Another Year, Another City

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This fall we’ve asked a number of leaders to respond to the question, “What is saving your ministry right now?” We invite you to join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Emily Powers

Over the past couple of weeks – really months – I have been thinking about why I decided to do a second year as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV). I’ve been asked if it wasn’t required, then why do it? I have talked with other YAVs who have done or are currently doing a second year, and they understand my struggle. After doing one intense year of intentional community, discernment, and volunteering, I discovered a lot about myself. So I felt that tug. That tug that we often identify as a call to do another year in a drastically different city with different people. I went to New York City to try a different job and maybe find my calling along the way.

Then, three months ago, I got to New York. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t finding my second year harder than my first. Who would have guessed that I would long for the spacious city of Washington, DC, or that I would crave for the relative silence that surrounded our row house? Yet here I am. I am in New York, and it is not what I asked for. It is not the second year I thought would be guaranteed from working in an interesting placement, living with experienced YAVs, and living in a constantly moving city jungle.

yav nycSo I am faced with the very difficult task to step back and evaluate my part in my experience. It may seem like a “no kidding” moment. Of course you have the autonomy to take back your life and experience. When I talk with my parents, they tell me how proud they are that I’m doing this great thing. They tell me to keep going because the experience will be worth it. They tell this to me knowing that my entire life I’ve been stubborn and bull headed and that I’m going to do it my way either way. So I thank them for their support because they are right. I will make it.

I have known for a while now that when I am fed with the Holy Spirit, I am at my happiest. Yet I manage to forget this when life gets hard or stressful or busy. So I have decided to start trying to listen to my parents’ advice to pray about it and keep going (like they have shown me my entire life). I cannot expect that someone is going to sit down with the bible and read it for me, just like I cannot expect someone to do my dishes.

So to not spend my year simply saving myself from myself, I have decided to do what I already know how to do. I know how to pray. I know how to go to church and worship. I know how to sit with a work and learn something new. I know that being present and showing up is 90% of the game. I know that by doing these things I have given myself the tools to be fulfilled.

It will still be hard. It will not be the last time I feel frustrated or want to pack my bags to fly home. It would not be worth it if it were easy.


emily powers

Emily Powers is a second year Young Adult Volunteer. She completed her first year in Washington, DC, and is now in The Big Apple. She plans to continue her life in ministry and eventually find herself at seminary. She is basically a New Yorker, except that she likes the Royals and misses getting across town in under twenty minutes.