spring break brings travels for OC students

Spring Break is often a breath of fresh air for Oklahoma Christian University students. Many students choose to go home and spend time with their families, while others catch up on work. Some students, however, use the break to visit new places.

Oklahoma Christian University Civil Rights Trip

Every Spring Break, Gary Jones, multicultural and learning service coordinator, organizes a trip to show students major spots around the United States that were important during the Civil Rights era.

This year, senior Bret Arnold attended the Civil Rights trip.

“For all of the history we learned, probably one of the most impactful things on this trip was just getting to break it down and talk about it with other students and faculty members,” Arnold said.

Arnold said he was “incredibly grateful” for the faculty sponsors on the trip, Jones and Scott LaMascus, vice president of academic affairs.

“It can be kind of an overwhelming amount of information that’s all sort of dumped on you through the week,” Arnold said. “But having time to kind of talk it out and think through a lot of the things and really ponder some of the choices that were made and a lot of the consequences of the ways that people chose to suffer for what they believed in was really powerful.”

Throughout the trip, the group visited museums and key locations from the Civil Rights era including Little Rock Central High School, Memphis, Tennessee, Montgomery, Alabama, Tuskegee, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia.

While in Memphis, the group stopped at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Arnold said this was one of his favorite parts of the trip.

“It was so comprehensive and it did a good job of laying the groundwork for the rest of the trip,” Arnold said. “I was grateful that we went to that because it gave us a point of reference for all of the other places that we went to go visit.”

Arnold said he would encourage other students to attend the trip in the future.

“What’s great about the Civil Rights trip is it gave us a little bit more context and a little bit more language to help us navigate some of those things in a graceful and hopefully forgiving, but also responsible way,“ Arnold said.

Edmond Church of Christ McAllen, Texas Mission Trip

Edmond Church of Christ’s college ministry took its third an annual trip to McAllen, Texas to do mission work during the break.

This year, sophomore Abby Giddens attended the trip for the second time. Throughout the mission, the group helped with a number of projects in McAllen including putting on a VBS and fixing run-down houses in the area.

Giddens said one of her favorite memories from the trip was restoring an old roof on a family’s home.

“At first, you couldn’t even walk on the roof or you would fall through and we redid the entire thing,” Giddens said. “Just the experience of talking to the family afterwards was very humbling because to us that was so simple, not a big deal, but to them it was life-changing. Just the gratitude that they showed, that was an amazing experience.”

After its work at the mission sites, the group would relax with different activities.

“We do a lot of fun stuff,” Giddens said. “We have a spades tournament that we do and I made it to the championship.”.

The last few days of the break, Edmond takes the group to San Antonio for free time. Giddens said she enjoyed walking on the river walk and having fun with her friends in San Antonio.

Giddens compared this year’s trip to her first experience on the trip last spring break and said the two trips were like night and day.

“Last year when we went it rained every single day,” Giddens said. “Last year I felt we didn’t get a whole lot done… this year I felt like was way more productive, and we had a smaller group, which made it more intimate with all the people that were there. It was a total 180 difference from last year and I thought it was cool to experience both of those.”

Memorial Road Church of Christ San Antonio Mission Trip

Another local congregation, Memorial Road Church of Christ, takes its campus ministry to San Antonio each year for a mission trip, serving the local Habitat for Humanity chapter.

Jacey Neagles, senior, attended the San Antonio trip for the third year in a row. Neagles said she enjoyed the work and spent a good deal of her time putting siding up on the houses.

“It’s really cool to be trusted with someone’s house and to be so involved with building this house,” Neagles said.

While there, the group would work most of the day and then spend the evenings exploring San Antonio.

“It’s a good mix of work and relaxation over spring break,” Neagles said.

Neagles said she enjoys the traditions passed down from year to year, including an night of awards called the “San AnTony’s.”

“We do something called the San AnTony’s where everyone gets an award at the end of the week based on things that happened over the week, in the worksite, at night,” Neagles said. “It’s really funny.”

In her three years, Neagles said she has snagged awards such as “Best Use of Curly Hair, Category: Female” and “Best Use of Nose Ring, Category: Hoop.”

“It’s just silly things,” Neagles said. “That is always fun, it’s just construction paper and makers but you’re solidifying memories on a piece of paper.”

Neagles also said she reflected on her first years on the trip, as she is now in her third year and fills a leadership role for the younger students.

“This is my third year I’ve been here,” Neagles said. “For some people this is their first time, this is my chance to show them that we’ve been working with the same Habitat staff for several years and we can show them how to work with them and how to be a member of a campus ministry, working on a missions site.”

Jeff McMillon, dean of spiritual life, has also attended the trip for several years. According to Neagles, McMillon typically wins “King of The Cove” during the San AnTony’s.

The Cove is a restaurant in San Antonio where the group typically spends its Friday night, when The Cove has live music. According to Neagles, this is one of McMillon and her favorite spots.

“We went Friday night and first it started pouring rain, so everyone crammed into the small indoor seating where the band plays,” Neagles said. “It was the same band that was there last year when we went on Friday night. It has been consistent every year, to go to the cove on Friday night. It’s so much fun, the last night you get to hang out with everyone.”