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Senior Migle Rupsaite hadn’t worked this hard in ages. Maybe ever. Two weeks after she got home from her Alternative Break Immersion (ABI) trip, to Bethlehem Farm in West Virginia, Rupsaite’s wrist was still sore from all the digging and lugging and chopping. “I always seek out stuff to challenge me,” she says. Forgoing spring break for manual labor in the Appalachian wilderness certainly qualified.
The ABI program, run through Loyola University Chicago’s Campus Ministry, gives students the chance to travel for service learning trips three times each year. Rupsaite had always wanted to attend, especially if it meant visiting somewhere she’d never go on her own. Along with six other Rambler students, this March she decamped some 600 miles to Bethlehem Farm, a Catholic retreat center operated by two Loyola alums, Eric and Colleen Fitts. When the caravan arrived, late at night, everyone in the house ran out and greeted them with hugs.
Mornings started early, with 90 minutes of farm chores: digging holes for trees, preparing onion beds. After breakfast, the group would venture out into the outlying community. One day, Rupsaite cleaned cherry bushes for an older neighbor. Later in the week, she helped lay concrete for a widow whose trailer home was sinking into the ground on account of a faulty foundation. At night, they’d sit at long communal tables and debrief.
“The whole week was just very open. Everybody shared their stories.”
— Migle Rupsaite , Senior
Five days later, Rupsaite had made a handful of new friends and a difference far from home. At the beginning, their onion beds were green and grassy. When they left, you could actually see the soil.
