A Life Lived to Serve

Landing in Jamaica the same time as category five 1988 Hurricane Gilbert were 40 college students from the Auburn Christian Student Center (ACSC) in Auburn, Alabama. Long before cell phones or good communication sat Mary Brinkerhoff in Auburn while her late husband, Jim Brinkerhoff, led the group during the hurricane. Stuck between missing students in Jamaica and their parents in the United States sat Brinkerhoff at the age of 27.

Reporters indicated Brinkerhoff would be a widow. Reporters indicated she would tell 40 sets of parents their children had been washed off the map in Jamaica.

Everything changed when a man from Texas unexpectedly called. The Auburn students hiked to the top of the mountain in Jamacia, found someone driving a Jeep and used their radio to send a message that the Texas man just so happened to pick up. Like ripping off a band aid, the man told Brinkerhoff, often referred to as Ms. Mary, that the students and her husband were still alive.

Relieved, she started calling parents and drove to the Atlanta airport to pick them up. Following behind was CNN who had been covering the story. Now, the 40 students who went to Jamacia during Hurricane Gilbert have a reunion every ten years to celebrate their survival.

These days, Brinkerhoff spends her days retired after being Activities Coordinator at the ACSC for 30 years where she “served, prayed, laughed, shared, grew, worked and cried” with thousands of college students.

“I truly have a passion for college students. I love being around them. I love seeing them come as wide-eyed freshman and then leaving as confident adults,” Brinkerhoff said.

Students who wanted to be involved in the ACSC their first year of college were greeted with Brinkerhoff’s smile as she would give them a tour of the ACSC and Auburn’s campus. She planned retreats, welcome week activities, freshman small groups, and, of course, mission trips.

“Ms. Mary made me feel comfortable in Auburn when I was hours away from everything familiar to me. She can make anyone feel heard and cared, even though she is facing her own struggles,” said Caroline Whitehead, former discipleship leader at the ACSC.

The ministry took spring break mission trips where international, domestic, and regional trips happened at once. Even though she was older than the college students, she said their energy and fearlessness was always more her speed. Alongside Brinkerhoff was her late husband Jim Brinkerhoff, who was the campus minister.

“Sometimes I would lead one. Sometimes I wouldn’t go on any because it took all I had to get everybody off and back during spring break. Someone had to still be here at the command center,” she said.

The day after Christmas in 1983, she and Jim left New Jersey where they had started a campus ministry to lead the ACSC. Since then, she’s been in Auburn almost 39 years.

Brinkerhoff and her husband’s first six years in Auburn were spent in a windowless apartment attached to the ACSC with two beds, two baths and a kitchen. Cellphones were nonexistent, and anytime one of the nearly 300 students involved in the ACSC wanted to know who was hanging out there that day, they would call her apartment’s landline phone. For years she acted like a telephone operator, always yelling for people to come get the phone.

“It was just a lifestyle, not a job,” Brinkerhoff said.

Students knocked on the apartment door any time of day and walked right in as if they lived there too. Brinkerhoff said she never knew when someone would barge in next.

“To this day I still don’t take my clothes or shoes off until right before I go to bed. Even then my shoes are right next to my bed,” she said.

In the middle of the night, it wasn’t uncommon for her to hear the hymn “We are family. We are one” being sung in the devotional room or thuds in the TV room from wrestling matches. It was the house that never slept, but she said she loved it.

Generations of Auburn students have been mentored by Brinkerhoff. Former students met their spouses at the ACSC. Jim officiated, and Brinkerhoff directed the weddings. Brinkerhoff later started mentoring their kids who came through the campus ministry, just like she did for their parents. She said seeing that from a spiritual and relational standpoint is so rewarding because students grow up and change so much.

“Ms. Mary has been a family friend since the 1980s, witnessing my parents go through college and all three of my siblings. Ms. Mary has donated her time, recipes, and so much more to us and many others,” said Ashby Henry, a current member of the ACSC.

Even though Brinkerhoff is retired, she is continuing her love for ministry by integrating Ukrainian Refugee women and children into Vienna, Austria in November.

She made it her life’s work to serve college students as soon as they stepped in the door and continuing throughout their lives. She no longer worries about waking up in the middle of the night to someone knocking on her door and barging in, but she will always cherish the memories from the ACSC, and of course, will always keep her shoes right beside her bed.