This I Believe

I believe in human compassion, for it is the only thing that truly works to make our world a better place. Caring for those less fortunate than us and working to the best of our abilities to improve the lives of others is not only a blessing in their lives but a gift to our own as well. It can be something enormous, or just something small, but you still receive the joy of selflessly helping others.

I’ve always been involved in community service in some form or another, such as a project in Scouting or in my church’s youth group. These were mostly small and often unreciprocated projects like planting flowers or picking up trash, but even if I disliked the job itself, I still received a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction when I was finished. My first real service experience, however, occurred in the summer after seventh grade. It was my church’s yearly mission trip, a combined group of youth and adult members who spend a week improving a certain area’s living conditions. I thought I’d just be going down and spending an unpleasant week working in the hot sun. I really didn’t want to, but I was persuaded by the fact that all my friends in youth group were going and it was simply “the right thing to do.” The experience, however, impacted me enormously and was much more than a week laboring in the hot sun.

My first trip was to McDowell County in West Virginia. I had to lay tar roofing over the hot tin roof that was previously there, leaking in on Laura and Ceisel. Though they lived in poor conditions, they were the nicest people I’ve ever met. They would bake us cookies and invite us to come inside off the scorching roof to sit down and cool off, or they would insist on helping out with the work in whatever way they could. One day one of my fellow crewmembers had part of the roof collapse under her. Laura and Ceisel immediately assembled the neighbors and they began to pray for her in tongues. It took great compassion on their part to assemble everyone together just to help her out, and it seemed to work, because she only suffered a small bruise on her hip. Their kindness was contagious, and it was this compassion that I wanted to return to them through my work efforts. When the jobs were finally done I felt incredibly lucky to have had the chance to go and spend a week working in the hot sun. The gratitude that we received from the people far outweighed any discomfort that I had endured. I made a difference in someone’s life, and that is what is most important. Showing compassion by helping others and making improvements in the world through your own abilities is the most worthwhile effort you can ever put forth, this I believe.