“Ruined for Life” – this was the motto of the Jesuit Volunteer Corp: East when I served in the early 1980’s. I was challenged, transformed, and ruined for life after living in an intentional Christian community, serving the poor and living a simple lifestyle. Volunteers realized that after the JVC experience their lives could never return to normal middle class lifestyles. Our JVC experience had changed us forever. Having grown up in a middle class suburban neighborhood I found myself living in the inner city and serving the homeless of Baltimore. In college, I had been pre-med but my three years of service in the JVC helped me to discern my call to enter the ordained ministry.

While in seminary, serving as a student assistant in a church and during a year of internship, I fell in love with congregational ministry. For over twenty years now I have now been serving as an Associate or Solo Pastor and still love serving the parish. Nevertheless after two decades I find myself in need of reconnecting to the sense of being “ruined for life”-- reconnecting to my "original sense of call." I need my sabbatical time to recharge me for continued congregational ministry but also to challenge me to become a better motivator and leader in areas of mission and transformation. A large part of the JVC experience included spiritual formation and worship. The volunteers worked throughout the north east in some form of social justice ministry, but we gathered 5 times during each year for retreat, renewal and worship. The sabbatical I envision would engage in work with the poor in Wilmington, Delaware alongside my former Jesuit Volunteer Support person, spiritual renewal through attending two week-long retreats and time for reconnecting with my family.