by David Melton
If you know much about Boston, you know one of our most popular and exciting programs is our Study Trip program. Each spring break we offer our students an unbelievable value to see the world and study on location. About 90 of us will spend two weeks in Israel in early March. It’s certainly not just a “tour” — but it’s not all mere academics, either.
Through the years, one obvious impact of the hundreds of thousands of miles we have traveled collectively is to see our students with a widened view of this spiritually needy world. Last year in Italy, more than once I heard “I haven’t seen a single Bible-preaching church since we left Boston!” In Greece a few years back, we were on the Isle of Patmos on “the Lord’s Day.” Our only option was to have a church service ourselves. The irony wasn’t lost on students. In Ireland, while studying the importance of Irish Christianity in the transmission of New Testament text through the Middle Ages, we worshipped on the bus. Sure, we stood in many old, dilapidated stone churches in those days traveling winding Irish roads. For my quirky sake, we sang a song of praise in every one of them (I thought those old stones that had been silent for centuries needed to hear praise!). But we know that churches aren’t buildings. We didn’t meet a single Irish believer on that trip.
I am so glad many who have traveled the world with us as part of their education have embraced the world as their life’s calling. A Boston student doesn’t graduate and think about the mysterious wide world out there. Boston students are global. They have seen the need with their own eyes. They know the past is the past, but eternity is forever. Study trips are sacred journeys for us.