ELISHA SOCH
Contributing Writer
This summer, 14 Pepperdine students will start talking. They also hope to teach many others to join their mission.
These students, along with four other participants, are members of Pepperdine’s branch of Let’s Start Talking.
Let’s Start Talking is a nationwide non-profit organization dedicated to using education to spread Christianity. The ministry sends trainees to locations all over the world, such as Croatia, Hong Kong and Heidelberg, where they teach English to native people.
The Pepperdine branch of Let’s Start Talking is run by senior Zach Love, an intern with Campus Ministry. He teams with Tammy Selby, director of Disability Services. Together, they train participants, preparing them for their summer of service.
“We had a few random meetings last semester,” said freshman team member Alex Cox. “This semester we broke up into teams of three to five people.”
Each of this year’s five teams will have 16 weeks of training for their trip. Their destinations haven’t been announced.
“Training is a huge deal,” Selby said. Team members will learn the basics of fundraising as well as other skills necessary in any type of mission work. They’ll also learn how to teach.
Teams experienced intensive training in which they simulated life in another country. The students began the weekend with “customs,” which did not allow any luggage heavier than 10 pounds.
All this training will pay off eventually. This summer, when they go abroad, the students will find out how close the simulation was to reality. Each team will spend six weeks in another country, teaching English to “readers.”
The textbook readers use is the Gospel of Luke.
“It’s planting a seed,” freshman team member Rachel Ryon said about the curriculum. “You might not make a difference right away, but the readers could remember what they read 30 years from now.”
Cox and Ryon both said they decided to participate in Let’s Start Talking because they wanted to continue a history of summer volunteer work begun in high school.
“The stuff I’m learning with Let’s Starting Talking is stuff I’ll use the rest of my life in ministry,” Cox said. His first item on the agenda: raise $3,200.
Every member of Let’s Start Talking must raise $3,200 throughout the training period. The funds all go into a common bank account, which pays for trips as far away as Croatia or as close as Mexico.
“A trip to Mexico obviously costs less than one to Hong Kong,” explained Selby. “The extra money that the team member on the Mexico trip raises can go to help fund the more expensive missions.”
One thing each member of Let’s Start Talking has in common is their enthusiasm for the project. “It provides people with a shield that they want and that they need,” Ryon said.
As the Pepperdine members of Let’s Start Talking face these next months of training and fundraising, they hope for both financial and spiritual support.
“As Christians, we’re called to be missionaries at home or here. This is a way to put that calling into practice,” Love said. “We could definitely use everybody’s prayer.”
03-01-2007
