I spent the entirety of the second week of winter break in St. Louis. I was on a service immersion trip with others from my school. The idea of volunteering wasn’t new to me, it was just the way were doing it for this week. Each day of the week we went out and volunteered at a different site for a couple hours. The biggest differences in the experience were the reflections we did every night and the fact that I wasn’t going to be on my phone for the whole week.

Reflecting is an important part of life that I had looked past or pushed aside previously.

Instead of just going out and serving during the day and then returning to our normal lives, we had time to discuss and talk about what we were seeing and feeling at each site. At the end of each of our days serving, we would have a time of reflection before going to bed.

In our reflections every night we talked about our experiences at the multiple sites, different little things that we noticed, and things that were bothering us. For me, personally, I felt weird just going into these places for one day, serving for a couple hours, and then leaving. How much was I getting in the way and how much was I actually helping? I was also struggling with the fact that I was just going to be there for a week. What happens after the week is over? How will I carry over what I had been doing back home with me?

I think the biggest thing that shifted or changed was my perception of things. Instead of focusing on how others are affecting the world around us and what needs to be done, I want to start with myself. It's easy to look around and see all of the problems that surround me but it becomes difficult to look at myself and see how I am either a part of the problem or what I am doing to try and fix it.

Our reflections had a focus on three different aspects: awareness, dialogue, and solidarity.

Awareness

Knowledge or perception of a situation or fact; concern about and well-informed interest in a particular situation or development

Just acknowledging the issues, recognizing that they exist, and having a conversation about them is a big step. While I was there, I started writing in a journal and just jotted down different thoughts that had been swirling through my head all day. Having all other distractions out of the way allowed me to completely be with the people I was surrounded by with a sense of humanity.

Dialogue

Conversation or discussion between two or more people, especially one directed toward exploration of a particular subject or resolution of a problem; written or spoken communication

I think during that week, I focused a lot more on a lot of the words I was using and a lot of specific aspects of communication during the many conversations I had. Instead of just talking about the poor or marginalized and helping from a kind of outside circle, it's important to work together with those we strive to help make a change. I was able to see cases of injustice stemming from people's voices not being heard or pushed aside. It is evident how important having productive dialogue is in creating change.

Solidarity

Unity that produces or is based on a community of interests or objectives; mutual support within a group

Even on a planet with a population of 7.4 billion people, 7.4 billion different experiences, 7.4 billion different stories, we all stand together as humans. We have to break down the barrier of "us" and "them." We can come together with the many different backgrounds, and understandings, aware of our similarities as well as our differences, to work toward so much change that is possible in our world.

We had a saying, service without reflection is just work. We hadn’t done our service for the day until we reflected.