A Good Spring Break Story!

[tervana1]

I love this story, It may not be common but it's a good start!  



Beach Reachers don't push religion, but they're ready to listen B
By Helen Anders

Saturday, March 21, 2009

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Spring breakers call it the "Jesus van."

"They never believe it's a free ride," said Justin Boling, a Colorado State University senior, one of the drivers of the three free vans that run until 3 a.m. daily during Texas Week, the biggest week of spring break. "They think there's a catch. But they always thank us. Some of them try to pay us. One left a 12-pack of beer on the van for us once."

Boling is one of 475 college students from Texas and Colorado who came to South Padre Island this week not to party but to take care of those who do — and perhaps save a few souls.

"We don't push Jesus on them," said Peter Schulte, a University of Texas freshman from Sugar Land. "We just help them out and listen to them. If they want, we pray with them."

In addition to running free vans for partying spring breakers at night, the students, who call themselves Beach Reachers, clean the beach at sunrise and help minister-artist Randy Hofman of Maryland build a huge sand sculpture of Jesus. Then they run morning vans to take breakers to Island Baptist Church for a free pancake breakfast.

Hundreds of spring breakers, many with rumpled hair, line up daily for the breakfasts, which are served by church volunteers.

The food is provided and cooked by the Texas Baptist Men disaster relief organization, which also prepares pancakes late at night at Louie's Backyard, a big dance club.

The organization usually serves food after hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The Beach Reachers gather every afternoon around 3 for a baptism in the ocean — sometimes for one of their own group, sometimes for a spring breaker.

A West Texas couple, Buddy and Susan Young, have run the program for 29 years. Buddy was a seminary student in 1980 when he first took a small group of students to the island.

The students pay $282 each for the trip, filling the Motel 6 and Budget Host inns. A few camp out on the south end of the island or stay at a condominium near where the crew of "Girls Gone Wild" (who make videos of young women exposing themselves in public) is staying — just to be near spring breakers who might need help.

Sixty of the students are from UT, an interdenominational group organized by the Baptist Student Ministry, the Texas Wesley United Methodist Campus Ministries, the nondenominational organization Hope Student Life and Christian fraternity Chi Alpha Omega.

"I just felt like I needed to be somewhere I could be serving others," Schulte said.

Alys Bryant, a UT sophomore from Scurry-Rosser, said she'd been invited to go to the coast with partying friends, but "God got hold of me."

Bryant, Schulte and others spend afternoons handing out cards on the beach. Each card has the phone number of the free van service — they respond to calls rather than running a regular route — and information on the breakfast.

Occasionally, they say, they'll run into a spring breaker who has a problem and wants to talk. And sometimes talk turns to Jesus.

"But mostly we just talk to them," Schulte said. "We ask if we can help them carry their keg."

[debomama52]

Now that was too !!