When I first came to CWRU, I was not plugged in to any religious/Christian organizations on campus. Other Christian organizations that I found did not fit my style or belief system, either because they were too polarizing or too aggressive. Since I was not at home with my parents, I was not attending church regularly. All of this took a toll on my spiritual life and I felt lost at times. A few of my friends continually encouraged me to attend UPCaM's weekly worship services. I was a little hesitant for the first few months because I was afraid they would be just like the other campus groups. One day I finally swallowed my fears and I was hooked. Between the uplifting worship music, Donna's beautiful and relate-able sermon/message, and the new people I was meeting, I decided that UPCaM was definitely the place for me.

After a few conversations with Donna, I decided to become a part of the student leadership team. While I had been a part of other campus groups and have held various leadership roles, UPCaM really played a big part in developing my leadership skills. One thing that I learned while working with the UPCaM student leadership team is how to deal with opposition and adversity. During my time with other campus groups, many people embraced our mission and goals which made holding a leadership role relatively easy; UPCaM was a little different in that people who were not identifying as Christian did not know if UPCaM was something they wanted to support. We worked very hard to show other students, campus groups, and university administrators that UPCaM is different from other organizations on campus that represent Christianity. UPCaM is accepting, welcoming, caring, compassionate, and most importantly, does not judge those around us. UPCaM's student leadership team tried to branch out into areas of campus that other Christian groups traditionally stayed away from. For example, we had a booth at the university Halloween festival, we had a meal with the LGBT center to discuss how we could partner with and be a resource to them in the future, and we created a group study that discussed science and faith and how the two are not mutually exclusive. Becoming a part of the UPCaM student leadership team was not only a formative experience for me and my skills, but for the group and the campus as a whole. We were able to show everyone and continue to show everyone that being a Christian does not mean being part of an exclusive group of people who only seeks to serve themselves.