Ouachita Stories

Ouachita student ministry teams served from Canada to South Africa this summer, with a 12-member team serving in Quebec and a 15-member team serving in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region.

The Quebec team assisted in Christian sports camps while sharing the gospel with area children and youth. They also carried furniture, loaded trailers and helped residents move as part of Quebec’s national “Moving Day.”

“I loved spending time with the girls we met in Sherbrooke (Quebec),” noted Sara Hanson, a senior dietetics/nutrition major from Tyler, Texas. “Getting to talk with them and pray with them was so encouraging.

“We got to share our stories and encouraged each other so much,” she added. “I would go back in a heartbeat.”

“The people we met in Quebec were incredible,” agreed Taylor Tarlton, a junior physics major from Mesquite, Texas. “We all kind of fell in love with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and I feel that was a huge blessing during the trip.”

The South African team worked with Reach 4 Life, a ministry committed to sharing the gospel and stopping the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The Ouachita team traveled to six schools in the region, distributing approximately 1,500 New Testaments while teaching classes about the gospel and a biblical view of sex and marriage.

The trip to South Africa “was such a blessing,” said Carrie Lieblong, a sophomore biology major from Austin, Ark. “I’ve completely fallen in love with the people of Africa, and I now understand that my purpose is to teach others about Christ whether it’s in Arkadelphia or Africa.”

“This trip really opened my eyes to the worldwide church,” reflected Cami Jones, a 2010 Ouachita graduate from Mansfield, Texas, with a double major in early childhood education and Spanish. “We had the opportunity to serve and worship alongside our brothers and sisters in Africa. It was cool to see the Africans worshiping and serving the same God we praise here in the U.S.”

Devan Malone, a sophomore communications sciences and disorders major from Benton, Ark., noted that “the trip to South Africa is one I will never forget. In my heart I will forever hold the faces of the AIDS victims, the schoolchildren we were working to save from the virus, and the graves of those who didn’t make it.”

By Trennis Henderson, OBU Vice President for Communications