Under His Thumb

by Karla M. Kincannon

Julie was a sophomore at a small, private college. She had made the dean’s list last year and very much wanted to make it again this year, but her grades were slipping. She was missing classes more frequently because, as she told her friends and professors, she wasn’t feeling well.

When her mother arrived for Parents Weekend, Julie’s arm was in a sling. She said she injured it playing soccer. She’d be fine, she reassured her mother. Don’t worry so much.

As the two of them waited in Julie’s room for Sean to join them for lunch, Julie’s stomach began to ache with tension. She wanted the next few hours with her boyfriend and her mother to go well, but she never could tell what Sean’s mood would be these days.

It wasn’t long before Sean appeared at the door. He was charming and polite as he flashed his million dollar smile. It was his smile that had first caught Julie’s attention. Eventually it melted her heart, and she fell head over heels in love with him.

Students take civil rights tour for spring break

By Reed Galin*

Students from United Methodist campus ministries at Emporia (Kan.) State University and Baker University in Baldwin City, Kan., cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., site of a 1965 bloody civil rights confrontation. UMNS photos by Reed Galin.

For days, it has rained on Selma.

A foreboding, punishing kind of rain has swollen the Alabama River, turning it viscous with runoff silt.

But now, finally, a brilliant late afternoon sun has scrubbed the sky clear and casts a sharp image of the old Edmund Pettus Bridge on the milk-chocolaty water. Below the grand arched shape of the bridge superstructure, small shadows are moving across the bridge.

The images appear almost supernatural. Indeed, the ghostly, floating figures seem a little spooky if you know what happened here, and why the people casting silent dark images on muddy water have come to Selma from very far away.

They are students affiliated with the United Methodist campus ministry at Emporia State University, and Baker University in east Kansas, spending spring break tracing the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and ’60s. From Atlanta, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. first became a public figure… to Central High School in Little Rock, where forced desegregation began… and at various landmarks along the way, the students are engrossed by countless stories of heroism and horror.

Students harvest produce to feed hungry

By Lilla Marigza*

Virginia college students pick grapefruit at an orchard near Jacksonville, Fla., during a Society of St. Andrew Harvest of Hope project. UMNS photos by Megan Gross, Society of St. Andrew.

When James Hargraves got an e-mail from the Society of St. Andrew inviting him to participate in an alternative spring break, he eagerly signed up.

The Old Dominion University student has been participating in the society’s events since he was a high school freshman. Hargraves, a United Methodist, was one of two dozen Virginia college students who traveled March 4-18 to Jacksonville, Florida to pick produce to feed the hungry.

Each year in the United States, billions of pounds of fruit and vegetables remain in fields after the harvest. The non-profit Society of St. Andrew coordinates volunteers to pick some of this fresh food surplus and deliver it to families in need. “Honestly, I had no idea so much food was left over,” says Katie Thompson, a student at George Mason University.

On this “Harvest of Hope,” the crew is picking fresh broccoli, cabbage, and citrus fruits. Students search row after row of green leafy foliage for heads of cabbage… too small to go to market. Two-person crews chop the cabbage off the stalk and throw it onto a blue tarp hauled by another team. The tarp gets heavier and heavier as the pile grows bigger.

It is dirty, hard work under the Florida sun. “It gets a little hot. Sometimes it gets sweaty but you know I’m really enjoying the fact that I get to pick this and ship it off to kids,” says Bobby Barnes, a Northern Virginia Community College student.

Avoiding first-year pitfalls

By Vicki Brown

Students socialize outside at Florida Southern University.

Failing to find the right balance of social life, work, and study may be the single most common mistake college freshmen make, according to campus ministers, chaplains, and student-life staff.

“Some students try to take on too much. They join every organization on campus and have a great time with the extra curricular activities but forget to go to class and study. Those students, if they don’t change their ways, don’t come back the next semester,” says the Rev. Leigh S. Martin, Reinhardt College chaplain.

On the flip side, other students do nothing outside of class or their room. The Rev. Betsy Eaves, chaplain at Centenary College in Shreveport, La., says involved students are better and happier students.

“We find that the most successful students are those who live on campus, get involved in campus activities, but don’t get involved in so much that they have little time to sleep or study. If they are involved in campus ministry programs, student-life activities or clubs, they have a chance to meet other students who then can become study partners and supportive friends,” Eaves said.

That balance includes not taking too heavy a load, not working so many hours that work interferes with classes, and staying on campus.

“Frequently going home or leaving campus on weekends is not a good idea,” said Annie Laurie Cadmus, coordinator of student activities at Green Mountain College.

Martin agrees.

“Your parents and high school friends want to see you, but pick and choose weekends to stay on campus and make new friends and a new home,” she said.

Facebook: Another Place for Christians to Express Faith

By Courtney Aldrich*

In the online world of Facebook, “religious views” are listed as just another characteristic on a person’s profile, along with their name, school, sex, birthday and hometown.

David Rempfer, a junior at the University of Kentucky, believes being a Christian calls for more than just typing the word into a Facebook profile. Rempfer says living a Christian lifestyle that reflects discipleship should include how students portray themselves on online social networks.

“Facebook is just like any other major social ‘common ground’ . . . its atmosphere depends on how you use it,” says Rempfer, a United Methodist involved in the University of Kentucky’s Wesley Foundation. “It can be positive or negative, uplifting or defeating, moral and humorous or perverted and slanderous and gossip-filled.”

For example, one Facebook profile shows a male student from a Northeastern college who identifies himself as a Christian while his profile picture shows him with bottles of rum. At another university in the South, a female student declares “Jesus loves me, this I know” on her profile. But her favorite quotes are laced with profanity.

“It stuns me that the majority of students who claim to be Christians on Facebook are either so apathetic that it makes Jesus look powerless and boring, or else every bit as lost as the rest of the world, which makes Jesus look fake,” Rempfer says.

A Fabulous Relationship and How to Have One

by Julie Faith Parker*

Chains of love at Seoul's Namsan Tower. Young couples show their love for each other by locking a pair of padlocks to this fence.

Perhaps the most terrifying and exhilarating part of being an adult is finding the love of your life. The pressures are enormous! Go to a movie, watch some TV, turn on the radio, and flawless people are falling blissfully in love. If this hasn’t happened to you, you may be wondering–why not? If you have fallen in love, you may find it’s not that perfect. Being in a relationship is trickier than it is portrayed in songs or on screen.

Not only from the outside world, but even inside yourself, you may be getting mixed messages. Your head tells you that someone might not be a good match for you. Your heart says that you’d like to give this a try.

College student: ‘I’ll never forget’ tornado aftermath

By Cathy Farmer*

Union University sophomore Jordan Thompson is interviewed by a reporter the day after an F-4 tornado destroyed his dorm on the campus in Jackson, Tenn., burying Thompson for three hours in the rubble. UMNS photos by Sherry Thompson.

JACKSON, Tenn. (UMNS)– Buried for three hours under tons of rubble left by an F-4 tornado, Jordan Thompson found new brothers and a deeper belief in God.

“I’d have given up, 100 percent given up, without my faith,” said Thompson, a member of Germantown (Tenn.) United Methodist Church, of his entrapment after a twister leveled his two-story dormitory at Union University in Jackson.

The 20-year-old sophomore had sought refuge on his dorm’s bottom floor, along with six other male students, as a storm system roared through Jackson on Feb. 5. When a tornado bounced across the 1,100-student campus, it destroyed much of Union’s student housing, including Adams Hall where Thompson lived.

Only seconds after Thompson and his classmates took shelter, the ceiling and walls came crashing down. The young men were trapped underneath the wreckage, scarcely able to breathe.

“I couldn’t move,” Thompson recalled. “I could pick my head up maybe two to three inches. My legs were tucked up under me and I was face down.” He remained in that position for three hours until rescuers pulled him through a small hole in the rubble.

During those three hours, Thompson and the other young men forged a bond. “I’ll never forget what we said to each other while we were under there,” he said. “We’re brothers now.”

Waiting for rescue

They prayed for each other and recited Scripture while waiting for rescue. “There’s no way not to see God’s hand on us,” he said quietly. “We’re all alive … and that makes no sense without God in the picture.

“I won’t say we didn’t falter at all, but I was never mad at God or asking why He had put me there. I knew I was there to help the other guys. If we had been alone, I don’t think any of us would have gotten out. Sometimes one of us would say, ‘I’m slipping, I’m going!’ but God gave us the strength to help by talking to them.”

The students yelled for help as they were able, but the pressure of the rubble made it impossible for some of them to speak. Thompson was able to hold onto the hand of one of the more severely injured students, Jason Kaspar. “He was having trouble breathing, crushed by stuff, and from the dust and insulation in the air,” Thompson said. “I told him to squeeze my hand once in a while so I’d know he was OK.”

Though he could not call anyone, Thompson managed to free his cell phone and flip it open to use the light to see Kaspar’s face. “I kept checking; I was afraid he was gone,” recalled Thompson.

More than 1½ hours after the tornado hit, the students’ pleas for help were heard and rescuers began digging through the crumpled building. Amazingly, Thompson walked away with only cuts and bruises. Three others have been released from the hospital and the last three–Kaspar, Matt Kelley and David Wilson–continue to be in serious condition.

“One may be in the hospital for two months. Several have been on dialysis. They’re not 100 percent out of the woods yet, but the doctors say they should make a full recovery,” said Thompson.

Thompson spoke with United Methodist News Service by telephone from his home in Collierville, a town just outside of Memphis, following his rescue. He and his family keep daily contact with the other students who were trapped.

“What we said to each other during those hours, it’s emotional. I’ll never forget it. We’re brothers now. And I’ll never be the same. I’ve seen the love God has for His children.”

Classes to resume

A private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, Union closed its campus to begin a massive cleanup. School officials announced Feb. 13 that classes will resume Feb. 20 as displaced students secure housing elsewhere. The university will hold a school-wide worship service Feb. 19 in G.M. Savage Chapel.

Thompson, who plays on the men’s soccer team at Union, plans to return and wants to be a part of the Union family even more now, said his father. “He already has gotten his new room assignment and definitely will be back,” said Dave Thompson. “I think he has a bond that has truly changed him.”

Like other parents, the elder Thompson is both amazed and grateful that Union was spared of any fatalities. About 50 students were hospitalized and hundreds displaced. “When you think that there were 1,100 students on that campus, you can only say that it was the grace of God that no one was killed. It was a miracle,” he said.

*Farmer is director of communications for the Memphis Annual (regional) Conference of The United Methodist Church.

Enriching Your Life With the Bible

by Lillian C. Smith

Complex characters, bizarre plot twists, shocking true stories–an international best seller? You bet. It is the Bible!

The list of books you will be required to read for your English literature class will not include this classic, but it is one of the most read books of all times. It has been translated into more than 1,000 languages and can be found in many different versions.

Whether you approach this book as a daily companion or even if you have never read it, the Bible is a book worth looking into.

Written over a period of 1,000 years, the Bible provides readers with a wealth of literary styles. This anthology of 66 books contains historical narratives, poetry, prose, legal codes, philosophy, and more.

This blockbuster presents readers with some pretty outlandish folks. Characters found in these stories deal with all sides of life–joy and pain, love and hate, trust and betrayal, envy, faithfulness, faithlessness, fear, obedience, and disobedience.

Some of the life situations found in the pages of this book would boost the ratings of the Ricki Lake or Jerry Springer shows! Get a Bible, and read for yourself.

A simpler life: Nurturing heart, mind, & spirit

by Karla M. Kincannon

Illustration by Sharon Anderson

What complicates your life? Family expectations, your own expectations, roommates? Papers, exams, junk mail, e-mail? Keeping up with the latest fashion can be a full-time job. Holidays, extracurricular activities, class schedules, work schedules, can fill any calendar to the brim. Worry, fear, and anxiety can make any situation seem 10 times worse. Many things complicate our lives. Juggling schedules and commitments and trying to find meaning in the midst of all the madness can push a person to the limit.

Malik was at the end of his rope. Academically, it had been a hard semester; he needed a break. However, when he finished his last, grueling exam of the semester there was no sense of relief. Only three shopping days until Christmas and he had not yet begun to think about presents for his family or friends. The pressure was on.

After a trip to the local mall, Malik was even more stressed. Holiday shoppers frantically grabbed up shiny gadgets and expensive clothing in hopes of crossing off another person from their shopping list. Christmas carols bellowed over loudspeakers as cranky children whined and tugged at their parents’ pant legs. Shopping on a student’s budget was no fun.

Tired of being beaten out of parking spaces by aggressive drivers, tired of feeling frustrated by the long lines at the cash registers, and tired of feeling as if the meaning of Christmas had been strangled out of his life by stress, Malik got in his car and headed for a quiet place to sort things out.

College Fellowship Leads to Devotional Cookbook

Courtney Lobban enjoys a home cooked meal at the weekly dinner and devotional program at United Methodist related Hendrix College in Fayetteville, Ark. A UMNS photo courtesy of the Rev. J.J. Whitney.

A UMNS Feature
By Linda Green*

Graduating seniors involved in the fellowship program at a United Methodist-related college wanted to leave a legacy, so they turned the recipes for the meals they shared into a cookbook. The result is the Fellowship Cookbook, produced by students in the religious life program at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. The book was inspired by a weekly dinner and devotional program started four years ago by the Rev. J.J. Whitney, the school’s assistant chaplain and coordinator of the Hendrix Lilly Vocations Initiative program.

Read more at www.umc.org.