Approximately 3,000 athletes will travel to Lincoln in July to compete in the 2010 National Special Olympics Games.
About 8,000 volunteers will work together to make the national games — one of the largest sporting events of its kind in the world in 2010 — a success.
World leaders and diplomats are gathering in Canada for the G8 and G20 summits to discuss several critical issues including nuclear non-proliferation, vulnerable and fragile states, and international terrorism.
Nebraska Wesleyan University student Lesley Dudden is there too discussing the same issues.
Nebraska Wesleyan University senior Alexandra Hartmann says her heart lies in many places around the world.
She’s done service work in Malawi, Nicaragua and Guatemala with Nebraska Wesleyan’s Global Service Learning. She’s been to Montreal for the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference. She’s visited friends who are studying in various pockets of the world.
Eight Nebraska Wesleyan University students left for Guatemala in late May expecting to spend 10 days building a house for an impoverished family.
“We mixed cement, carried cinder blocks, moved piles of sand, and some of us learned how to lay bricks,” said Meera Bhardwaj, a recent NWU graduate and member of the student organization Global Service Learning.
They first planned a service trip to Thailand this summer but political unrest in that country forced members of Nebraska Wesleyan’s Global Service Learning to find another project.
Then the opportunity came to help build houses for poor families in Guatemala.
Justin Iverson knows when he’s a minister someday, Sunday school and church service won’t be the same as it was growing up in his South Dakota United Methodist congregation.
“Sunday fellowship is dwindling,” said Iverson, who graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University in May with a psychology degree. “Things are reshaping. It’s not like it used to be.”
When Sandra Mathews-Benham travels to Kazakhstan someday, she’ll be able to introduce herself, order a meal, and ask for directions.
“She could survive in Kazakhstan,” said NWU foreign exchange student Gulbanu Ibragimkyzy who has spent the past five months teaching Russian to Mathews-Benham.
