I just wanted to say hello.

I graduated from Creighton this past weekend with a dual degree in Spanish & Hispanic Studies
and Justice & Peace Studies, with a minor in Business Administration, and moved back to St.
Louis two days ago!
This summer I will be working in the Dominican Republic co-coordinating one of six Creighton
medical teams hosting 4 weeks of dental and medical clinics in rural communities.
Beginning in October for a year or so, I will be volunteering in Chinandega, Nicaragua, with
Amigos for Christ, a Christian non-profit that works in a variety of sectors in rural communities.
You may have heard of them because Incarnate Word youth group has been taking teens down
there every summer for the past few years. My grandma just showed me a news clipping of a
CJA senior who had been to Nicaragua with Amigos for Christ with Incarnate and who just
received the Archbishop May Service Award.
I attached a copy of a reflection I wrote a few weeks back about why I want to volunteer.
Really, it depicts my commitment to social justice, the Jesuit values and the common good.
I think it all started at home with my Cor Jesu education!
MELISSA HOLLABAUGH | Student Coordinator | Creighton Center for Service & Justice
Creighton University 2012 | 314.324.7841 | melissahollabaugh@creighton.edu

Why I go.
Personal Vocational Discernment

May 2, 2012

I am going because I am young and able, and I have no career to endanger. If not now, when?
After I get another degree? After I make some money?
I am going because I have learned to believe that everything starts at home, with me.
I am going because I want my actions to reflect my values.
I am going because if I want peace, I know I must work for justice.
I am going because if I dont, who will?
I am going because I have innumerable questions that I want to live out.
I am going because a Spanish nun in Peru taught me to salir al encuentro para hacerme amigos
con el pobre. If I dont know the poor by name, I have not done enough.
I am going in the name of all the poor who asked me never to forget their stories:
Silvana, Aurora, Johan, Miguel, Carmen, Walter, Juan & Esilia, Antonio & Mimi,
Miguelina, Elfi, Alma, Sami, Genesis, Luchi, Orquidea, Junior, Estalin, Pedro & Kristina,
Canene & Antigua, Pimpa, Boba, Carmen, Juana & Luis, Oscar, Antonio.
I am going because there are a million more stories that need to be told.
I am going because I have been blessed with an education to justice, a community of friends that
encourages me, a loving family that sustains me, and a desire to experience all the joys
and pains the world is willing to offer me.
I am going because I, too, have always wondered,
Why dont more people stand up?
I am going for all the times I have remained embarrassingly quiet and cowardly in the face of
injustice, prejudice and ignorance.
I am going because I want to be different. I am going because Kyle Woolley once asked me:
How unusual do you want to be?
I am going because I want to test my values, and I want my actions to reflect those values.
I am going because of what Dorothy Day taught me:
The only solution to the long lonliness is love and that love comes with community.
I am going because I want to know what its like to have my heart broken, and then to have it
rebuilt through the presence of the divine in others.

I am going to live out my commitment to Jesuit values: to be a woman for and with others, to do
and be more than what is expected, to be contemplative in action.
I am going so that I am challenged to change and grow into a better version of myself.
I am going so that I can share what Ive witnessed with my community back home.
I am going for the many Creighton professors and mentors who have challenged and inspired me.
I am going because I want to make a preferential option for the poor.
I am going because I believe in this quote: Life begins outside your comfort zone.
I am going because I want to practice giving and receiving intangible gifts.
I am going so I can learn to practice wonder and awe for creation.
I am going because I believe in Dr. Martin Luther Kings message,
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
I am going because I want to learn to live in simplicity and solidarity.
I am going because I would rather be an instrument of peace than an apathetic graduate.
I am going because I want to learn the difference between wants and needs.
I am going in the influential footsteps of all the JPS grads that have gone before me.
I am going because it is the best reflection of Creighton running through me.
I am going so I can learn to live the Easter holiday.
I am going so I can learn to experience the life that occurs beyond a planner. For as Ive been
told,
Life is what happens when youre busy making plans.
I am going so I can paint a new picture of what an American can be to Latin America.
I am going for all those who cannot go, and better yet, for those who willingly choose not to.
I am going because I have to believe there is so much more to life than just this.
I am going because I have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.
I am going because I know there is a different kind of real world out there, and I want to meet it.
I am going now because life is short, and all we have is today.