If you’re a college student, chances are you’re in the thick of midterms. You can hardly wait for spring break. Before you know it, you’ll hit finals then school will be out for the summer.

Maybe you’re looking for an internship that’s remotely related to your major. You might be willing to do anything that might boost your resume, even if all you end up doing is making coffee, answering the phone, copying/collating/stapling – for free. And you have to dress up – at least – business casual.

Okay, you might get a stipend for transportation, credit for your transcript, and the promise of a recommendation from the boss for a job well done, but for eight 40-hour weeks of what will most likely be data entry, word processing and/or busy-work, is it really worth it?

There’s the possibility of summer school, which could be fun, if another friend, or two, is doing it too. Since you’re trying to learn a semester’s worth of stuff in two months, each class will probably be at least two hours long. And there’s homework and exams, so when you’re not sitting in the lecture hall, you’ll be at the library. Of course, that’s more tuition you or your parents will have to pay.

Ewww.

What if instead you went out into the world for the summer?

You’d get hands-on experience and the chance to demonstrate and practice leadership. As you grow spiritually and team up with other like-hearted, similar-minded students to advance God’s kingdom, you might be inspired in other ways, too.

You might discover a practical solution to breaking the cycle of poverty in a rural village in Africa. Maybe you’ll find a way to narrow the gap between justice and oppression in South Asia.

You might learn something about yourself and God that you wouldn’t from a textbook. Instead of writing a paper, you could, with your life and your heart, present the truth and love about God. Instead of pouring over case studies about the foster care system, you could spend the summer loving and caring for orphans in the Americas.