A Parent/Guardian Perspective on Discernment

The fifth in our five week series on discernment illustrates a parent perspective on discerning a year of service. We are thankful to Gene and Cindy Wilker for sharing with us the hopes—and fears—they experienced as their adult daughter discerned a year of service with Marianist PULSE. Sarah was a member of the very first cohort of Marianist PULSE in 2016-2017. Enjoy!

While as parents raising our daughter, Sarah, we never thought much about the fact she may eventually discern a year of service. We do feel it was the foundation we helped our daughter lay that helped her to discern this step. Faith was a large part of the foundation and we always worked to let her know we would support her in following her passion and callings, even if at times what she wanted to do seemed a little crazy. Throughout her time in grade school and high school, we encouraged Sarah to get involved in both faith-related and community building activities to help her discover where her gifts and passion were. Based on these experiences, choosing UD as the place to continue her education always seemed like the perfect decision for Sarah. The Marianist charism was already somewhat a part of who she was, so we were very excited about her getting the chance to continue growing in this way. Sarah's time as a Flyer definitely increased her desire to serve. During her four years at UD, it became even more evident that her time as a servant leader wasn't ending after these four years.

During her senior year of college, when Sarah first came to us with the idea of joining the Marianist PULSE program to do a year of service, we can honestly say that deep down, we were both skeptical about it. We were thinking that after helping her financially for four year that she should be looking into getting a paying job and begin paying off some of her college debt. However, we also knew that Sarah believed in and really identified with what the Marianists stood for and felt the desire to continue to learn more about living out the charism in her daily life. We also wanted to support her in continuing to follow where she felt called, so while it was a difficult idea for us to wrap our minds around, we both told her it was her decision and we would support her no matter what she decided. We will admit though, that deep down we were both praying some paying job would come up that would be too good to pass up! Looking back, now we both thank God for our unanswered prayers.

During Sarah's year of service she had the privilege of working at Victory Project. While we were supporting Sarah in her decision to do a year of service, this placement also made us a little nervous. Through VP, Sarah would be working with at-risk boys ages 13-18 in the urban Dayton area. While this placement was a little outside Sarah's comfort zone, it was very much outside of ours. In all honesty, we were a little worried about our daughter's safety, being a small young woman from a rural background working with primarily young males. But once again, God showed us the importance of trusting His plan. We soon learned that the Victory Project needed Sarah and she needed the Victory Project just as much. It also helped to open the eyes of our family to both the gift and task of working in an urban setting. We also saw how much this placement taught Sarah about working with at-risk youth coming from many diverse backgrounds. The relationships she formed with the students there were so strong, that she continues to volunteer there each month. Through VP, not only did Sarah grow as a professional, but also as a woman of faith. This placement along with many of the other service and community building activities she participated in through PULSE, gave her the opportunity to strengthen her skills as a teacher, a citizen and a family member.

At the end of Sarah’s year of service God revealed yet another piece of His plan. Sarah’s dream job of working at Chaminade Julienne, a school that’s foundation is also based on the Marianist charism had a job opening in her field of study and she was offered the job. As parents we could not be more pleased with the decisions our daughter has made over the last few years and how she has always been willing to listen and follow what God is guiding her to do. In addition to teaching full time at CJ Sarah continues to stay actively involved in many of the service activities she was introduced to as a member of the PULSE community and we have no doubt the PULSE experience will continue to guide and form the choices she makes in the future. We are very blessed to call Sarah our daughter and excited to see what God has in store for her next.

If you are walking with a young adult discerning a year of service commitment, be sure to check out the resources available on our website to aid those who mentor young adults in this journey! 

Sarah with #MP1