AY Honors/Community Improvement/Answer Key

This honor was developed in cooperation with Adventist Community Services.

1. Be in at least 10th grade

This honor requirement specifies an certain maturity and is listed as a Level 3 Honor.

3. Read the chapters in Ministry of Healing by Ellen White entitled “Help for the Unemployed and Homeless” and “The Helpless Poor” and write a one-page summary of the key points.

You can read these chapters here: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh12.html and here: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh13.html

4. Interview a pastor, a person who works with Adventist Community Services, ADRA Canada or an Adventist community development program, and ask how the church is meeting the needs of the poor in the community. Take notes during the interview.

You should prethink the questions, but be flexible with followup questions too. The interview can be by phone or other electronic means. Be sure to take notes and thank the person for their time.

5. Present a 10-minute report on how a youth group might help in the urban development problems the church is sponsoring. The report may be presented to a Pathfinder staff member, or it may be presented in a group setting.

Explaining the plan you wrote for Requirement 8 would nicely fulfill this Requirement.

6. Spend at least four hours in one of the following field trips as a participant:

Get out there and serve.

a. Go out with a street ministry team that provides food, blankets or clothing to the homeless.

If you live anywhere near a city, you can organize this activity yourself or join an existing team.

b. Go out with a health screening van.

The Adventist Church runs such programs across North America.

c. Go out with a Christian work team that is repairing or building housing for the poor.

Habitat for Humanity is a good organization to check out.

d. Work in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

The Salvation Army is very active in this area.

e. Volunteer with an Adventist Community Services or ADRA Canada community development program.

Contact your conference office about opportunities if your local church does not have any such programs.

7. Attend a worship service in a church made up of a different ethnic group than your own. List for your instructor the things you observed that were different than what you have grown up to be used to in your own culture. Then list the things that were similar to what you are used to.

The requirement does not state that this must be a Seventh-day Adventist Church (or one of your denomination). It might be more interesting to visit another type of church.

8. Write a proposal for a community development project that could be conducted largely by teen and/or young adult volunteers. This could include objectives, action plan, personnel needed, schedule and budget. This proposal may be written by an individual or as a team project in a work team of no more than four persons.

This proposal would be a good basis for the presentation in Requirement 5.