Life-Shaping Impact

Call of Service Celebrates 20 Years

Traveling to Denver comes with some exhilarating mountain top experiences, but students venturing to the “Mile High City” as part of Simpson’s May Term Call of Service also encounter the deep valleys of poverty and homelessness. After getting to know and work with people suffering such afflictions, students often return to campus completely changed.

“I chose to go on this trip initially to broaden my perspective through meeting others and learning about how they view the world,” said Alyvia Fuller ’26. Fuller joined 11 other Simpson students on this year’s Call of Service to Denver led by College Chaplain the Rev. Mara Bailey ’06 and the Rev. Eric Rucker, director of the Simpson Youth Academy. “I shared and learned things I never thought possible and learned more about myself in those three weeks than I have in the past 19 years.”

The 2024 trip marked the 20th anniversary of the Call of Service May Term course. Dr. Jim Hayes and Rev. Dr. Jan Everhart served as founding co-directors of the program, established through a grant from the Lilly Foundation. Bailey began co-leading the course in 2014.

The three-week course begins with a week of learning on campus to prepare for their Denver experience. Students are immersed in readings, discussions and reflection, examining the root causes of poverty and homelessness while getting to know more about themselves and each other before embarking on their service journey.

Eye-Opening Encounters

Once in Denver, the students are immersed in a week of intensive service opportunities across the community — returning to many of the same places Simpson has served over the last two decades. One day might involve assisting multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with a variety of social activities, tasks or exercises. Another day could be spent working at the Food Bank of the Rockies. Or they find themselves providing meals at a downtown café, where they have a chance to serve and interact with people from all walks of life.

“When students hear all the stories [firsthand], they learn how quickly someone’s life can change,” said Bailey. “With many of our students coming from small towns in Iowa, they know poverty exists, but it’s very hidden. Through their service experiences, they now understand more of the issues.”

Not only do the students do service together, they also do life together during the course. Staying in bunk style arrangements in the basement of a home designed to accommodate service groups, the students cook meals and spend their evenings conversing about the triumphs and trials of their service days.

Their common experience culminates with a few days near Rocky Mountain National Park at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies. It’s a serene, majestic setting for students to observe a time of Sabbath and reflect on the impact and implications of profound lessons learned.

Seeing Things in a New Light

Post-course reflection journals authored by the 2024 course participants reveal the transformative change they undergo, returning to campus with a whole new world of perspective and self-awareness.

“I think I deepened my gift of open mindedness,” wrote Max Meyers ’25. “I have met and talked to so many people that it broke down all of the biases that I may have had about someone who experiences homelessness. This course has been the gift that I needed to grow.”

Kalen Stefanick ’25 shared similar sentiments about the experience. “It’s crucial to keep people’s individual stories in mind. Everyone has a unique journey, and it’s these stories that make service truly meaningful. Rather than focusing on our own selfish desires and what we hope to get out of a service experience, we need to shift our attention to how our service can impact or change the stories of other people.”

Those same kinds of lessons remain vivid in the memories of many alumni who have participated in the Call of Service over the last 20 years. Anders Dovre ’07 was part of the first Call of Service to Denver in 2004, along with his wife, Jen (Gibson) Dovre ’07. “We stayed up late many nights talking about what exactly this world wants from us — a conversation that hasn’t really stopped in 20 years,” said Anders.

“The trip prompted me to wrestle with the great ideas of thinkers throughout history, confronting me with the realities of our world. Simpson professors [and mentors like Hayes] helped me recognize my gifts — placing me into community with others going about this same business of becoming more fully human.”

Dovre carried those lessons into a four-year stint as a church youth director, before joining Jen to become an English teacher at Ballard High School in Huxley, Iowa. Today, Dovre says, he has a chance to help students who are “starting to spar with the same questions”he did.

Like Dovre, the Rev. Dani Musselman ’16 took a deep dive into exploring her purpose through Call of Service. She enjoyed the course so much that she went on the trip three times, including twice as a student leader.

In addition to meeting her husband, Erik Hall ’16, on one of those trips, Musselman took to heart many insights that continue to shape her life and work as a pastor for Hope United Methodist Church in Marshalltown, Iowa.

“Those trips changed my life in the best of ways,” said Musselman. “They gave me multiple opportunities to discern my passions to serve God in some way. I was reminded throughout the coursework and service that I couldn’t only reveal my calling as a Christian through my words, but my actions had to reveal my values, too.”

Musselman says she continues to draw on stories from her trips for use in sermons, Bible studies and other community gatherings. Many of those lessons center on how to serve all individuals and communities with dignity, regardless of their circumstances.

“Call of Service taught me that every person has a story worthy of being told,” said Musselman. “When the Rev. Dr. Jan Everhart taught the class, she reminded us that every person’s story has a part in it that is a reflection of God…and one of the greatest gifts we can offer someone is the gift of listening.”

Essential to Liberal Arts Learning

The Rev. Brian Williams ’15 was with Musselman for the 2014 Denver trip. He says the course challenged him to “check my assumptions” about serving people in need.

“Am I coming to serve as one with all the answers trying to be the hero? Or am I coming in with humility and a willingness to listen? The more I have gone along in my ministry, the more I have found the latter approach, centered around relationship, is what bears the most fruit.”

Now in his first year as lead pastor at First United Methodist Church in Indianola, Williams wishes every Simpson student would have the opportunity to take the course.

“Call of Service is the kind of class that has an essential place in a liberal arts education. The class provides the ultimate bridge between formation in the classroom and engagement with real-world problems. It helps to put flesh on the bones of the ‘so what’ of all that we learn through the Simpson experience.”

If you have a Call of Service story to share, please drop us a note to let us know how the course impacted you then and how it influences you today. Email us at alumni.office@simpson.edu.