Bringing students to Belfast since 1994
In 1994, Billy Stevenson got an invitation to bring a JBU student mission team to Northern Ireland. It was a wonderful time of ministry, spiritual encouragement, and intercultural engagement. The second mission team, in 1997, was also very rewarding for all. During this summer, formal plans and meetings occurred that set in place our first JBU summer studies team located in Belfast in 1998.
In 2009, Bill Stevenson and Hadden Wilson, a former JBU Irish Studies faculty member, helped JBU acquire a lease to use Lakeside Manor. This new facility enabled the program to expand to include multiple academic and mission trips in the summer, a fall semester program, and regular visits by JBU’s Cathedral Choir and athletic teams.
In 2021 the owners of Lakeside Manor offered to sell the property to JBU. The purchase was completed, and the university began planning a major renovation.
The $4 million renovation was completed by the end of 2021, and in spring 2022, students returned to the Irish Studies Program for the first time since the pandemic.
In 2022, JBU opened the program to other CCCU schools, giving them the opportunity to send their students to Belfast and benefit from this amazing program.
Spring 2023 marked the first semester in which students from multiple new partner schools lived, studied, and explored Ireland together.
"The American college student is so well received, welcomed, and loved by the Irish. They then have the opportunity to share their faith, and that is why when you all get to heaven, you are going to meet a lot of Irish people who came to know Jesus Christ as Saviour because of an American college student here on a study abroad program," said Stevenson. "It is a win-win for the American college students who also benefit from their study abroad in Ireland."
As Chief International Program Officer at John Brown University, Bill Stevenson loves to create a global learning environment for university students.
Stevenson’s life has followed a circuitous route -- starting with an early childhood in Northern Ireland, moving on to South Korea, and, ultimately, bringing him to the United States. His own intercultural experience has equipped him to understand the unique struggles and challenges that face students studying in different countries.