Rediscovering God’s Heart for Justice: Sommer’s Story

Sometimes in order to rebuild your faith, you’ve got to pick up a shovel. 

During its 20-year legacy, InterVarsity ServeUp invited 9,000 student volunteers to rebuild homes in communities affected by natural disaster, beginning with a commitment to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Through the program, hundreds of students began following Jesus, and some have even joined InterVarsity staff.

One of these InterVarsity students-turned-staff is Sommer Hayes.

Questioning God’s Heart

Although Sommer began college as a believer, she quickly entered a crisis of faith after leaving her hometown of Houston, Texas, to attend Amherst College in faraway New England. 

Amid devastating cases of police brutality gaining national attention and the growing Black Lives Matter movement, Sommer began struggling with difficult questions about God's heart for justice and the oppressed.

At home in Texas, God's care for marginalized communities had always felt clear to her. But hundreds of miles away, at a predominantly white college, Sommer was struggling to process acts of violence against the Black community. She began to doubt if God truly cared.

Being involved in both InterVarsity’s Black Campus Ministry chapter and it’s multiethnic chapter at Amherst, Sommer was surrounded by community but was still struggling in her faith.

“I was asking God some really hard questions that my peers didn’t have answers to and that people in my InterVarsity chapter were also struggling to answer,” said Sommer. 

Feeling like she had nowhere to turn for answers, she reached a crossroads, telling a close friend, “I don't think I can keep following God if he doesn't care about creation holistically. If God only cares about me as an individual, I’m not sure I can follow Jesus.”

Soon after, she was invited to ServeUp.

All In for New Orleans

As soon as Sommer learned she’d be able to travel to New Orleans and serve local communities, she was in. Having grown up beside families who had fled Katrina and resettled in Houston, visiting Louisiana felt like coming home.

As Sommer experienced ServeUp –– the hard hours of manual labor to serve people who lost their homes, the joy of sharing stories and meals with community elders, and the Bible studies focused on Christ’s heart for justice –– she was reminded of the true character of Jesus and his kingdom. 

“ServeUp was a fundamental space for me spiritually in understanding all of God’s heart for me, the Black community, and oppressed communities around the world,” she said.

Witnessing Through Suffering 

With her faith restored, Sommer looked forward to her next ServeUp. She could never have predicted that, the following year, Hurricane Harvey would lead her chapter and all of InterVarsity New England to move ServeUp to her hometown of Houston, Texas.

Though she was processing destruction in her own community, Sommer didn’t despair. Instead, she used the opportunity to invite her non-Christian friends — many of them fellow Black students she had grown close to on campus — to join her at ServeUp. 

Some of these friends had grown up in the church but had been hurt by it. Others had believed that following Jesus would mean a life free from suffering. Despite their own hurts, seeing Sommer continue to serve and follow Jesus even as she grieved the destruction in her city was powerful. While none came to faith on the trip, they experienced a different picture of what it meant to follow Jesus, one marked not by a life free from suffering, but by faithfulness in the midst of it.

Grieving in Community

Later that same year, Sommer’s chapter was struck by tragedy when her classmates experienced a string of deaths among close friends and family. 

Once again, their experiences of Christ through ServeUp gave them strength to persevere. That year's ServeUp Bible study had centered on Lazarus, and the conversations about grief, hope, and resurrection became unexpectedly practical.

“The conversations we had at ServeUp prepared us to walk with our friends as they were planning their teammates' funerals, as their parents were passing,” said Sommer. “Because of ServeUp, there was a community of us who understood how to love and stand by each other. My friends and I may not be following Jesus if we had gone through those seasons without the prep that happened during ServeUp.”

Now as an InterVarsity staff at her alma mater, Sommer loves inviting her own students to the experience that rebuilt her faith and redefined her view of God.  

"There's something deeply beautiful about bringing Christian and non-Christian students into discomfort," she said. "We come here for six days, and everyone is learning new things, getting dirty. I knew I wanted to have a hand in holding students as they experience that disruption." 

InterVarsity experiences like ServeUp are forming students across the country into servant-hearted disciples who seek to follow Jesus with their whole lives, for the rest of their lives. 


If you want to ensure students take part in trips like ServeUp during their time in college, donate here.