SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Mennonite Mission Network) – Mennonite Voluntary Service participants have been journeying to San Antonio, Texas, to serve for 25 years. For many volunteers, this was a one-way trip.
Since the beginning of the MVS program in San Antonio, some short-term volunteers have chosen to stay and make San Antonio home, but in recent years, the retention rate has increased. Over the past three years, a dozen young adult volunteers have arrived. Eleven of them have stayed after their service.
“For some volunteers, coming to San Antonio and being embraced by the church community feels like the first time, as adults, that they are finding their place in the church,” said Rachel Epp Miller, San Antonio Mennonite Church pastor.
Since 1946, adults over age 20 have had the opportunity to serve with MVS for one or more years and to live in intentional communities in the U.S. Currently, MVS hosts 93 participants at 23 different locations. Since the beginning of MVS in San Antonio, San Antonio Mennonite Church has partnered with the program, providing support and a built-in community for volunteers.
“It is hard to imagine SAMC without MVS,” said Epp Miller. “Our histories are quite parallel and within the first few years of the church, the MVS unit was formed. Quite a number of our active, long-term members came with MVS and stuck around.”
The congregation sees MVS as an integral part of their work in the community, and MVSers feel welcomed and cared for by members of the congregation.
“What we’ve learned is that these volunteers, to a large extent, are the face of Mennonites in San Antonio,” said Epp Miller. “That’s a huge responsibility, and a gift for our volunteers to be able to carry the Mennonite theology and faith into the city.”
Volunteers are quickly invited to use their own gifts within the church, whether through worship leading, providing child care, teaching Sunday school, giving sermons, or other outlets.
“Our church worship is enhanced because we are all involved in each other’s lives throughout the week,” said Epp Miller. “A large part of our identity is living life together.”
This connection to the church and the relationships that develop out of it is often a key factor in the decision to remain in San Antonio.
“People from the congregation are my main support network,” said Mary Nan Ollis, who served with MVS from 2007-2009. “Whether it be an impromptu potluck or movie night or a Sunday service, there is great fellowship within the church.”
Hannah Eash, originally from Shore Mennonite Church in Shipshewana, Ind., served with MVS from 2008-2009 with RAICES, the Refugee Asylee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. After her term ended, Eash found herself led to stick around San Antonio and RAICES.
“I decided to stay partly because I loved the direction my work was going, but mostly because of the incredible community I found here,” said Eash. “San Antonio is a fine city with a really unique culture, but what I love here are the people that I interact with here: at the church, in my neighborhood, and at my job.”
Danielle Miller came to MVS from Holdeman Mennonite Church in Wakarusa, Ind., in the fall of 1997, and planted seeds that would root her in San Antonio for the years to come.
Miller began in 1997 as a volunteer with the Service and Learning in San Antonio program, which would later merge with DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection). Today, Miller is city director for DOOR San Antonio, giving leadership to youth groups that come to serve in the city, serving as a mentor to year-long DOOR Dwell volunteers, and working with nonprofit agencies in the city that host and teach volunteers. For several years, Miller also served as the San Antonio church’s local program coordinator for MVS, offering support and guidance to new volunteers coming to the city.
“I believe I learned more in my three years in MVS than I have in any other period of my life,” said Miller. “My passion for service and the powerful agent that it is in transforming the lives of volunteers obviously grew through my own experience. I love walking with volunteers as they discover the difficult and joyful truths about themselves and the world around them.”
The connections between SAMC and MVS continue to grow. Today, the church building serves as the office for two MVS staff members, MVS Program Director Hugo Saucedo and MVS Unit Administrator Kristen Mast, a former San Antonio MVSer.
