This is the fourth 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 Joshua Smith who served through Student.Go in Perry County, AL during the summer of 2009.

It seems weird that my service with Student.Go will soon be three years in the past. In that time, I have gotten married, graduated from college, moved three times, settled into divinity school, and traveled to Myanmar.

In 2009, while in college, I applied for Student.Go as I approach many other things in my life: frantically and at the last minute. I had worked as a youth pastor for about two years, and lost my job suddenly when the economy tanked. I was familiar with Student.Go through my friends Caleb and Anna, who had served in the years prior to my signing up. With empty pockets, a heart determined to serve others, and not much else to lose, I submitted my paperwork and was accepted.

 Within a few weeks, I was on my way to Perry County, Alabama, one of the most impoverished regions in the United States. The place had history: I lived in Marion in an old dorm room on the campus of Judson College, just a few blocks down the street from the spot where Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot in 1965, sparking a series of civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery.

 But Perry also had poverty. And racism. And ecological woes. So-called Christian academies filled with white students, while the public schools were packed almost solely with black students. People living in shacks with little more than duct-taped cardboard shielding them from the weather. While in Perry, I saw the Tennessee Valley Authority make a deal with county officials to allow the dumping of millions of tons of coal ash that had spilled out of a reservoir in Tennessee the previous year; coal ash has been shown to be a toxic waste, containing substances like mercury, arsenic, and even traces of uranium. I saw the community rise up in protest, and came to realize that this was not about tree-hugging, this was a matter of ecological and social injustice.

 My time in Marion was more than eye-opening. It was both devastating and uplifting. Having been raised in a small rural town in southeast Missouri, I saw a community not unlike my own being torn apart by poverty, violence, and addiction, but I also saw it being rebuilt by such great community organizations like Sowing Seeds of Hope. While working with SSoH, I felt the earth groaning for justice in the form of ready and able volunteers helping build wheelchair ramps in the homes of the disabled, and repainting and repairing the walls of elementary schools. During my time in Perry County, I learned much more than the value of service; I learned the value of a tight-knit community’s ability to accomplish much with little—simply by working together.

 I now work for an organization that serves to connect youth with volunteer service opportunities among nonprofit agencies throughout the greater Kansas City area. It is now my job to inspire others to serve the way Student.Go inspired me. I am indebted to Student.Go for lighting the fire in me that I hope continues to burn for the rest of my life, a fire that I can perhaps in turn—in my own small way—share with others.

Joshua Smith

Joshua Smith is an Americorps Team Leader for Kansas City-based nonprofit organization Youth Volunteer Corps of America. He is also a Divinity student at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas. Joshua lives in Liberty, Missouri, with his wife (and fellow Student.go alum) Alyssa Bennett Smith. They someday hope to join the Peace Corps together.