by Jennifer Ross

For me, my faith and service work have always been inextricably connected. I believe serving others is my call as a Christian. We are told over and over again throughout the Bible to build community with others, to serve others. This summer, I will be traveling to Tanzania, Africa to build community with my brothers and sisters in Christ, teaching English to the Maasai people. This trip has been on my mind a lot lately and I mention it as a segue into a more general musing about why I think service is important.

I try to live my life by the Gospel lessons. Jesus came to earth to save us from our sins and commanded us to love our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In this globalized world, I think we often forget the love our neighbors as ourselves part. Jesus did not mean, love your friends and family, love the people who think and act like you, love those of a similar economic status, love those who have received the same amount of education as you or love yourself alone. No, Jesus tells us to love everyone. Everyone. The homeless, the working poor, the Republicans, the Democrats, the drug addicts, those in prison, anyone who is oppressed or an outcast of society in addition to the people that society deems easy to love.

Jesus lays it all out there for us, tells and shows us what we are supposed to do; all we have to do is follow it. Jesus ate with the tax collector, talked with the Samaritan woman, healed the lepers—defied social norms! How radical! Jesus shows us and now we have got to go out and do the same. That is what life is about for me. Serving, being in community with all of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Think about it, the most radical thing we can do, is to choose to love each other.

And so that is what I am going to do. I am going to make community with, to love, my brothers and sisters in Africa, in the hopes of doing something to lighten their load, sharing their burden and they in turn will share mine. That is the great thing about community—sharing. If I am open to it, their hopes, fears, burdens will become my hopes and fears and burden and my hopes, fears and burdens will become their hopes and fears and burdens. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is human beings’ capacity to love. In the face of the worst possible trial or tribulation, we never loose our ability to love.

Love is all you need.

I realize how silly and idealistic it seems, how one could say, "oh you young college student, you. You don't know the ways of the world!" But think about it! What can love not do? Love can bring food and water to those who don't have any, love can stop fighting, love can teach children how to read. Love can do all of these things because Love died on a cross to save us. When we love each other, we are realizing and affirming one another's humanity.

So go out in the world today and love someone. Because, as the old hymn says, “they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love…”

Jennifer is a senior at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. She is also on NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.