This is the first in a series of blogs written by alumni of the Student.Go program.  This year Student.Go is celebrating 10 years of providing summer and semester missions service opportunities for college and graduate students in locations all over the world.

This blog is written by written by Ashley Coates who served through Student.Go in Washington DC the summers of 2005 and 2007.

To reflect on the impact that Student. Go has had in my life would be like unraveling a very long cord. You could do it; but why would you want to?  Each strand represents extensions from those moments during the summer of 2005 & 2007 to where I am today; a resident in the city that I served in and a member of the Church that hosted me.  I think that is Student.Go’s biggest success: bringing individuals into different part of this overarching story; which in turn becomes a part of their individual ones.

I was given the opportunity the first summer to collaborate with the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department to hold a Day Camp for inner city kids. We traveled up and down the East Coast making memories that have lasted.  The second summer I worked for Theater Lab; an organization once again through Calvary Baptist Church that was geared toward teaching people in recovery how to tell their own stories. I helped run one of their summer day camp programs.

Looking back on a path that at one time seemed very random and scary, I now see that God was an ever faithful provider.  The following are just a few of the more apparent lessons:

• I learned how important it is to invest in the lives of all children. As a result I served for the past four summers as a camp director for the Girl Scouts helping empower young women to embrace their unique God gifted lives.
• I learned how to see the homeless and pay attention to the working poor. I grew in my passion that in God’s kingdom; everyone is worth the effort. As a result, I spent the last year serving at Christ House (christhouse.org) a medical facility for homeless men and women; where I was able to be present with men that the world had discarded; that were living testaments to hope.
• I have learned how to live into a Baptism of all believers and how to show up at this open table with people very different from me. I joined Calvary Baptist Church five years ago and now that I live here; attend regularly.  These members teach me how to be a different kind of Baptist. They are an extension of my family.

Student.Go was an invaluable experience. To say it made a difference would seem cliché and trite.. It has been a vehicle through which I learned to ask questions, to truly see people and learned how to rewrite my portion of this greater Narrative. I am truly grateful.

Ashley and some of "her kids" in DC