Written by Gabriel Nafziger
Dear Friend,
At the start of my Quaker Voluntary Service year, I found myself feeling disillusioned with the prospect of joining the capitalist and American workforce and the world in general. This feeling was making me struggle to get excited about the prospect of progressing my life forward after college and finding new experiences.
The past 8-9 years have been getting progressively harder to stomach. I am sure I am not alone in feeling that the past half decade has been extremely wearing on my mental health. From COVID-19 to the Black Lives Matter movement; from Trump’s cancerous rhetoric to the villainization of scientists and experts; from the sensationalization by the media of the wars that have started (and continue with no end in sight) in Ukraine and Gaza; from the lack of collective action on climate change to the global rise and glorification of authoritarianism; to the incalculable number of things that feel overwhelmingly important that I cannot remember because there are too many other things. It was almost impossible for me to feel as though I was doing enough to better the world around me and to fight back against and resist the powers within society that I am so vehemently morally opposed to. This led me to a feeling of helplessness and despair that I have heard echoed in almost everyone that I have talked to about the state of the world in the past several years.
The tactic that I noticed myself using to cope with this building feeling was to completely check out from the toxic news and stories of sorrow that sometimes seem to be the only thing in the world. This works to a degree, but I still found myself being unable to feel as though I was doing enough for the community and society around me. I have found that in closing myself off from the bad feelings I was also closing myself off to good and hopeful feelings and, most importantly, connection with others. I am a deeply spiritual person; I felt that my spirit had been dampened by this perception of reality that the news and society at large has been pushing onto us.
This struggle to find hope for the future is where I believe that the QVS year has really benefited me and given me the space, time, and experiences to find joy and hope again. I found throughout my year of service that I was excited to see how each day I could make a positive impact on another person’s life in a discernible real way. This is a starkly different way to approach my day and week, especially compared to the alternative of constantly being in a state of stress waiting for the next bad news headline to break.
This year I have had the pleasure of serving out my QVS fellowship at the Northeast Emergency Food Program (NEFP). This is the single largest food pantry in Oregon and serves an average of 1,000 families a week. I have gotten to interact with thousands of people in my time at NEFP: volunteers, clients, co-workers, even energy contractors!, and many, many more. All of this exposure to different people with different experiences and ideas then my own has renewed my core belief as a Quaker that everyone has that of the divine within them. This has been a difficult value at times to believe in strongly with the current conflicts and cultural wars that seem to have been raging for generations.
“My time at NEFP has reaffirmed to me that every person is divine. It has shown me that every day most people are actively making the world around them better. This has been especially easy to see myself through the home food delivery program that I designed, launched, and ran during my time at QVS.”
My time at NEFP has reaffirmed to me that every person is divine. It has shown me that every day most people are actively making the world around them better. This has been especially easy to see myself through the home food delivery program that I designed, launched, and ran during my time at QVS. I have received numerous personal thank yous and anecdotes from clients of how my delivery program has helped them make ends meet. That direct contact with the people I am serving really helped me realize that what I do in the world does have a real and valuable effect on the people around me.
And once you realize that the actions that you take and make really do have a discernible impact on the lives of those in your community, then, by definition, you are not powerless. In fact you are the exact opposite: you have become powerful, and owning your power is the first step to then utilizing it to remake the world around in an image that is pleasing to you.
Quaker Voluntary Service has helped me rediscover my power to affect the world around me and to make it that much better of a world for all of those who come in contact with me. There is a song that I learned as a child at Quaker summer camp called Shine On. The chorus goes like this:
Shine On, Shine On,
There is time enough for darkness when everything’s gone,
Shine On, Shine On,
There is work to be done in the dark before dawn.
These lines have always resonated with me as a quaker. I view the concept of shining on as letting the world see the divine within you so that you can bring out the divine in others. In our current world that seems to be amplifying only the words of darkness, evil, and hate, the song is a battle cry for hope and light. The lines are especially important now at the culmination of my QVS year. With my next steps in life still uncertain and the world’s next steps also uncertain, I am excited and ready to get to work and do my part in the dark because there is so much work to be done. So that together the people of the earth, as people of hope, light, and divinity, can bring a new and better dawn to the world.
“There is work to be done in the dark before dawn.”
Gabriel Nafziger (he/him)
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, Northeast Emergency Food Program
Gabe is from Crozet, VA and attended Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, VA graduating with a degree in Environmental Science. He played 3 years of college soccer at EMU and loves to play all types of sports. He also enjoys camping and hiking as well as pretty much any activity that is outside.
Why participate in QVS instead of applying for a job directly with a nonprofit?
“QVS gave me a sense of direction — I learned at the end of the year that I needed more education, and more critical thinking around the best space for me to make long-term impact in a community. I found out what my strengths and weaknesses were, and gained clarity towards my next steps…
In my year-long position, I did a lot of typical first-job-out-of-college evaluation, but in my community I think I arrived at those conclusions faster because I had folks at home I could talk to about my experiences and feelings. It also unprogrammed the definition of success I maintained for myself before QVS; now, success is more than work, but also about how I am able to care for myself and listen to my feelings. I owe QVS thanks for more holistic visioning.”
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