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News
May 19 2025
By Jacob Dixon
My experience working with a crew of people that exert their best effort to make sure that other people are being cared for, has been one of the most fulfilling things that I have done all year. I have reached a point in my life where all I want to do is make people’s lives better, and being around people that have that same common goal invigorates my spirit. Everybody and everything involved with this trip gave me hope that a collective society would create a sense of love and community that overcomes all obstacles. I truly felt a sense of freedom within the willingness to love in everybody here.
Serving the people that were struck by the tornado was the most important part of the experience for all of us. A conversation I had with the homeowner of the house that my crew was repairing ended with her telling me that I reminded her of her nephew. When people say things like that I know that they see their family in me. They see their ancestors inside of me, and that makes me feel like their family too. I become a reflection of what their lineage represents and so I am embedded within the soul of their community. That remark from our homeowner made me feel really honored and blessed to be a part of an organization that truly values the love that exists within helping your neighbor.
Another conversation that I had with our Project Director ended in a prayer that felt like it uplifted part of my soul that felt incomplete or underdeveloped. She said that she “was not the one doing the talking, but the Lord speaks through her.” I think this revelation is beautiful because it shows that she is immersed within a worldview that calls her to be a beacon of light for others. This is something that inspires me to be a better person and continue to try to be as good of people as the MDS leaders, the homeowners, and the rest of my crew.
Everybody on this trip was a bright source of compassion and warmth that made every day just get better. I was exhausted most days, but the conversations that I would have at dinner, during work, during breakfast, during games, and during field trips gave me so much confidence that hope can prevail. Getting to know every single member of my crew on a more personal level made me feel like our community was more family than volunteer partners. We all became really good friends on this trip and learned so much about each other, and it was so meaningful to learn about everyone as time went on. I found that the beautiful conversations that I had with people, always came from learning about who they are and what they are interested in. Everybody had so many different perspectives and they all were such amazing ones.
Even the casual conversations that I had, revealed something amazing about a person. I had conversations about music and travel with my MDS leader, listened to music with my other MDS leader, talked about physics and how our existence is built upon layers of science with friends at dinner, talked about family and college experience with one of my crew members, talked about how the world represents us and how we represent the world with another crew mate, had conversations with our videographers about a how art can inspire social change, talked to one of my roommates about ecology, tormented my other roommate with constant teasing, and overall had such valuable shared experience with everybody here. I felt so much love circulating around my community that I was interacting with on an everyday basis and appreciated all of the beautiful connections that I was making with my new awesome friends.-By Jacob Dixon
Last week Pope Leo XIV issued his first major writing to the global Catholic church, an Apostolic Exhortation – an urgent word of encouragement – on love for the poor, Dilexi Te. As a Mennonite, this theme caught my attention.
We have experienced another hard week of gun violence in America. For me, it has been a week of intense emotions – heavy emotions as well as joy and hope. How do we escape the doom loop? How do we stop partaking when it is dished up to us from all sides of the media and culture that we swim in?
Goshen College’s “SST for all” makes global education more accessible with flexible study options at home and abroad.