The Young Adult Program gave Jill
an experience that went beyond teaching in Thailand. It also helped
her to understand the huge gulf between making money and having
a job that makes a difference. When the two came into conflict
it wasn’t difficult for Jill to decide which was more important.
The Young Adult Volunteer program helps equip our young adults
to make those kinds of decisions.
Another volunteer, Austin House, served Udorn Christian School
last year. In his spare time, Austin made diligent efforts to
identify “the least of these” and, through some contacts,
was able to spend time helping to meet the needs of an often overlooked
group of people in the midst of one of the world’s great
tragedies—where Christians and non-Christians alike are
being systematically raped, murdered, and enslaved as a part of
an ongoing “political and religious cleansing” by
the government of Burma-Myanmar. He was able to encourage them
with medical care, clothing, food, and prayer. This sacrificial
witness has had tremendous results in people coming to faith,
and sharing their faith and newfound hope with others during times
of incredible hardship.
Austin chose to stay in Thailand and to continue his ministry
with a different organization. Austin is now pursuing, full-time,
the passion that he found as a part of his year with the YAV program.
In this case, a passion was discovered that surpassed the need
for comforts, conveniences, and even personal safety.
These volunteers are on the move, doing exciting work, and sharing
their faith in personal, profound, and decidedly public ways.
And the PC(USA) Young Adult Volunteer Program has played a vital
role in getting them where they need to be.
Other volunteers who have returned home with a new perspective
on the comforts of life in the United States and gone on to long-term
mission work in places like Nicaragua. Others have gone to seminary
and one day they’ll occupy our pulpits and bless the church
with their understanding of mission.
So what makes a successful volunteer program? One that instills
in our young adults the kind of self-sacrifice that helps them
to put the needs of others ahead of their own, that allows them
to think more highly of others than themselves, that gives them
what I call a “Jesus perspective”—a perspective
that voluntarily makes oneself nothing, the perspective that causes
one to freely take on the role of a servant, humbling oneself
and becoming obedient even unto death (Phil 2:7-8).
Friends, that happens with our young adults, and Carol and I
are humbled and joy-filled when we experience it.
In Joy,
Glen and Carol Hallead
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
121 |
