Bluffton music ministry comes 'Shining Through' on spring-break tour
The 20 Bluffton University undergraduates who comprise Shining Through, a music ministry team, contributed to the Haiti earthquake relief effort during their spring break.

Among the stops on the team's 10-day tour through North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania was the Mennonite Central Committee Material Resource Center, an Akron, Pa., site where items are collected to send to people in need overseas.

The Bluffton students spent a couple hours there helping assemble relief kits, including towels and toiletries, for distribution in Haiti.

The experience was both enjoyable and educational, "learning what MCC does in terms of helping meet human needs in other parts of the world," said Stephen Intagliata, Shining Through leader and campus pastor at Bluffton.

It was also among the memorable moments, he said, on a trip that saw the group lead worship at seven churches and at Eastern Mennonite High School and the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, both in Harrisonburg, Va.

Shining Through members also spent a day doing service work at a retreat center outside Harrisonburg and, in North Carolina, visited a waterfall in the mountains outside Asheville and the beach near Nags Head on the Outer Banks.

Stops on the biennial tour are scheduled at a variety of cities and towns in order to broaden connections, especially with the Mennonite community, Intagliata said.

The team's music also varies, blending hymns with contemporary Christian music and music from other cultures, he added, explaining that because Shining Through is a worship team rather than a choir, its audiences are participants and not just spectators at a performance.

"Hope for the Journey" is the team's theme this year. "We've been seeing the Christian life through the metaphor of a journey," said Intagliata, and college students are "at a particularly important stage of that journey." As they explore identity, faith and vocation, he continued, "there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of wandering along different paths of that journey."

As a result, he said, "I think the idea of journey connects with young adults."
But it also resonates with others at various stages of their journeys through life and with God-as does hope, the pastor pointed out. "Hope sustains us; hope keeps us going on our journey," he said, noting that in the Scriptural basis of the Shining Through presentation, the realization that the risen Christ is walking with them on the road to Emmaus gives two travelers new hope in life.

The presentation is divided into three aspects of the journey theme-challenges, fellowship and revelation-and includes team member testimonies about their faith journey with God, Intagliata said. During the spring-break tour, "a lot of students became very transparent and vulnerable in sharing. There were some tears shed during those times," he said. "It was a growing experience for each of them to put their heart and soul into worship."

Their listeners were affected by what they heard as well, he related. "People were really excited to see students who are passionate about God, worshipping God and leading others in worship," he said.

The spring-break trip was the second for Intagliata since he came to Bluffton. Also traveling with the team were Jeff Boehr, the university's coordinator of church relations, and the Rev. Dr. Randy Keeler, assistant professor of religion.