Everyday Transformation

By Matt Gerkens

My wife, Renee, and I got married June 1st of this year. Three weeks after our wedding we embarked on a journey of everyday transformation. It was not our honeymoon, no that had long past. This was something far and away more adventurous. It was the senior high student ministries missions trip to Tijuana, Mexico. Renee and I love each other and we knew THAT going to Mexico. What we didn't know was how much we would learn to love the students that we not only shared that week with, but would end up volunteering with ever since. It was in Tijuana that I met a group of students with a passion. A passion for change: change in their own lives, change in the lives of the people around them, and change in the way they would follow Christ. Some went on the trip to explore what the world outside of our American lives is like. Some went with the heart to serve others, and others went not knowing what to expect. Yet we all came away transformed!

Over the past 6 months, Renee and I have had the privilege to watch not only the students who came back from Mexico, but so many others serve the people around them through the transformation that comes only from Christ. There is something amazing, dangerous, and exciting about the faith of a young person. Students have the ability to see the needed change in their lives and do whatever it takes to make that change happen. It is absolutely inspiring. We love the students we work with and desire to see transformation in both their lives and ours. Last weekend Renee and I went on a retreat with the high schoolers. During the weekend we sloshed around in the mud playing games, we worshipped together, and discussed what it meant to have a relationship with Christ. But for Renee and I, the best part of the weekend with the students came at the very end. While Renee had the distinct honor of riding back in the bus full of energized students, I had the pleasure of driving a mini-van full of only five other people. During that 5-hour ride home both Renee and I got the chance to not only share our own lives, but to listen to the lives of other students and how Christ has transformed them. Renee said that on the bus that afternoon she listened, she laughed, and she wept with students because of how God was transforming their lives. That day, that weekend, and everyday since Mexico we have been a part of the everyday transformation of students... and we love it!

You see the really amazing thing is that when you volunteer to serve in student ministries you think that you are helping to transform the lives of students but what really happens is that the students are a part of the transformation in your life.