Opportunities for BU students to visit Haiti may be upcoming. During spring break 2015, University Minister Kevin Hopkins and junior Madison Wendt traveled to Haiti to share the gospel and help the people of a small island. Hopkins says this was not a one-time trip and there will be more in future years.

Wendt and Hopkins traveled with the Great Plains Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in a group comprised of 10 other campus ministers and students from across Kansas and Nebraska. The church has had a long time relationship with Haiti. They have been doing work on the island of Lagonave for over 100 years.

“The world is so much bigger than we experience every day,” Wendt said.

After a four-hour flight, the group landed in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti then traveled to a small island off the coast called Lagonave. The group went to the island to help build the relationship between the people of Lagonave and the church.

“Answering the call of Jesus, that’s why we do it,” Hopkins said. “That’s why I do it.”

Unlike other mission trips, they did not do a lot of hands-on work and their plans were not set in stone. They mostly held meetings where the people of the island could communicate what they wanted and needed in the long term.

“The best things happen when not tied to a plan,” Wendt said. “You just have to trust God and not put him in a box.”

On the last night of the trip, they attended a church service in the local community. It was a three-hour praise service that included Caribbean worship music. Following the service, over 300 people were fed.

“It was a miracle,” Hopkins said. “The rice and beans never ran out.”

For many of the people, that was the only time they would eat that week. Most of them came in the same clothes they had worn all week.

Wendt felt called to Haiti after spending a semester writing a report in a French class on the history of the country.

“I went into it thinking that the burden of my heart would be for the people there,” Wendt said. “But while I was there the heaviness I felt was more for the people back home and the condition of their hearts.”

Hopkins and Wendt observed that the joy and passion the Haitians exhibited for God is something that some churches in the United States are missing.

“I thought we were offering to them,” Wendt said. “But they offered us so much more.”