Students Who Show Up

There is something different about a PAA student.

You might notice it on a mission trip to Mexico or the Dominican Republic, where our students spent time this year serving communities far from home. But you would also notice it in Portland, where other students were stocking shelves, removing blackberry bushes, or clearing trash right here in our own city.

At PAA, ministry is not a trip. It is a way of life.

Every student completes at least 40 hours of community service each year through their Change Agent Project. We are not asking students to check a box. We are asking them to look around, find a real need, and do something about it. Year after year, they do exactly that.

But what makes this work is not just the students. It is the village behind them.

PAA draws students from 30 Portland area Adventist churches, plus several other denominations, and the partnership between those churches, families, and our school is one of the most powerful things we have going for us. When church, family, and school pull in the same direction, something extraordinary happens in the life of a teenager. Faith stops being something they do on the weekend and starts becoming something they live every day.

A big part of that is our local pastors and youth pastors, who invest in our students in ways that go far beyond Sabbath morning. They are not occasional chapel speakers. They are in the bleachers at games, in the seats at performances, in the classroom substituting, bringing food and hanging out during lunches, and speaking at graduation. They know our students by name. They show up, consistently and genuinely, and that kind of presence builds the trust that opens real conversations about faith and life.

Our students feel that. And they respond to it.

Students are already leading worship, teaching Sabbath School, and even preaching in their home churches. PAA nurtures those gifts, giving students room to grow both here and in the communities they call home.

What we are really teaching them is simple: you do not have to wait to matter. You can show up right now.

And they are.