Students recall their experiences on TAG trips

By Kamryn Sanderfer

Staff Writer

From the vibrant meadows and snow-capped mountains of small-town Alaska to the coastal city of sub-Saharan Abidjan, Trevecca students had the unique experience serving alongside different cultures this summer through the Trevecca Around the Globe (TAG) program.

“I learned a lot through the people that we interacted with. I was able to walk away and see different characteristics of who God is through the people that we met, and some of them had some impacts on me that will probably last for a long time,” said Joy Diehl, coordinator for spiritual life and the female leader of the Alaska service trip. 

Diehl was one of two leaders for the group of nine Trevecca students going to Wasilla, Alaska, through the TAG program. Diehl said the point of the trip was to go and serve but also to learn from the people there and witness how God was already working.

Despite the trip being in America, there were still cultural differences. For example, in contrast to the common Tennessee living conditions, dry cabins are a common place to live in despite having no electricity or plumbing due to long and extreme winters.

During the first week, the Trevecca group served alongside Frontline Mission, a nonprofit organization attached to the church. At night, they helped with the church’s VBS. During the second week, the TAG team took the church’s youth group on a camping trip for four days.

“I’d never gone camping before, but we slept in hammocks for four nights and had an outhouse and, like, no showers for four days…so that was definitely very out of our comfort zones, or at least out of mine, but it ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip,” said Diehl. 

Despite being pushed out of their comfort zones, Diehl said the group grew through the experience of serving in Wasilla from witnessing the church there at work.

“Their youth group was really sweet,” said Diehl. “They are very bold in their faith, which is really encouraging to see, and just a good heart check of, ‘Am I living like this? Like, am I really being called out by a 17-year-old right now? I am, and I need to rise up to it.’”

On the other side of the world in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa, a group of six Trevecca students and their two leaders served with a church among the French-speaking communities of Abidjan. The objective for this trip was to serve and witness a church already working in the area.

“The area we were in had just had a civil war 10 years before, and the neighborhood we were in was ground zero for it, and so…there was a lot of hurt. The church was showing up in every one of those spaces with just some real, practical gospel implications for their community,” said Erik Gernand, university chaplain and the male leader of the team. “It was beautiful.”

The TAG team and their translators entered into this church community – which served the sick, the homeless, the addicted, the poor, and the orphaned – and brought their support through leading Sunday school classes, playing soccer, singing and dancing at the community concert, and building relationships with the people they encountered. 

“Honestly the biggest shock was that my mindset was, ‘We’re going to help these people,’ and really, I learned much more from them than I feel like I gave to them if that makes sense,” said Makena Jackson, Trevecca senior and one of the students who went on the trip.

According to Jackson, many things about Abidjan are different than here in the States. Food, music, church, and lifestyle were some of the more notable differences, and despite many people having very little, Jackson said their joy in serving the Lord was contagious.

Near the end of their trip, Jackson recounted how she and the TAG team went to a large field to help with a community concert. After the long day of walking and working outdoors, Jackson said her feet naturally got muddy, and she expected this. What she didn’t expect was how that would be responded to. 

“There were thousands of children just everywhere…there were a thousand things going on,” said Jackson. “One of the little girls saw that I had my feet dirty, and she got down on her knees, like, fell to the ground, to clean my feet. I get so choked up talking about it…that was just the purest form of love and selflessness that I’ve ever experienced, and it was from a child.”

Gernand said the people they were serving with were one of the most beautiful expressions of church he had seen. 

“It was really great to see a faithful picture of the church at work outside of just some of the baggage and packaging that it tends to be in the United States these days, and seeing it outside of our cultural context,” said Gernand.

Applications are currently taking place for the TAG trip this fall break to Indianapolis, where participants will work with the after-school program, listen to seminars, hear from directors of the ministry there concerning the Indianapolis area, and enjoy a bit of sightseeing.

“I think that anyone that gets the chance to go on a TAG trip should go. The price can be intimidating, and I know that,” said Jackson, “but I think that they provide so many ways to raise the money and to support your trip, and people are willing to help you achieve that goal, and the life changing things you can experience, whether it’s in the United States or out of the United States…is worth whatever it is.”