Beach Reach sees 246 accept Christ; God’s continued faithfulness and sovereignty

Rolling onto South Padre Island for five days of evangelistic outreach, Baylor University junior and third-time “Beach Reacher” Chloe Mandeville’s van passengers decided to get vulnerable about their struggles and fears heading into the first week of Beach Reach. 

“We just exposed it all at the very beginning, which I've never seen before, and I was so encouraged because, by the time I shared mine, it was like nothing, because everyone before me and everyone after me had such similar stories,” said Mandeville. “It was like [we were] truly handpicked by God to be in that van together.” 

Every spring break, hundreds of college students from Baptist Student Ministries (BSMs) across the state head to South Padre Island to join together in a mission effort called Beach Reach to share the gospel with those they encounter while providing free rides in decorated vans in late hours of the night and free pancake breakfasts each morning.

Sunday through Thursday nights, while many spring breakers are engaged in revelry, Island Baptist Church opens their facility to act as a “home base” for Beach Reach’s ministry. From 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., a hotline opens for spring breakers to call and ask for a ride, and while vans with a team of five BSM students and a driver (mostly BSM directors) are dispatched to pick up the riders they were assigned, there is a team of students who stay behind and pray over the ride. The student acting as “navigator” on each ride tweets into the prayer wall using #brspi25 so those praying can pray for riders in real-time. Each BSM rotates between these two roles in three shifts throughout the night. 

Meeting spring breakers with love and grace 

On the other side of the island, at Louie’s Backyard, a popular bar and entertainment space, Texans on Mission (TXM), the disaster relief arm of Texas Baptists, has a tent set up for “midnight pancake breakfast,” where BSM students can have spiritual conversations over pancakes with those coming to and from Louie’s. When they are finished with their pancakes, spring breakers are walked over to the pickup line, where several vans are available to take them home without having to call the hotline. Each night, a new group of 40 Beach Reachers and their vans rotate to be “on the ground” at Louie’s. 

Annie Hartman, a first-time Beach Reacher from Dallas Baptist University, said she was surprised by people’s “curiosity and interest in our faith.” She said Louie’s is an important opportunity for Beach Reachers to “not be scared of sin” but to meet spring breakers where they are “with so much love and grace.” 

“I think [Louie’s is] probably a place that a lot of Christians would want to avoid. So, I think it's really good to be hands-on and reach people that may be lost and meeting people where they’re at,” said Hartman. 

TXM volunteer Phil Winget has served pancakes at Louie’s for 10 years. He said the most encouraging thing to see each year is the amount of people giving their lives to Jesus. By Wednesday night of the first week, there had already been a total of 50 salvations reported. 

“Where else can you see 50 college students accept Jesus as their personal savior in a week? Last year, we had close to 80 baptisms out in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Winget. “[That] is absolutely the most impactful thing. I've never been anywhere where there were 50 college students saved in a week.”

Returning to South Padre and seeing God’s faithfulness  

One of those 80 baptized the previous year was Destiny, a college student who Mandeville and a few other Baylor students met at Louie’s. Mandeville said she “saw someone dancing around with a sign, and she ended up giving her life to Christ” toward the end of the week after attending the evening worship services held for Beach Reachers at the South Padre Island Convention Center. Beach Reachers are encouraged to invite spring breakers to join them to continue their connection. 

Mandeville eventually lost contact with Destiny but continued to pray that her faith would grow. Her prayers were not in vain, as she reconnected with Destiny after seeing Destiny’s cousins, who also accepted Christ and were baptized last year, on the beach Tuesday morning.

During the day, a few BSMs are on shift to host a morning pancake breakfast at Island Baptist Church, an opportunity to deepen their relationships with connections they’ve made on the vans the night before. The BSMs that are not attending the pancake breakfast have the option of “fishing,” meaning driving around the island to pick up people who were walking to their destination or going to the beach to invite spring breakers to call the hotline at night and have spiritual conversations.

“I went to the beach and I actually saw the cousins, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you guys, it's been forever. How are you?” explained Mandeville. “We were in a bit of a rush, and I had to scurry off. But the next day [the Baylor BSM was] hanging out at the church, and I was waiting for my van… It was so perfectly ordained by God because I was the only one out[side], and [Destiny] walked up with this guy. I didn’t recognize her.” 

Destiny asked, “When do you guys do the worship service?”

“[Thinking she was talking about Island Baptist Church], I was like, ‘There's not one tonight.’ Unless she's talking about the convention center, but how would she know?” explained Mandeville. “We get within [ten feet], and she's like, ‘Wait, I know you,’ and I finally see her and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh, Destiny!’ She had come back! She knew that we were here, and she wanted to see us.” 

Destiny updated Mandeville that in the last year, God had freed her from addiction, she had found a home church and was being discipled. 

“Naturally, we get to the convention center, and I tell every single person I see, anyone who might have known her because, praise God, something truly happened in her life,” said Mandeville. “It's such an encouragement because you don't really see people after the fact. You interact with them once or maybe twice and then never again, so it's so cool to see her a year later and see she's still on the straight and narrow.” 

Destiny came to worship that evening and was “the most influential part of the night” for Baylor students. 

“I had to let them know that they are making a difference… [there] may not be a hundred thousand people, but that one lost sheep is still important,” said Destiny. “I wanted to tell them… to never doubt themselves because God chose them… to be here.” 

“Here she is, turning the tables and encouraging us… the Lord so clearly spoke through her exactly what we needed to hear in those moments,” said Mandeville. 

Nathan Mahand, BSM director at Houston Christian University, encouraged the students before they went on hotline shift Tuesday evening that “the gospel is always on the move” and so to “not let the fact that it’s been a slow week discourage you from sharing” the gospel.  

“You’re here this week because someone shared the story of Jesus with you, and you came to believe this story. You want other people to believe the story in the same way that you do. That only happens when you vulnerably go and share what God has done in your life,” said Mahand. 

As Mandeville shared her and Destiny’s story on Tuesday night, the prayer room went up in a roar of celebration as tweets on the prayer wall read that new believers were joining the Kingdom family on the vans. 

God’s sovereignty in salvation 

On Wednesday, a team from Midwestern State BSM went to the beach to evangelize, and Evanne Kleinert, a second-time Beach Reacher, and Abigail Simbaña, a third-time Beach Reacher, had something to celebrate. 

“We just prayed to have one good conversation, and then I saw a girl picking up shells on the beach, and so we went over to talk to her– we were asking people if we could pray for them– and I saw that she had a cross necklace on, so we started… asking what that meant to her,” explained Klienert. 

“After questions, she claimed that ‘God is her best friend,’ and I was like, ‘Have you heard about the gospel before?’ and she hadn’t, so I was like, ‘Okay, well, let me share the gospel with you!’ I shared the gospel with her and explained… what having Jesus as Lord and Savior means and the cost of that,” explained Simbaña. “She was like, ‘Well, I’ve been wanting to get baptized for a long time now.’”

Simbaña explained that she can’t obtain salvation by baptism but by putting her faith in Jesus. 

“She was very receptive, and she was like, ‘I want to make that decision… [and] commitment,’” said Simbaña. “[She] definitely [had] a heart ready to receive the gospel.” 

Klienert said her Beach Reach experience reminded her how every person truly does play a unique part in leading somebody to Christ. 

Hayden Womack, a sophomore and first-time Beach Reacher from Lamar University, said the same. 

“I've been uplifted by seeing the church work together– for lack of a better term– like a Rube Goldberg machine,” said Womack. “I'm just a small piece in the wheel, you know?... God has an ornate and sovereign way of knitting everything together perfectly.” 

At Wednesday evening worship, Joe Osteen, East Texas BSM regional coordinator and Beach Reach coordinator, referenced Isaiah 49:5-6 and challenged the students to “walk in obedience” even as the end of the week was approaching. He reminded them that “God's salvation is meant to advance to all the ends of the earth.”

“Jesus comes and does the work to make [salvation] a reality, by living and dying and rising from the dead and saving all who call on his name, and he enlists us, in his grace and goodwill towards us, to be a part of that redemptive work,” said Osteen.

He encouraged the students to consider what obedience looks like off the island. 

“Perhaps it’s too small to only pour ourselves out like this here at South Padre. Perhaps there’s a bigger purpose, for us to take what we’ve learned and what we’ve experienced here, back to our campuses and be encouraged to continue sharing the gospel,” said Osteen. “Perhaps God is calling you to lift your eyes a little bit and see beyond your campus to the area around you or to a mission opportunity or to a nation… who needs to know who Jesus is.” 

Staying alert for gospel opportunities 

Non-believers are not the only ones Beach Reachers are encountering on the island. There are plenty of believers who need to be reminded of the gospel message. Womack talked with a young man on a van ride who needed just that. 

“[My van] was taking fishing assignments, and we picked up this young man named Isaiah… I got talking with him. [He said] he was a Christian, [but] it seemed that he didn't know the gospel. At first, it seemed like there was a works-based salvation,” explained Womack. 

Womack shared the gospel with him to clarify that we are saved by grace through faith, not works. He said Isaiah confirmed that he believed that, but was “hung up” on earning his salvation through works. 

Womack then told him about the Great Commandment to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Isaiah felt “a lot of conviction” that he had previously visited 62 countries and “hadn’t used the opportunity to share the gospel at all.” 

Womack prayed over Isaiah and scheduled a meet-up with him on a later day of Beach Reach.

Even as BSM students are on their daily afternoon break, prior to evening worship, many stay alert and ready to take any opportunity that arises to share the gospel. On her break, Avery Marsh, junior and first-time Beach Reacher from the University of Houston, got to use a special skill to have a spiritual conversation in a coffee shop. 

“I learned sign language during my high school years, and I don't remember a lot of it, but I remember some words, and I was in this coffee shop, and one of my friends was like, ‘Avery, this person's deaf,’ I was like, ‘Oh, what? Who is?’ And I saw this sweet [older lady] with a tiny little dog, and I got to sit there and talk with her,” said Marsh.

Patt had been hearing for about 40 years and went deaf, gradually, and was starting to learn sign language. 

“She is able to read lips and speak and ended up just telling me about her life story and telling me things that I could be praying for,” said Marsh. “It was so encouraging to me that God doesn't let anything go to waste, that this skill that I learned in high school randomly because friends adopted deaf kids, I got to use in this way to get to know [Patt].” 

Over two weeks of Beach Reach, from March 9-20, 13,832 van rides were given, 10,014 spiritual conversations were had, 7,750 spring breakers were prayed with, 246 people accepted Christ, 86 recommitted their lives to Christ, and 87 were baptized. 

For more information about Beach Reach and how to partner, visit beachreachspi.org.