New Beginnings with Jeremy

          What up everybody? I'm the new guy in the Elgin BVS house. I hail from small town Live Oak in northern California. Let me tell you now, I don't know how to surf and despite what you might think I have seen snow before. Now that that is out of the way, let me tell a little more about myself. I'm 21 years old. I was born in Upland California and raised in Pamona for the first four years of my life. My parents, not wanting to raise I and my two older brothers in the bad area we lived in, decided to move our family up north to Live Oak to live around my mom's family. I've been raised in a church of the Brethren all of my life.

           I attended Butte Community College for 2 and half years with no major declared and no diploma to show for my troubles. At the end of my fifth semester, I had no job, I hadn't signed up for any universities and I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. All I knew is that I didn't want to keep going to community college. This was about November of 2009. I was talking with my mom about what my next step in life would be. She suggested the Brethren Volunteer Service. My oldest brother, my grandma and grandpa and my aunt and uncle had all been in BVS before me so I was familiar with the program. I don't know how to describe it any differently than this but when my mom suggested BVS it felt like something clicked into place in my head. I researched the issue and it just so happened that there was a BVS orientation in January. And so it was that I became a part of BVS unit 287. 

         During my year of service, I volunteered with Brethren Disaster Ministries. I was sent to Hammond, Indiana in February 2010 where I and my fellow BDM volunteers remodeled houses that were damaged after flooding caused my Hurricane Ike. Here I learned some basics about construction and discovered how I fit in to the BDM leadership team. At the end of May, the project in Hammond  came to an end and I transferred to the Winamac, Indiana project which was about 100 miles south of Hammond. The Tippecanoe river around Winamac flooded 3 times in 2 years. Here we had to completely tear down damaged houses and completely rebuild the homes from the ground up. I was glad for the transfer. I got the opportunity to learn the more intricate parts of construction and because we completely rebuilt houses we got to spend more time with the home owners and really got to hear their stories and work alongside them. 

        During my 6 month retreat, I was asked to consider taking over as the BVS recruiter when my initial volunteer year ended. So that's what I'm doing in the Elgin BVS house now. I've been the new volunteer recruiter for a whole two weeks now. I'm incredibly excited about my time as the recruiter and I'm totally stoked about my roommates. They are a quality class of people and I'm looking forward to getting to spend time with them.

      So yeah, that's me.  Oh yeah, my name is Jeremy by the way. Nice to meet you all. You'll hear from me again in about four weeks.

      Toodles!

-Jeremy McAvoy