Why I Keep Volunteering for CEP
Mysti Rudd, Associate Teaching Professor of English Composition and Rhetoric, reflects on her experience with the Community Engagement Program (CEP), which fosters the Jesuit values of service to others through a week-long building project for a community in need.
Andy, Mysti, and Tanti
Okay–I admit it: I went on my first CEP trip because Nepal was on my bucket list and I was looking forward to working outside with a view of the Himalayas while recalling my youth on a farm in Minnesota, USA. Relatively new to GU-Q, and an introvert, I was also hoping to make some new friends. And, while I enjoyed working as a team to help build a biofuel dome, the time and labor I put in paled in comparison to what I received. On the last night of the program, I admitted that I finally felt that sense of belonging at GU-Q that I had been craving, grounded in a shared quest to give more than we take during our time on this earth.
Now, after my third CEP trip–this time to Indonesia to build houses in a fishing village 50km outside of Jakarta–I can recognize the telltale signs of lasting learning seeping in as sweat rolls out. As a co-faciliator of this trip, my job was to encourage students who had never done this work to give it a try. And try they did! What a joy it was to witness our students learning from the local masters, intent on improving their skills with wires and pliers, plaster and trowels, shovels and sand, white paint and ceiling rollers.
Students creating rebar frames// Digging foundation
You could almost see the thought bubbles rising like steam from their yellow construction helmets: “I never knew I could do this!” or “It feels good to build a house for someone else!” or even “It’s awfully hot and humid here!” Yet they never gave up, and I sensed how their ideas of themselves were changing, bit by bit, day by day.
Beyond the muscles strained, the construction skills gained, and the jokes that landed (or didn’t), something deeper was being planted in each of us about our purpose and how we fit into this world. In our nightly debriefing sessions, the students said how they were deeply moved and inspired by the Indonesians who shared their life stories and laughter with us after dinner every evening, facilitated by translators. The village’s most prized fisherman told them: “I want my children to go to college, like you,” and another woman said that this was the first time she felt truly seen by the volunteers, even though dozens of Habitat for Humanity groups had helped complete the 110 houses being built. I could see that the students were deeply touched by their words.
In our Habitat for Humanity facilitators Tanti and Andy, I found new role models, inspiring me to make the most of the last third of my life. Living by the credo “Love in Action” learned by observing their mother and father, and through the Jesuit schools they attended, they exuded a quiet strength and firm resilience, listening to stakeholders to design an achievable project, despite its perceived insurmountability.
There is a certain peace you pick up on when spending time around people who are living their purpose–a low hum beneath the flurry of activity–and this was the gift I received by volunteering for this fall’s CEP trip.
Read A Student Reflection on the Trip
Beyond Borders: What a Fishing Village in Indonesia Taught Me About True Community Engagement
“I traveled to Indonesia thinking the impact happened during those four days of painting and building. But the real impact is what happens next, how I show up differently in my daily life, how I listen more carefully to people around me, how I approach my own community back home in Pakistan.”