Ride for Water

Cultivating difference makers. It’s what Azusa Pacific does. But what does that look like on a practical level?

For the APU students comprising Ride for Water, it looks like riding their bicycles more than 3,000 miles across the United States in 50+ days to raise money that provides clean water for some of the millions of people worldwide who don’t have daily access to this basic need. These students want to be “a billboard across the world,” making everyone aware that there’s a water crisis, and also that something can be done about it.

What motivates them to undertake such a grueling endeavor?

“APU has taught me to love people,” said women’s team member Katie Maginnis ’16, who emphasized that she always felt love from the APU community and in turn wants to share the love of Christ with others.

“APU pushed me to think of the world in a different way,” said men’s team member Fadi Nassar ’16, crediting in particular a challenge from chapel speaker Matthew Browning, now APU’s associate vice president for internationalization. Nassar got sick at one point during the trek, but he stuck with it. “We suffer so other people won’t have to.”

These young men and women know that they couldn’t complete this mission without the support of those who provide financial and other resources that make the trek possible. And the riders know it’s not about them, that instead it’s about loving people—in this case by giving them something that most of us in America have in abundance, even during times of drought, something we often take for granted.

“This is a communal thing. … This is not something that I can go out and do by myself,” said Nassar. “I need the body of Christ, I need the people that are around me, I need my team. We need the community to come together to raise awareness for this crisis.”