UM Students Backpack Across Europe

Ledbetter

Six University of Mobile students and campus minister Neal Ledbetter are backpacking across Europe this summer with the goal of sharing their faith with fellow travelers.

Ledbetter, director of spiritual life at the Baptist-affiliated university, said the Youth Hostel Mission Trip is a month-long “unconventional mission trip.” From May 13-June 10 the UM group will travel to and tour Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Pisa and Grindelwald.

“We’ll visit major tourist attractions, eat in local restaurants, travel by Eurail and metro, and lodge in traditional European youth hostels. In each setting and situation we’ll seek ways to encourage, love, listen to, learn from and share our faith stories with those we interact with,” Ledbetter said. “We will be travelers who are consciously aware that God is at work in all places at all times.”

Members of the UM team will share their experiences through an online journal at www.umobile.edu/europe. Participating students include Steven Booker of Mobile; Joanna Rieber of Nicholasville, Ky.; Josh Hornady and Joe Hudson, both of Monroeville, Ala.; Allison Lawhorn of Stapleton, Ala.; and Alanna Huckabee of Camden, Ala.

This is the second year the University of Mobile has sent a team of students to backpack through Europe. Ledbetter said the group will interact with college-age students who will also be touring Europe and lodging in youth hostels.

“We will literally be standing at the crossroads to the world as each year millions of 18-to-26-year-olds from approximately 120 countries across the globe travel the European youth hostel circuit,” the campus minister said. “Most travelers are exploring life and are open to new ideas. All are on a physical journey; many are also on a spiritual one. It is our hope that through this trip we might be able to point out how God is already at work in their lives and in our world, in the hopes that they will turn to Christ as Savior.”