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The Bethel University Athletic Department announced a new initiative on Tuesday as a way to spread encouragement during this time of uncertainty and anxiety that surrounds COVID-19 and the accompanying measures used to combat the spread of the virus.

This past year, more than ever, Bethel Athletics has been focused on strengthening our culture of community, togetherness and family. We saw student athletes come together in a powerful way … and we refuse to let the social isolation that comes with COVID-19 take that away from us!

As we enter week three apart from each other, we’d like to introduce an opportunity to stay connected through COVID-19: Pilot Light, a unique initiative to spread love, hope and joy to our Bethel family. Using social media platforms, we invite current student athletes and athletic staff to “pay-it-forward” over the next eight days on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Beginning today, look for videos, posts, photos and tweets of encouragement, gratitude, respect and love from student-athletes to their fellow Pilots on the other teams at Bethel University. We’ve built a Pilot family that is centered on Christ and a culture of uplifting one another from team-to-team and now is the time to let our collective lights shine.

“We’ve had a tremendous year here at Bethel University, and despite the adversity we are going through right now in this world, we want to continue to lift each other up,” said Bethel University Athletic Director Tony Natali. “As we look forward to celebrating Easter, I’m excited to see us do so as we share our love for each other as well as our love for our creator and all the ways He continues to bless us.”

Starting today and running through Thursday, check out Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, looking for the hashtags #PilotLight and #TrueBlueBU. Alumni, current students and future Pilots, feel free to get involved as well as we flood social media with love from the Bethel University Pilot community! Links and connections to team pages and the BU Athletics sites will also be used to as we “go viral” to attack this virus.

On Good Friday, April 10 and the following day, April 11, we will take two days to reflect on the many blessings of God’s love in our lives before celebrating the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday, April 12, filling social media with similar personal messages of praise and thanksgiving to God and professing to the world our love for Christ.

Andrew Bowen is sports information director for Bethel University in Mishawaka, Indiana.