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“I think we all understand the meaning of
wanting to give back to a community that has
blessed us,” he said.
GCU’s Local Outreach Ministries has
eight programs in which students fill a
variety of needs outside the campus borders.
The students’ inward benefits are equally as
important. “Serving teaches people the heart
of Christ, who they are in Christ and who
God created them to be,” said Jaci Curran, the
program’s manager.
One of those programs is at Colter
Commons, an apartment complex just east of
campus that students visit twice a week.
Sophomore Tyler Guenette and junior Jonathan
Herrell said their Thursday nights in Lanaye
Zummallen’s apartment are a highlight because of
the way she shares poetry, art and wisdom. “She
talks about following the heart,” he said.
But Zummallen looks forward to it just
as much. “I’m so excited to have these
talented young guys here,” she said. “They
fix everything! They are going to make great
husbands.”
Friday mornings, the GCU Best Buddies
expand the bounds of servant leadership by
volunteering their time to serve as mentors
and buddies for children and adults with
developmental disabilities at the local Arizona
Centers for Comprehensive Education and
Life Skills.
For freshman Brisa Castro, the social
interaction re-establishes her career choice in
education and reminds her of being told as a
sixth-grader that she couldn’t take advanced-
placement courses.
“The students here are being told by society
that because of their disability they’re not able
to go into the work field, just like my own
teacher was telling me that I wasn’t allowed
to go into a pre-AP class because I wasn’t
qualified,” she said. “If I didn’t trust in God, I
would’ve never pushed through. I believe that
God will be able to redirect at least one of these
students, even when it seems like the odds are
against them.”
Conscious business help
The Small Business Consulting Center was
created this year by the Colangelo College of
Business to help local entrepreneurs get the
know-how and community-consciousness
principles they need to thrive.
But it also helps students. They are taught
the principles of “Conscious Capitalism,”
which emphasizes doing business with a higher
purpose in mind, then get to apply them as
they assist community businesses. Students
also help operate GCU’s hotel and golf course.
“Instead of students working on fictitious
problems, here’s the real thing,” said Eduardo
Borquez, manager of the Small Business
Consulting Center.
The outreach of GCU students isn’t limited
to the neighborhood. Nearly 300 full-time
undergraduates will go on GCU Global
Outreach-sponsored missions to 20 countries
this academic year, but it will have extra
special meaning for one of them, Christine
Barna.
The first time Barna met an American
missionary, she was a 9-year-old in a Russian
orphanage. She was prepared to meet what
she’d been told were “rich Americans,” but
Barna remembers the missionaries for their
hearts, not their wallets.
“I only remember their kindness,” said
Barna, who was 8 when her mother died and
she was sent to an orphanage. She was adopted
by a couple in California at age 10, and next
summer the sophomore counseling major will
return to Russia, this time as a missionary.
“We will find common ground,” she said,
“and then I will introduce them to Jesus.”
The heart of Jesus through the spirit of a
GCU student. Full circle again. It just keeps
going around and around.
Jeannette Cruz, Karen Fernau, Laurie Merrill and
Rick Vacek contributed to this story
Helping on Habitat for
Humanity projects is one of the
many ways students volunteer
off campus regularly.
photo by darryl webb
The smiles of the student volunteers at Habitat
for Humanity projects paint a picture of a group
that’s having fun.
VIDEO
See what Havocs with Heart, the community-outreach wing of
GCU’s cheering section, did for Hope Kids. It’s detailed in this video at
news.gcu.edu.