Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream
Her mom said it best while watching Dylan Vanderleest merge into graduates lining up for fall commencement on Thursday.
“She wanted to study abroad,” Kara Vanderleest said, “and abroad came to her.”
Dylan had heard her parents’ stories of their young days, doing missionary work and getting married in Japan before settling in Boise, Idaho. She wanted to be a writer and see the world, too, entering Grand Canyon University’s professional writing program.
But as sometimes happens to GCU students, they find an unexpected path when opportunities outside the classroom emerge, right outside their door.
As a freshman, Vanderleest volunteered at GCU Global Outreach, which offers students opportunities to learn from, serve and share the gospel with global neighbors in Phoenix or on mission trips.
She found the mission was right down 35th Avenue. She began helping refugees resettle into apartment complexes near GCU.
“There’s like this trauma. They have no money, they don’t speak the language. There are so many barriers,” she said.
Vanderleest began to help them adjust, even meeting people from Iraq and Afghanistan at the airport.
“And we would watch them go into their apartment and just look around – they don’t know the language or anything, with the sweetest little kids – and they look at an electric stove and it’s, oh my gosh, they’ve never had to deal with one.”
She eventually became a student leader at Global Outreach and helped Afghan families learn English, do homework and resumes, take them to doctor’s appointments, and connect them with community resources. She planned fun events for the families throughout the years at local parks, GCU’s campus and throughout the Valley.
“By building trust through her consistent visits at the nearby apartment complex, she is warmly welcomed into homes where the culture, language and faith are much different than her own,” said Global Outreach Ministry Coordinator Alyssa Kumata. “Dylan has been a faithful friend to these families and a constant support to them.”
It also changed Vanderleest’s path.
The issues surrounding refugee resettlement got her interested in government, and she added it as a second major.
“I had down the relationship side of it,” she said, but seeing how the government policy affects the support of refugees was new.
“I’ve been put in a couple sink or swim scenarios, just kind of working to figure out what to do, whether teaching them English or giving them rides around Phoenix,” Vanderleest said. “It just kind of showed me that this is what I want to do and could do it.”
She said, along with her peers, they could get outside their bubble, outside the relatively homogenous places they came from – just up the road.
“Oh my gosh they are here. I don’t have to go to Thailand,” she said.
Vanderleest has been busy applying for jobs to help refugees in various nonprofit agencies. She isn’t leaving writing behind. Telling refugee stories with journalism or writing grants for nonprofit organizations could be part of her future, helped by having a firmer grasp on government policies.
It comes at a time when resettlement of refugees and immigrants in the U.S. is under scrutiny.
“Being hospitable and honorable and welcoming to those who seek to come or already are here is increasingly important as it’s brought into the national spotlight,” she said.
It’s all been a totally unexpected journey, seeing refugees baptized or simply learn to drive, learning to be the person who helps them figure it out.
“If I can, I’ll just be that person,” she said.
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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