Teens choose service for spring break

Austin (KXAN) - Spring break is here and for many teens and college students it means a week of fun in the sun, and sleeping in after late night parties.

But some central Texas teens are taking a different approach - they see their time off as an opportunity to help others. At one Austin church, teens are choosing service over personal partying.

It's the first Sunday of Spring Break and Dillon Randolph is on stage with the band. But this is no club show - it's the youth church service at Austin Christian Fellowship. The band plays an amplified version of the hymn “All Creatures of our God and King,” complete with a rock beat and a sing-along chorus. It's different, and so are the spring break plans for many of these teens.

Randolph and 14 others will spend their break on a mission trip - helping needy people in Nicaragua.

ACF is one of several area churches offering spring break mission trips. The church has an ongoing project in Nicaragua, and has sent mission groups to the area for several years.

“We have so many students that want to travel and serve during their spring break, that we actually have to turn kids away,” said Michael Chiles, the Director of Student Ministries for ACF.

“[It’s] heartbreaking for us,” Chiles added. “But it shows there’s a real passion for students to want to serve, and get outside of themselves and spend this week doing something that’s going to help someone less fortunate.”

Rebekah Harvey experienced the passion that Chiles refers to firsthand. This will be her third mission to Nicaragua. Harvey says the trips changed her life and her perspective on spring break.

“Doing something for others, it just, it stays in your heart,” Harvey said. “And it’s so much more life-changing, and much more worthwhile to do that. And it changes others’ lives, which is something, you know, that’s much more fulfilling than going to lay by the pool.”

Harvey is blogging about her experiences in Nicaragua. You can read her blog here .

For Randolph, a bassist, the trip means missing the biggest live music event of the year. But he says it’s clearly worth it.

“Being a musician, it’s hard to miss South by Southwest,” Randolph said. “But I feel like if I go to Nicaragua and work hard and serve God, that’s a much better way to spend my time.

The Austin Christian Fellowship group was scheduled to arrive in Managua on Sunday evening. The 15 teens and their adult supervisors will help build a college dormitory and assist at an orphanage before returning home.