Giving Back to a Giving Community by Maggie

Giving Back to a Giving Community by Maggie - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

During a normal week you can find me traveling from home, to school, to cheer practice, to my youth group, and then back home. Most of my free time is spent at church or with my youth group. We aren’t your typical youth group, though. We have endured trials that no one should ever have to go through and held each other up through thick and thin, keeping our eyes on Christ the whole time. My youth group has taught me what it means to be a leader in the community, whether I am teaching a Sunday school class, helping out at Vacation Bible School, or sharing God’s love to people in places across the world. It has taught me how to have patience, how to love others, and how to forgive, all of which are qualities used when serving others.
As a leader in the youth group, I am often times the “go to girl” when my youth pastor needs a hand. On multiple occasions, I have been called to speak in front of my peers and share my testimony, my mistakes, and how Christ is working in me. When a Sunday school teacher cannot make it to class, I am asked to quickly prepare a lesson and share it with the middle school girls. Vacation Bible School has taught me that things may not always go as planned, so you always have to be flexible, ready to jump from teaching the two and three year old class, to leading the songs in front of hundreds of children. Being apart of this youth group has pushed me further than I ever thought possible and has changed my life for the better.
I have been on four different mission trips with my youth group. I have traveled to Lepanto, Arkansas, Wounded Knee, South Dakota, Chicago, Illinois, and Mt. Peace, Jamaica. Each of these has taught me something different about serving others. My trip to Lepanto, Arkansas made me realize that you don’t have to travel around the world to find poverty, there are people in need everywhere. This trip was the first time I ever shared my testimony with anyone. Getting up in front of a group of people and telling them about your past mistakes and how God rescued you from it is absolutely terrifying for the first time. It showed me that I could do it. I could share Jesus with others and the more I did it the less scary it got. Wounded Knee, South Dakota taught me how to love the unlovable. Wounded Knee is an Indian Reservation. I worked with the teenage girls on this trip. The girls there are abused mentally, physically, sexually, and emotionally. When I visited, they had a death rate of 12 teenage girls within the past year, 10 of which were due to suicide. It is by far the darkest place I have ever been. Many of the teens haven’t ever experienced a fatherly love, and don’t know anything other than abuse. That being said, they have never been told that there is a wrong way to treat people, making it challenging for the mission team to come in and show them the love they deserved. Honestly, there were moments I wanted to give up, but I continued to have patience and share with them the love of their Heavenly Father. At the end of the week, we had one teenage girl who was soaking everything in, asking questions about this Father she never knew she had. That one girl made every stressful, disappointing, heartbreaking second of the trip worth it all. This is what makes me want to help my community. Impacting one person’s life in the slightest way, showing them Jesus, makes everything worth it. It allows that person to experience the hope and peace that I have, and gives them the opportunity to share Him with others as well. It could start a chain reaction.
My youth group started what would be our most difficult journey yet on October 23, 2015. That was the day our brother and friend, Baylor Bramble, suffered a traumatic brain injury while playing football. We were told that night that his only hope of survival was for a miracle to happen. We were told by many doctors that he wouldn’t make it. While we were holding each other up, praying constantly, the community gathered around the Bramble’s and gathered around my youth group. Giving to us, loving us, praying for us, and comforting us in our darkest hours. This is why I want to give back to my community. My mission trips and Vacation Bible Schools gave me the qualities to be a leader and showed me how, but this is what drives me to help others in need. I want to show others the same love and support they gave my youth group and the Bramble family as we stood by Baylor’s side, watching him defy all odds.