Tag Archives: orientation

Brethren Volunteer Service

The Beginnings

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By Allison Snyder

Allison Snyder

Allison Snyder, BVS unit #304

I will begin as most stories do, unless you’re Kurt Vonnegut, at the beginning. BVS began following World War II as an alternative to military action. It’s been ongoing ever since and has become a big thing in my church denomination, the Church of the Brethren. Basically, it is a smaller version of all of those organizations like the Peace Corps.

My BVS experience had a rocky start. My body reacted adversely to the anxious jitters and plane ride movement. I was greeted by people as nervous as I was about meeting them. It was awkward, as all first meetings go; one guy thought I was from Ohio instead of Iowa, a common mistake that happens a lot more than you think it would. Fortunately for our group, we were small and quickly grew used to each other in a way that made getting to know each other very easy.

I learned a lot from orientation as a whole. Most of our learning took place in the sessions that we participated in. I couldn’t tell you what each one was about but the overlying theme was developing people who could hold up and utilize their skills in their placements. The first week’s sessions tackled shopping and cooking on an extreme budget (basically poverty), conflict and finding the project placement that best suits you. One of the guest speakers who came during this week sold the project and location so well that I ended up there.

In between sessions, we had a lot of free time to do as we pleased, and at Camp Ithiel, in Gotha, Florida, there was plenty to do. I still can’t get over the fact that I played sand volleyball in the middle of February.

A lot of the free time in the first week was spent on creating our faith journeys on paper. This was a neat experience to both interact with the people in our group and reflect on yourself. Mine looked nice at the end but only because the one medium of visual art that I actually was good at and knew what to do with was available to me, smudge chalk. Drawing frustrates me. Mine turned a bit dark but that’s what my faith journey consists of and it’s made me who I am.

The sessions taught us about work styles and conflict resolution while the free time and devotion taught us about our fellow BVS’ers and the inner workings of a changing and growing self.

Three weeks isn’t a long time but in that kind of setting you get to know the people around you quickly and deeply. There are things that these people know that friends that I’ve had for a while don’t. I don’t get self-conscious about singing in front of them or sharing the stuff that I wrote with them. Jacob and I spotted two dolphins when we went to the ocean and ran after them on the shore without a care that we might look silly (it was amazing!). We did hymn singing twice during the three weeks and had a foot washing for the commissioning service and I participated in both without being ashamed and it was freeing. I trust BVS Unit #304 completely.

There is so much that I learned and experienced during BVS orientation, more than I can or dare say; wouldn’t want you getting bored. As a group, we learned how to create our own fun. I learned how to lose at a game I love (Settlers of Catan) graciously and that faith is a practice, not something you can preach at people without the discipline and understanding that it requires. Walking through Apopka, Florida, looking to help, I learned the capacity I have for patience, how fortuitous timing a thief had to dress in purple the same day as our group did and how to talk to the cops in that kind of a situation. I learned that it’s okay to be goofy and silly and that judgement is not as bad as you think it is. It was three weeks of self-discovery mixed in between sessions about peace and workdays and I left it as prepared as I could be for Cincinnati, Ohio, probably the farthest place from a country farm in Iowa that I could get.

Want to read more about BVS orientation? Or find out more about BVS in general?

Brethren Volunteer Service

Hyper-real Unconditional Positive Regard: BVS Orientation

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By Emily Davis

Perception of reality is often so subjective and inconsistent that it can subvert being present with others. That in conversation or from moment to moment there is a sense of surreal space and time, where situations seem distant, foreign or magnified; where waking consciousness seems more sleep-like. A friend recently spoke so eloquently of these dream-states it made me realize their rarity and that I’d been feeling them most frequently in my life during transitions.

I spent the last three weeks in one of those otherworldly states, in extended moments of fantastic and absurd loving reality at Brethren Volunteer Service orientation.

BVS orientation candle

Photo by Emily Davis

Twenty-four volunteers, making up BVS fall Unit #303, chose year-long, individual volunteer placements, each at a domestic or international non-profit organization focused on social justice and peace work. Together, among the picturesque rolling hills and corn fields of New Windsor, Maryland, we considered our vocational callings, attended training sessions, cooked for each other, worked in the community, sang hymns, threw dance parties, practiced devotional meditations, told nonsensical stories and played ridiculous amounts of four square.

Our group of uncommonly kind individuals opened up to each other relatively fast. We shared deep insecurities, hard pasts, and current joys so fiercely that we cultivated a strong sense of trust and connection. And some vocalized a feeling of being part of a magic bubble or alternative reality made of communal strength and safety.

Our last weekend we stayed at Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren and volunteered with the Brethren Housing Association. For me, and others I think, those few days gave a vivid example of what the Church of the Brethren is about. Although there are a small number of congregants, there is an enormous, humble partnership being built with that community; where structural impact can be seen in many small but persistent ways. On Sunday morning Pastor Belita spoke of a multifaceted faith in God that is planted in grace and personal relationships in order to serve others. In Harrisburg and later, I fell in love with those combined Brethren ideals: living in peaceful simple community, serving others together.

Those values provided a framework of thought and action that was a central part of the mystical-community-reality of orientation. In that space I was hyper-sensitive to past feelings, present thoughts, and future expectations, and immersed in thinking about how to use my particular passions and gifts to serve.

Domestic volunteers from our unit moved to their placement cities and started work this week. Going out into the world where Brethren ideals are not the norm or structure of thought and where those expectations or intentions are not necessarily clear, is daunting. The task seems infinitely lonely and substantially more difficult without intentional community, where a winking smile, compassionate hug and true support were easy to find. It was a magical, surreal place because trust, acceptance and love were abundant.

I leave for Hinche, Haiti in early November and I want to stay in that dream-state of mindful reality during my service. Where moments may seem subjective, raw or strange but they’re hyper-real and CLEARER because I’ll be questioning my faith journey, vocation, power, paradigms of thought, and intentions; and actively working to make meaningful connections with those around me. I am SO thrilled for these two years of Brethren Volunteer Service because I get to work through the model of loving kindness and pragmatic solidarity, spreading and emanating that energy I found at orientation of cosmic unconditional love.

Find out more about Brethren Volunteer Service.

Youth Peace Travel Team

Orientation 2013

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Heather Gentry, Jacob Crouse, Amanda McLearn-Montz. Photo by Marie Benner-Rhoades.

Heather Gentry, Jacob Crouse, Amanda McLearn-Montz. Photo by Marie Benner-Rhoades.

All was quite tranquil at the Brethren offices in Elgin
until early that first of June
when arrived a white van filled with Mss’ers from afar
who’d come to town the previous afternoon.

Lectio Divina – a divine reading –
not the fictional incantation you might think
prepared our minds and hearts each day
for thought, reflection, and key theological links.

Then, around a big table we would attend
sessions packed to the gills
with hermeneutical triangles, 16 pf’s,
Brethren living peacefully, together, without frills,
ethics, logistics, tradition, vocation,
liturgy, worship, and praise,
teaching, leading, and jamming to some scripture
preparing us to go on our ways.

After long days, the food would taste great
at the homes of our gracious hosts.
We’d fellowship cheerily before our daily examen
to discover where God has touched us the most.

From swimming in the hotel pool and playing contact
to singing about rain on a TARDIS,
of all the things we did in just a few days,
saying ‘good-bye’ was the hardest.

This thought inspires hope as we spread across the country
to do the Lord’s will as we may
because it shows the great love in our hearts
that we will share with all we meet
through peace, joy, and grace.