Finding New Family

By: Alison Sherrod

Alison Sherrod (middle, braids) serves in the Philippines on her 2006 Summer Internship. Alison is now the lead manager for the Southeast Asia Regional Team.

As a teenager who grew up in an active youth group, I had many opportunities to participate in missions trips. However, none was more impactful than my 2006 Summer Internship. We began with ministry in Nashville, then travelled to Jamaica, Guatemala, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

Alison and her team teach English at a school in Guatemala on Summer Internship 2006.

At 19 years old, my life was forever changed by what I saw - beautiful people created in God’s image living in some of the poorest, underprivileged conditions I never knew existed.

The thing that made this trip so meaningful was the way our leader, Gregg Garner, didn’t allow us to just look. We were taught to serve and implement the word of God which teaches to serve the least of these, to give to those we see in need, and recognize that they are our brothers and sisters.

Alison Sherrod (top right) and fellow Summer Internship 2006 participant, Ashley Moore, facilitate a kids camp in Guatemala.

My understanding of family was changed by that experience in 2006, and I’ve never looked back in giving my life to love and serve my brothers and sisters around the world. 

“But whoever has worldly goods and sees his brother or sister in need, and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God remain in him?” - 1 John 3:17