Purpose of Quest clarified

It has been brought to the Quest leadership team's attention that most faculty are confused about the purpose and mission of Quest (the annual women's service trip to San Francisco). We would like to communicate the main vision and purpose of Quest, the reasons why Quest is important to the leadership team, and the reasons why we feel it is an important trip to plan for the SPU community every year.

Quest exists to break down the various barriers between women on campus. The trip is comprised of a 14-hour road trip to San Francisco, a day of service in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, and then another 14 hours of driving back to Seattle. Every part of our trip is created to foster communication and relationships between SPU women whose paths might not have ordinarily crossed on campus.

Women create barriers between themselves on our campus for various reasons: the clothes that a woman wears, the music she listens to, or the dorm that she lives in.

We partner with a church comprised of staff who all either grew up in the Tenderloin or were at one time living on its streets. The service that we do is short, but still genuine and serious. We know that our one day of service is not going to establish complete justice and restoration to the area, but we partner with a church whose purpose and vision is to restore justice to the people living in the Tenderloin.

Barriers are broken down between SPU women as a byproduct of this service. Serving alongside others in the extreme poverty of the Tenderloin powerfully changes the way women see each other (and themselves). While serving, women are able to see the hearts of the women alongside them, and seeing their hearts helps break down the foolish and immature conclusions that have already been determined.

As leaders for this trip, we know that Quest is only one part of the bigger story of reconciliation on the SPU campus, specifically among women. And though our ministry is not perfect, we are always looking for ways to improve.

We invite all the female students of SPU to experience Quest and help be a part of our effort to serve the people of the Tenderloin, as well as one another, in the hope of reconciling unjustified divisions among SPU women so that our university can be all the more effective in reaching out with Christ's message of love.

Brooke Willis, Junior