Serving Others This Summer

Mikka McCracken is spending her summer helping to bring an end to chronic world hunger. She is doing so by working as an intern for the ELCA World Hunger program.

For this Gustavus senior political science major the summer internship is not a one-time experience with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, nor is it a mere resume builder. McCracken has been involved in the Lutheran Youth Organization at the local synod and national levels and is currently serving on the consulting committee for the Director for Justice for Women.

“As a person of faith, serving and loving one’s neighbor is a concept that I understand as a call, a vocation for my life.” McCracken said. “Martin Luther talks about vocation as more than just a calling to a life in the priesthood. Work, community, family, and church are all aspects of our call to live a life of meaning and purpose,” she said.

Throughout the internship, McCracken will help World Hunger create a new resource about how global climate change and hunger are related and will assist in updating its HIV/AIDS resources. McCracken will also post updates on the World Hunger blog “Hunger Rumblings.”

The World Hunger program, created to address the root causes of human hunger and poverty domestically and abroad, works with partner organizations and ELCA congregations to respond to disasters, advocate for change in the legal system, and provide immediate relief to people who are impoverished or suffering from chronic hunger.

As a participant in the Gustavus Servant Leadership Program, through the Center for Vocation and Reflection, McCracken is one of several current Gustavus students spending the summer working with organizations that work for the common good. When McCracken and other Servant Leadership Program participants return to Gustavus in the fall, they will take part in workshops and leadership development sessions to develop better servant leaders campuswide and gather to reflect and discuss what they learned during the summer.

“When we look to each other for guidance and to the world around us for the niches that need to be filled, we can all move forward together. Leading by serving, through our vocation, to help fulfill the many needs of the world accomplishes a different purpose than leading just to lead,” McCracken said.