Faith in Action

Growing up active in her church, Xitlali Alvarez was drawn to helping others, but her service had always been within her community. “I had always wanted to go on a missions trip but the opportunity had never crossed my path,” she says. When an advertisement for an FPU missions trip to Thailand caught her eye, the sophomore criminology major knew it was an opportunity to serve in ways she’d long dreamed about.

Alvarez was one of 11 team members (including eight students) that spent two weeks in Thailand during the summer of 2024. The first part of the trip involved working with Abundant Life Home in Chonburi, which provides housing and education for orphans and other children in need. The home has an FPU connection: alumni Ricky Sanchez (MA, ’98, BA, ’93) and Karen Huebert- Sanchez (MA, ’14, BA, ’89), are missionaries with Multiply, the missionary arm of the U.S. Mennonite Brethren Church. The couple, longtime missionaries in Thailand, established the home in 2006.

Although Campus Pastor Brian Davis had led previous missions trips in Thailand and other countries, the seed for the 2024 trip was planted by Jillian Balakian, a student chaplain who works with Davis in the Office of Spiritual Formation. Balakian, a junior music major, participated in a similar trip to Thailand in the summer of 2023. Balakian returned to school with a vision. “The first thing I wanted to do in my job was take a team there and bring that overseas missions experience to the students here,” she says.

Fresno Pacific University has a long history of involvement in overseas missions trips and service learning. Locations have been as close as Mexico and as far away as Malawai. “Historically they’ve been referred to as missions trips,” says Davis. “There’s some sort of faith-based component.”

As to the role they play in Christian education, he says, “We are tasked as folks that work at FPU to help create the conditions for students to become what God has created them to be, and we think that includes having a global understanding of what’s going on in this world and how they might be a part of God’s work globally.”

Davis differentiates between missions and service learning, noting the latter emphasizes learning and observing, while missions work emphasizes participation. “This one was a little bit more on the missions side.”

Together, Balakian and Davis planned the trip and recruited students. That’s when Alvarez came on board. “I knew it was going to be a different sort of trip other than a vacation,” Alvarez says.

“I had no idea how it was going to turn out,” she adds. “I had no expectations other than it was going to be very hot and we’d be doing a lot of work.”

At Abundant Life Home, the group hosted vacation Bible school and helped with other jobs around the orphanage.

“A big highlight was seeing the team pour into the kids,” Balakian says. “Sometimes they take a little bit of time to warm up to a team that comes, but they warmed up really quickly to us and it was really heartwarming to see students from Fresno loving on those kids.”

After about a week, the group left Chonburi, a provincial capital of over 340,000 people, for a more rural area of the country, assisting with tasks like packaging and delivering food to local families.

“It was very hot, very humid,” Davis says. “We were in the back of the truck for eight hours or something. It was challenging mentally, emotionally, spiritually…but our students responded so well; people were quick to volunteer and do what needed to be done.”

According to Alvarez, the physical labor might have been the easy part. She spent the long flight to Thailand battling anxiety over the plane ride and what awaited. “It was such a vulnerable time, I felt very anxious, very scared,” she recalls.

Those nerves returned away from the city. “I’m scared of animals,” she admits. “For a couple of days we were in the jungle, and there were wild elephants. We literally could have had an elephant in front of us!”

There were no elephant encounters, but Balakian and Alvarez did sense God’s presence. “It was my first trip leading and there were nerves, but from the very beginning I felt the Lord telling me to do this,” Balakian says. “A lot of miracles happened on the trip.”

“I saw God work all around me,” Alvarez adds. “I saw the beautiful world God created and how big it is, how different we all are. These kids had a completely different life before coming to the orphanage. “It really expanded my mind and [my idea of] what God can do for people. Being around people who want the same things, worshipping together, praying together, made my faith even stronger. They brought me closer to God.”

Alvarez is already making plans to participate in another missions trip next summer. Balakian, too, was changed by the experience.

“Being in missions forces you to be bold in your faith, and it’s helped me to be more clear when living the Gospel out in my whole life,” Balakian says, “I’ve learned being missional is being the hands and feet of Jesus. That could be in another country, but that could be in your own house. Missions is everywhere, not just overseas.”