A Rush of Service

   What you are seeing above is a video of my freshman gateway class charging towards the professor, Dr. Coats, during a service project. Our assigned project for the cloudy Saturday morning was to clean up the Fort Hill cemetery in Cleveland, Tennessee. I was thinking the same thing you probably are right now. "A cemetery?"  I was skeptical at first, but it was actually a great experience and I gained more respect for the deceased, as well as perspective on how fragile life really can be. This was brought on by seeing infants' tombstones and entire families lost at one time. It hit home for me and made me appreciate and value the time I have been given.
     At Lee University, a number of service hours are required for graduation. There are a number of ways to obtain these hours,and it is never a difficult task to find someone in need of a willing and able college student. Some classes also offer embedded service hours, such as the freshman gateway course. In addition, students can go to the Leonard center on campus and have service opportunities presented to them,
     An article, Vocational Exploration through Service: The Effect of Service-Learning on Student Understanding of God's Calling, explains the importance of Christians serving others. Jennifer S. Feenstra, the author of the article. quotes Buechner from 1992 and says:
         "To better understand their vocation, students need to understand themselves and for that with what the world needs."
    She then goes on to say that concept and knowledge of the world and personal identities are expanded by doing service projects. I agree with both statements whole-heartily, and I believe that personal growth can be achieved by serving and putting the needs of others first. 
     The goal of this requirement is to allow students to work for their community and grow personally as they give up their time and energies to help out those who need it. Service hours are a great way to get involved in not only the community but involved in people's lives individually. Deeply focusing on the lives of others can benefit others as well as the server. Students at Lee can grow tremendously by serving others. And you won't graduate if you don't serve. So go forth and make disciples by serving your brother and neighbor.

  Also, you may be wondering why "Fajitas!!" was yelled during the charge in the video. Just for the sake of not leaving it unsaid, the gateway class went to our professor's house afterwards to eat lunch, which happened to be fajitas. Now you know.