PBA did an article on our family and Student Life Camp since we are alumni.  Wanted to share it with you.

PBA grad David Rhodes and his wife, Kim Steele Rhodes, with their daughter, Izzie, 3, and their son, Frankie, 3. The couple adopted Frankie from an orphanage in Haiti

Palm Beach Atlantic University alumnus David Rhodes travels extensively through his work as a speaker, author and co-founder of Wayfarer, a resource ministry based in South Carolina.

This week he found himself back at his alma mater speaking to more than 650 young people from 26 churches across Florida and the Southeast.

Student Life, an organization that stages large-scale, Christian-themed summer camps across the country, organized the week-long summer camp for middle and high school students. This is the second year that PBA has hosted a Student Life camp.

Musician David Walker served as worship leader and Rhodes served as the main speaker for the camp, which took place primarily in the Rubin Arena.

“To be creating spiritual moments for others on a campus that houses so many spiritual moments for me is a great experience,” said Rhodes, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business management from PBA in 1996 and a Master of Divinity degree from Beeson Divinity School in 2000.

Rhodes and his wife, Kim, have been involved in camp ministry for nearly 15 years. The couple met at PBA and they have three children, Emma, Izzie and Frankie.

Rhodes frequently speaks to high school, college and singles groups, and he said he enjoys working with Student Life camps.”They do a good job of facilitating an atmosphere for God to move in these students’ lives,” Rhodes said.

Student Life has a mission camp component in which groups of campers travel off campus to volunteer in the surrounding community. The projects included painting homes, visiting retirement communities and working for agencies that serve underprivileged children and adults. About 275 campers took part in the mission camp.

One group spent time at Seagull Industries in West Palm Beach, which offers employment and other services for mentally and physically challenged teens and adults. “It was really nice to go and minister to the people there,” said Joey Farrington, a mission site coordinator for Student Life. The group talked with clients and put on a puppet show, Farrington said.

At the Caring Kitchen, a hot meal program in Delray Beach that is part of Christians Reaching Out to Society (C.R.O.S.) Ministries, campers cleaned the kitchen and cleaned out a delivery van. At Quantum House in West Palm Beach, which provides homes for families with children battling critical illnesses, the campers labeled donation cans and completed other tasks related to fund-raising, Farrington said.

About 20 middle schoolers from the Journey Church in Boynton Beach participated in Student Life’s mission camp. They volunteered at Place of Hope in Palm Beach Gardens, where Journey Church campers played games and joined in activities with disadvantaged children.

The campers were moved by the experience, said Phillip Harrelson, pastor to students for the Journey Church. “We’ve had some really profound spiritual moments,” he said.