Nursing Honors Society hosts missions seminars

By Mariah Hines

The Nursing Honor Society is currently hosting Monday Night Missions, a ten-week mission series geared towards giving students insights from a professor’s past missionary experiences. The series began as a personal project of Abigail Patton, president of the Nursing Honor Society.

Referencing a missions trip to Honduras she was apart of with her church, Patton said many people did not seem to have the right mindset. They got to spend time with the people, share with them why they were there, and love on them. But by the end of the trip, she said they did not feel like they did enough.

“Although I already had a passion for missions, and especially international missions, that really opened my eyes to the need.” Patton said, “But also the need for Christians to be better prepared for missions and to have a right mindset.”

Peter Savard, Assistant Professor of Nursing, is the main speaker at Monday Night Missions. He tells stories of his experiences with the many missions he has been apart of in places such as Peru, Honduras, Kenya, and India, and he shares the knowledge that he has gained from those experiences.

Patton said she loves that both Professor Savard and Cedarville have the right mindset about missions that it’s not necessarily what you do but how you do it. And how you interact with the people and impact their lives that’s important, and the real reason behind missions.

Savard grew up in a Christian home and at the time felt he had a very strong understanding of what missions were all about. However, Savard said it wasn’t until he started his own nonprofit, Global Water Consortium, and began doing real mission work, that his view on missions was challenged, and he came to the realization that he actually knew very little. When he was a student attending Cedarville College in the late 80’s, he believed himself to be just a kid with no money, resources, or talent to offer. He was putting a small box around what he thought God would have him do or not do.

“God wants us to be willing to serve. Period.” Savard said. “He doesn’t ask us to bring talent to the table, skills to the table, money to the table. He doesn’t ask for any of that. And for me I probably went 25 years before I really figured that out.”

When he was a student, Savard remembers faculty that really took the time and invested in him. He said he thinks of the Monday Night Missions Series as a way for him to give back and invest more in his students in a similar way and in a different setting outside of the classroom. The Missions Series allows him to share wisdom with Cedarville students that he wished he had possessed as a student himself. His hope for this Missions series is that students grasp and take with them at least a small piece of the lessons he has learned through missions.

“Thirty years from now you’ll be thinking, man I wish I would of known this or that,” Savard said. “But at least for me, I can kind of maybe give back to somebody and say, here’s where I put God when in fact it couldn’t of been farther from the truth and here are some stories that reiterate that point and a bunch of other things that I’ve learned that I never thought I would have learned.”

Monday Night Missions Series continues every Monday night 6-7PM in HSC 105 through April 16th. Students in attendance can enter each week for the CU GO scholarships drawing taking place at the end of the series.

Mariah Hines is a Senior Broadcasting & Digital Media Major and a campus reporter for Cedars. She enjoys good books, good music, and funny puns.