There seems to be many busy bees around Irvine, but the busiest of them all is Miss Christine Juang who can be seen buzzing all around campus with her yellow backpack. Completing her third year as a Psychology and Social Behavior with a Digital Art minor, Juang continues to immerse herself in countless involvements both on campus and off campus.
Ironically, the high school girl who never did extracurricular activities now finds herself involved in a variety of organizations. Starting from her first year, Christine became involved with UCI’s housing as Middle Earth’s Community Counsel Newsletter Chair and before she knew it, took on the responsibility of becoming Middle Earth’s Community President. But her housing commitments don’t stop there, Juang is also pursuing to be next year’s Resident Advisor of Mesa Court’s Puente dorm for her final year as an RA. And if you’re a freshmen, you’re in for an exciting year filled with awesome opportunities and more campus involvement programs than you would ever expect.
Apart from the housing community, Juang is additionally, a member of UCI’s Crossroads Campus Ministries (CCM), Berean Community Church’s 2012-2013 Welcome Committee, a Career Center Marketing Intern, Core Consultant of Student Life Leadership, Vice President of UCI’s Kenya Dream as well as a main coordinator of Kenya Dance, and an intern at Pretend City Children Museum. However, amongst all these amazing involvements, her most life changing experience was her mission trip to Kenya during this year’s spring break as a part of Beloved International.
The off campus nonprofit organization is a faith-based ministry that Christine will continue working with during her final year in Irvine. The overall concept of the organization is putting orphans into stable family homes, supporting them, not only financially and legally, but also emotionally and spiritually. The feeling of comfort, belonging and unconditional love from a family outlast those of material goods that many other organizations offer. That is precisely the reason why Christine chose Beloved International as her main commitment for her last year. In the upcoming year, she and others who went on the same Kenya mission trip will be fostering a new club called Beloved International at UCI based on the international group. The group wants to first focus on educating the student body on the AIDs/HIV crisis in Kenya, which caused an entire wipe out of a generation, leaving many orphans behind. She not only wants to provide relief for these orphans, but give them hope and love. On top of putting on a medium scaled fundraiser, Christine hopes the group will be able to send a few of its members to Kenya under Beloved International each year so members can come to understand that everyone can make a difference in a person’s life.
After her mission trip, she realized how easy it is to get caught up in our own lives and not count our blessings. Her heart has really grown for Kenya during the past year and coming back to America, she wants to give her own blessings to others and provide for all the children she can, knowing that each and every one of them are so grateful for each little deed. She carries the appreciation and love with her deeply everyday, spreading her own appreciation and love towards others. Her endless faith doesn’t just fuel her passion to serve, but motivates to go beyond achieving her goals. She states that each student’s impact doesn’t stop at UCI, but extends beyond those four years saying “The connections and the hands we’ve touched will last a lifetime, no matter how small the deed!”
HerCampus UC Irvine is looking forward to see all students reach out and make connections as Juang has. Keep buzzing on, Miss Busy Bee!