Chris Reis has friends who stocked up on suntan lotion and swimsuits for this week's spring break.

        The University of Cincinnati senior decided on a different destination for the final spring break of his college career.

        With about 20 other students, he heads to Beverly, Ky., in the Appalachian region, to help low-income families. The group from the St. Monica-St. George Newman Center at UC will do home repairs.

        “I like the idea of being able to do some hands-on work,” Mr. Reis says. “I like to use my time to do something productive.

        The 23-year-old electrical engineering student doesn't see his choice for a nonglamorous spring break as a sacrifice. He'll be with friends.

        “We'll be working,” he says, “but we'll still have a good time.”

        Nearly 150 UC students are trading beach parties for social work as part of a program, Alternative Spring Break. Students are helping with community outreach in Canada, building homes in Florida and offering repair assistance in Kentucky.

        Pam Schroer took a week off work. The UC social work major decided the Alternative Spring Break program was more important.

        She leaves today for Toronto, Canada, with about a dozen members of the UC Baptist Collegiate Ministry.

        The trips offer “a time to get away to worship, to have a week alone with me and God,” says Miss Schroer, 21 of Delhi Township. Besides, she says, on the service trips, “I have a purpose rather than getting drunk or just partying it up. I'm fulfilling my spirit.”
       

An early calling

        Sister Elizabeth Waters, SND, began her search for God early in life. By the time she was 12, she started to feel the call to religious life.

        Her father had died suddenly, and an uncle in Dayton opened his home to three siblings and her mother.

        “Seeing God's divine providence to help my family was a really beautiful thing, and it inspired me to help others,” she said.

        She spent 49 years in teaching, from little ones to university level. And she took a lifetime learning some of God's lessons.

        One of the most vital ones, she found, was the importance of relationships. With God. With family. With friends.

        “More and more people are searching, looking for God, but they're not sure they can talk about it,” says Sister Waters, who lives in the Mt. Notre Dame convent in Reading. “I think it's so important to talk about faith and to explore it with others.”

        Her story and those of 19 other elderly women from Southwest Ohio will be featured today in a special free program open to the public. It runs from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Ursuline Academy, 5535 Pfeiffer Road, Blue Ash.

        Eight months ago, Sister Joan Leonard, OSU, began a project to talk with women of many faiths about their search for God. She interviewed Catholic and Episcopalian sisters, Jewish, Amish, Islamic and Methodist women, among other faiths.

        “I was thrilled to find that the elderly women, some of whom were in their 90s, do not reflect a sense of rigidity between different religions,” says Sister Leonard of St. Martin, Ohio.

        “As one woman says, "We're all very different. We just take different paths to the same person.”'

        For more religion listings, check out www.enquirer.com, keyword: events.
       
       Send religion news to rthompson@enquirer.com or contact Richelle Thompson at 755-4144.

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