Volunteering: A Life Changed by Whitney

Volunteering: A Life Changed by Whitney - May 2018 Scholarship Essay

Child abuse, spousal abuse, separated families, near-poverty, hunger, and sexual abuse: all are problems that I have discovered too many of the youth in my own area are facing. Growing up in a stable home with a supportive family and relatively consistent income, I would have never imagined that the people I walked by on the street were the needy I had thought I needed to go to the big city to take care of. Recently, I was handed opportunities to volunteer with the teens in my area. I accepted, thinking of how great it would be to change lives.
I am a youth pastor and volunteer at a local teen center, interacting most with students in grades 6-12. As a youth pastor of a small youth group, I serve as leader. I prepare lessons and games, plan and prepare snacks, communicate with students, and plan events. I also do my best to represent them when needed within the church. In this position, there are fewer leaders and fewer students, so my relationship building with them is extremely intentional and driven. As a teen center volunteer, I help prepare dinner, clean up, and talk or play games with students to get to know them in a slower, more casual way.
Whatever lesson I may conduct or group discussion I may facilitate does not compare to the interactions with students during down time. These are the interactions that I have realized are the most important. They are the conversations that happen while I am cooking, washing dishes, cleaning, or playing games with the kids, and often present many opportunities for me to see where the kids' hearts are and what they experience at home. The students express their fears, passions, pains, and dreams, and let me get to know them. They are vulnerable beings who have forced themselves to put up unwanted barriers. They want loving, open relationships with people they can trust, and I am humbled to work my way into such a position in their lives.
Both groups I meet with are relatively small, and interconnect with one another fluidly. To protect my students and their personal stories, I will not share specific information. However, with an ever-growing population of teenagers becoming statistics on sheets, it is not difficult to imagine the shocking secrets that I have been entrusted to keep. I have given my listening ear when souls are hurt, rides when parents have not shown up, and leftover food when there is none at home. I have even been asked to accompany someone in court.
I have the pleasure of meeting new students and hearing their stories, whether of their day-to-day lives or their interesting past experiences. I used to think that I was hard to surprise, and am constantly reminded of how foolish I was. I hear stories of hardship that I can hardly imagine though the mouths of teens whose faces are void of any emotional expression but normalcy. Just tonight I heard a sad inkling about the home life of a pair of siblings I was playing UNO with. As we played, they sung under their breath quite beautifully to the music that played. When I complimented their voices and asked why they did not participate in any music programs, they told me that they are not good singers. When asked who told them such lies, they said that their father tells them all the time that no one likes their voices. This seems like a small slice of sadness, but it is an attitude shared by many of the students I work with: the attitude that they are not good enough for success or special treatment of any kind. But despite negative self-talk, they move forward. They teach me that it is possible to push through negative circumstances. I witness these students laugh with their friends, play video games, tell tales over meals, and talk about comics, games, and movies; it would be easy to assume that they have “normal” lives.
I never thought that I would learn so much from these students. I have learned that hardship does not only happen overseas or in other cities; there is hardship everywhere, in everyone’s own town. There is a need for mentorship, for employment, food help, and counseling. There is a need for eyes to be opened to this backyard hardship. There is a need for intentional compassion. The students have taught me that I am enough as I am, and that it is okay not to have all the answers to their problems as long as I show them love and support, and care about who they are and where they are going in life. I have a newfound passion for finding resources for youths in need of support, all thanks to my volunteering experiences. I came into volunteering expecting to change lives, but instead it changed mine.