SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Two Evangel University students have been selected as winners of a campus contest for a pair of two-week-trips to Africa.
Tyler Roberts, a senior from Yuba City, Calif., and Ashtin Flowers, a sophomore from New Palestine, Ind., were selected from a group of sixteen finalists in a student social media contest sponsored by Assemblies of God World Missions.
Roberts and Flowers will each receive an all-expense-paid trip from June 21 to July 5, as part of a team traveling to Maputo, Mozambique. Their hosts will be Matt and Andrea Marlin, Assemblies of God missionaries.
Joining the team will be Megan Proebsting, an Evangel communications intern who will accompany them and record their adventures to report back to the Evangel student body.
While there, the group will take a side trip to Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves on the continent of Africa.
Focused on service
Mosambique is a Portuguese-speaking country along the southeastern coast of Africa, with a history of war, poverty and natural disaster.
The digital contest to go there was held during Evangel’s Missions Emphasis Week in February.
Flowers, a nonprofit business major and intercultural studies minor, is excited to gain this first-hand experience.
“Overseas work is definitely something I am interested in as a long-term career,” she said. “I have tried to go to Africa for five years now; I still haven’t wrapped my brain around the fact that I finally get to go!”
Roberts felt called to missions when he was 15, on a service trip to Ecuador.
“I have been to four countries in total, but this trip is a dream come true,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Africa and work with missionaries. This trip is really exciting, because I know that I am doing what I love and what God has called me to do.”