Adam Stubbendick (second from right) on a Habitat for Humanity work trip to Egypt.
by Kristi Fenster ’07
Anna Shallue, Justin Haaheim, and Adam Stubbendick are not your typical college graduates. These individuals are currently serving as mission workers in different corners of the world. Although each experience is unique, they all share one common goal: to reach out and help others discover and nurture their faith in God.
Anna Shallue, a native of Blaine, Minn., is currently working for the Christian Company, ActionCentres UK, in Northampton, England. Shallue graduated from Gustavus in 2006 with majors in secondary education and mathematics and a minor in music.
“I am working for King’s Park Tennis Centre… the aim is to encourage young people and impact their lives in positive ways through sport,” Shallue explains. Shallue spends her days working at the tennis center, volunteering with a youth group at a local church, and helping coach tennis at the center and nearby primary schools. She arrived in England in August 2006 and will remain until the end of June 2007.
Justin Haaheim, also a 2006 graduate of Gustavus, majored in computer science with music minor. Originally from Chaska, Minn., Haaheim is now living in El Talar de Pacheco, a small town in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina. During the week, Haaheim spends his days at La Lecheria, where underprivileged children come to study, receive English tutoring help, and eat lunch. In the past few months, he has been organizing music programs, in addition to volunteering at an orphanage in another part of the northern suburbs.
“The need for affection that these kids have is so obvious, and those moments when I can give them what I have are really beautiful to me,” Haaheim says of his experience in the orphanage. Haaheim arrived with other volunteers in September 2006 and will stay until August 2007, arriving home just in time to begin school again—at Yale Divinity School studying theology and sacred music.
Adam Stubbendick, a native of Waverly, Neb., graduated from Gustavus in 2004 with a major in religion and minors in sociology/anthropology and music. Stubbendick is currently in his third year of seminary at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. With the opportunity to travel during January Term, Stubbendick says Gustavus encouraged him to think globally; thus, when it came time to complete his year-long internship as part of seminary school he applied to an international program. He is now serving as the pastoral intern at St. Andrew’s United Church of Cairo in Egypt. He lives in his own apartment in Cairo—a city of more than 20 million people.
Stubbendick’s days are anything but routine, consisting of preparing for weekly worship in the expatriate congregation, meeting with leaders of two Sudanese congregations that St. Andrew’s helps support, teaching a class to teenage refugees at the church, interacting with congregation members and other expatriates in Cairo, and exploring the history and culture of Cairo and Egypt. Stubbendick’s 12-month internship ends in August 2007.
Gustavus encourages all of its students to study abroad. Each year, representatives of global mission programs are invited to campus, giving students the chance to attend informational seminars and learn about opportunities abroad.
“I chose to go abroad this year because I didn’t get a chance to go during school—my major was too busy. I felt passionate about it and wanted to do something to help too,” Shallue says.
Gustavus Chaplain Brian Johnson, who completed mission work in Guangzhou, China, says the chapel “progressively tries to plant seeds in the minds of students… getting them to think big thoughts, big places, stretch out of their comfort zones.” Johnson believes the confluence of international education, community service, and faith at Gustavus is present in every department in some way, therefore having some impact on the daily lives of students and the decisions they make.
“Being ‘liberally educated,’ with a diversity of passions and interests, experience and exposure to many different disciplines, and most of all the ability to think interdisciplinarily and connect my variety of experiences in meaningful ways—that to me is what the liberal arts is about, and I can’t imagine living this experience without that kind of broadness and connectedness that Gustavus encourages,” says Haaheim.
“I have been given the opportunity to live as a minority faith in a 93 percent Muslim nation,” Stubbendick says of his experience, “which has opened me to better understand our pluralistic world. I believe it will prepare me for wherever I go next.” Although Shallue’s work is not what most regard as ‘typical missionary work,’ she agreed the experience has been rewarding. “I feel I have a much better idea of what goes on in the wider world… on the faith side of things, in my free time I have ample time to pray and grow my faith. Somehow God has it all worked out!”
When asked if his mission work abroad is rewarding, Haaheim responds, “Rewarding might be an understatement. Life-changing. Unbelievable. Trying. Humbling. An experience that has restored wholeness in my life, that has helped me grow in faith to God, and that will undoubtedly be with me for the rest of my life… God is in all of us: ‘My grace is all you need.'”