Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2014 | Page 49

left: Dr. Christine Goring
Kepner, associate
professor of Spanish,
and Molly Jamison ’14, an
interdisciplinary studies
major.

In El Salvador Molly
works at a preschool
in La Iberia as part
of a Human Needs
and Global Resources
(HNGR) internship.

The real-life Spanish I hear and speak flavors
my teaching back in the classroom, reminding
me of idioms, etiquette, customs, and values
that local communities embrace. My voice
recovers inflections, pronunciations, and
fluency; I discover books and films to update
my course syllabi and to enrich my research.
HNGR visits provide me with powerful
reality checks that renew me spiritually. As
I witness people living at subsistence levels, I
am convicted of my own privilege and excess.
Each year I return to the United States with
a greater commitment to a simple lifestyle,
to frugality, and to generosity. I grow in my
awareness of the responsibility of privilege and
of our calling to identify with the poor.
The Christian leaders and church
communities I encounter on the way serve
as role models to me of faithful tenacity,
grace, and resilience. Rooted in the study
of biblical theology, they find creative ways
to live prophetically, promoting evangelism,
discipleship, and misión integral: holistic
mission with the aim of transformation, the
redemption of individuals, of families, of
communities, of culture.
Like Molly, each of the HNGR interns
I have worked with has ministered to me with
his or her energy, vision, vulnerability, and
resilient wisdom. HNGR visits remind me
of why I am at Wheaton College: to walk
alongside students in formation as we seek to
live in the Kingdom of Christ, to be salt and
light, to receive salt and light wherever God
places us.

One Student’s Story
by Molly Jamison ’14, an interdisciplinary
studies major

While in El Salvador, Molly attends a theology
class once a week, and three mornings a week
she works with children ages 4-6 at a preschool
in La Iberia, a community in the city center
of San Salvador notorious for drug and gang
activity. Two days a week she helps with an
informal church service and soup kitchen in the
small town of Quezaltepeque, just outside
San Salvador. Many of the individuals she

serves are homeless and/or struggling with
substance abuse. In this setting, Molly also runs
a tutoring program for children, offering scholastic
guidance and creative projects. As part of her
independent study project, Molly is examining the
leadership structure of Elim, the nation’s largest
and most influential mega-church.
Dr. Kepner’s visit in August of 2013 was really
special. She met most of my friends, my
co-workers, and my host family. It was very
meaningful to share my experiences here with
someone who knows my life in Wheaton and
the United States.
Dr. Kepner’s fluency in Spanish and
extensive, firsthand knowledge of Latin
America made her visit especially rich because
she was able to jump right in, getting to know
people and building connections.
At the same time, through her excitement
and curiosity, she was also able to help
me see my surroundings with fresh eyes.
Although I had only been in El Salvador
for two months, so many things already felt
normal to me. But having her by my side
commenting on the beauty of the volcano,
how special my coworkers are, the poverty
of the communities where I work, and the
compassion of those around me helped me feel
on a deeper level again.
Dr. Kepner’s presence here in August
represented just a small part of her support for
me in my HNGR journey, for we regularly
correspond via email. It is really meaningful
now to get emails from her asking about people
in my life here because she is more directly
connected than anyone else back home.
While here in El Salvador, I am learning a lot
about holistic mission and the church’s social
responsibility. I see various responses to the
challenge to be disciples who do ministry in
the way that Jesus modeled for us. I continue
to learn to see and to know people and their
stories, and to allow genuine relationships to
lead me to care for those around me. I am
learning to see with new eyes and hear with
new ears, to desire justice in more grounded
ways, and to always seek hope without diminishing the truth of the realities around me.
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