Alumni

I chose MVS because I was excited about serving God in a new city that I get to explore every day.

I saw skills forming that I never knew I had. My true self finally felt seen. I entered the year being a shy kid who felt overlooked and left as a leader.

Service Adventure is a good way to explore your own faith apart from your parents, and kind of like, what they’ve built for you. It’s really good to explore that and make your faith your own instead of just being you living your parent’s faith.

I love the church community that we’re in. I appreciate them and they have been so warm and welcoming to us. We’re known in the community and they hold us with a lot of care. And that’s special.

I remember hearing about Service Adventure all throughout high school and at my church. I thought it was a cool idea, but for the longest time, I thought I had to go straight to college after high school or I would be considered a failure. I am so glad that God called me to change my plans and that I decided to follow through with Service Adventure

I was placed in a nonprofit organization that serves refugees, and I found myself falling in love with the work and the people. I also really like San Antonio and all the opportunities that it has to offer young people like me willing to do service. I am very happy to stay with my placement organization and work with them for this amazing cause.

We all have filters based on who we are, where we come from, and our life experiences. We see the Bible through that filter. So, when you have people who have diverse filters relating together, we get a fuller understanding of the Bible and of God. We recognize the diversity of the global family of faith and the perspectives of the indigenous churches which enrich our understanding of God and what God calls us to do.

We learn from our partners. And they are equal partners with us.

Service can be intimidating. It is a challenge because you are going, potentially, far from home and cultures that you’re familiar with. But I think the reason why people should do service is that it will push you out of those boundaries. I’m a more nuanced and rounded person for having pushed outside of those boundaries and finding that my normal is not “the normal” — which can refer to your faith and how you express it or even just worship styles. It’s a great time to learn more about the broader world, and also to learn about yourself.

I would never have know about or understood to the level that I do now, having participated in MVS, the homelessness crisis in San Francisco and all of the complexities associated with it. Its been eye-opening and thought-shifting in terms of the beliefs that I’ve grown up around and intrinsically had towards homelessness and the people who are homeless. That’s been really powerful.