Arissa Vandeburgt, Author at Act Five: Community Initiatives for Young Adults

Learning and Service in Hamilton

Arissa Vandeburgt — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Serve & Observe is back.

101 high school students from 4 different cities have come to Hamilton in the past month and a half for 2-3 days of learning and service in the city. These trips take students into places they might not naturally find themselves – giving lunches to people living on the street with Gore Park Food Outreach, sorting clothing donations with Helping Hands, digging into a community garden with a local church or painting new tenant’s homes with Indwell. These experiences aren’t just about the hands-on experience though. Students are introduced to Indwell’s model of support, hear about the valuable work of Eva Rothwell in empowering families living in poverty, sit and eat with friends from L’arche and talk about the newcomer experience with Micah House.

What is Serve & Observe?

Serve & Observe trips with Act Five offer high school students a meaningful 2–3 day experience of service, learning, and reflection in the city of Hamilton. Designed for high school and church youth groups, these trips aim to inspire youth and their leaders to serve others, deepen their character, and explore how faith connects to everyday life and justice.

The Serve & Observe model emphasizes a posture of both action and attentiveness. Participants are invited not only to do but also to notice—to listen deeply to the people, places, and stories they encounter.

Rooted in the biblical call of Genesis 2:15—to abad (serve, cultivate) and shamar (keep, observe, protect)—these experiences are designed not only for doing, but for noticing. We hope participants can step into these communities and contexts with open hands and open eyes: offering themselves in service while learning to see, listen, and receive the stories, strengths, and needs of the people and places they encounter.

This model resists the temptation to “fix” or “solve,” and instead cultivates a humble presence—one that seeks to learn from and alongside others, in relationship. Serve & Observe reminds us that service is not just about activity, but about formation: this can be the formation of our character, our understanding of justice, our communities, and even our perception of what we have in common with others who are different from us.

Through Serve & Observe trips, students are encouraged to think about how God is working outside of the communities that they are familiar with. They are pushed out of their comfort zone and introduced to a city that is messy, but filled with God’s grace – made visible by the many organizations serving our neighbours on the margins of society.

Maranatha Church’s Serve & Observe

Just last week, a group came from Maranatha Church and spent a Saturday volunteering with Gore Park Outreach, an organization that feeds about 1,000 people every Saturday. The students were given the opportunity to set-up, serve food and eat with the people who came. Experiences like these are invaluable for shaping compassion and inspiring youth to expand their communities.

“We had an amazing weekend taking six Gr. 11s from our youth group on a Serve & Observe with Act Five. This was our second year going and both times made such an impact. The downtown outreach opportunities were very eye-opening, inspiring, and fun to be a part of. A visit to Catholic mass, city walk, worship night, jam sessions, hang-out times, and a hike rounded out the experience! The discussions and debriefs with Madi challenged the youth to observe people around them and be open to what God might show them about themselves, the world and their place in it. Each one came away with strengthened friendships, a greater understanding of what others go through, gratitude for the many blessings they have, and a passion to make a difference. Thank you, Act Five team, for a well-thought out and organized experience we could step into with complete confidence!”

-Deborah, Maranatha Church Youth Leader

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The Amazing Race 2025

Arissa Vandeburgt — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:54:53 +0000

December began with the students traversing southern Ontario in two KIA Carnivals, equipped with only paper maps, notebooks, their haiku writing prowess and envelopes stuffed with clues to unknown locations and challenges.

Yes, that’s right. It was the start of (drumroll please)… the Amazing Race!

Girls vs. boys, led by their respective RLs – it became the competition of a lifetime.

We begin with the girls. They bravely grabbed their costumes and drove off into the snow following their first clue to Niagara Falls. Many photos, videos and a failed attempt to cross the border later, they found themselves sitting in the drivers seat of a parked city bus before heading off to Port Dover for the evening.

Day 2 dawned with the girls speeding on over to the cute little town of Elora where some strangers kindly painted their faces for the sake of extra points. Before heading to Russet House Farm for the night, they made several (failed) attempts to find a goat farm before finally sneaking into a family friend’s barn for some valuable goat photos.

On day 3 they found a 62 year old!, and fell into several lakes before finally finding there way to the town of Paisley.

In the meantime, the boys found themselves straddled with a human sized teddy bear named Cozy Rosie. They dressed her in Santa pants and a wreath and followed their clue to Cambridge where they put on a Shakespeare play in the park. A man attempted to heist Cozy Rosie from them and after fighting him off, they too headed to Port Dover for a service project, cooking competition and polar plunge.

Day 2 took them through Toronto, Cozy Rosie being piggy-backed by Luke through the busy streets. Again, many photos and a tearful goodbye at Union Station later, they were on their way to Russet House Farm to spend the night there.

Day 3 finished with a frantic rush to get points before the team rejoined for a final Survivor-esque challenge: a race to build a fire hot enough to boil a cauldron of water (that naturally was collected from the swamps and rivers surrounding Paisley. Oh, is that the sound of someone falling in that I hear?).

The Amazing Race ended with two days of rest and retreat in Paisley, where a full semester of learning and growth was celebrated and debriefed. The students are now home for Christmas break before returning here to their home in Hamilton and their next adventure – a vision trip to El Salvador!

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God Met Us Here

Arissa Vandeburgt — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:27:52 +0000

Each year the Act Five Gap Year Program begins by pushing canoes loaded with students into the water. They disappear into the wilderness, led by their RLs and the Coldwater Canada team. When they return, it is with stories of resilience, meeting God and seeing their community grow closer. This year, Cullen Vandeburgt, one of our RLs, tells the story of the canoe trip along with some student reflections:

The Story of a Canoe Trip

“Our trip began with a challenge issued by the Coldwater director to Lean in to the experience and invest ourselves. He challenged us to Trust those around us; to Be Ourselves and allow ourselves to feel our emotions. We are to be open with others, and allow both the good and bad of ourselves to be seen and known.

Next thing we knew we had left technology and most signs of humanity behind and we had subjected ourselves to one rhythm. Wake early, cook, devotions, paddle, paddle, paddle, portage, paddle, portage, portage, paddle, set up camp, sleep. Repeat. Physically we had our work cut out for us. The goal of each day was quite clear: work hard and lean into the discomfort of long and full days.

“God met us in these places and wrote His strength over our weakness.”

The truth underneath this though is that there was a lot more going on than this simple goal. Through some combination of being stuck in the wilderness as a small group with only each other, having endless time to get to know each other, and beginning the day with God, the physical work that we were doing was made smaller, and the spiritual, relational, and personal conquests became bigger. One of the students upon reflection of the trip put it this way, ‘I expected to canoe lots and have some moments of God time. Instead I got to spend lots of time with God and canoe in-between.’

The last day of the trip came with an opportunity to say what we had seen grow in each other. One of the students remembers that moment: ‘This is the day we’ll arrive in civilization, when we’ll canoe to the takeout point. Full of anticipation, we have paused, mostly packed, ready to go, in order to fellowship. It’s time to affirm and strengthen one another. In the next half hour, each of us will both affirm and be affirmed by one another. We hear praises and truths that overwhelm us with joy. We pray for each other, and few eyes remain dry. Finally we finish off with a trust exercise, each of us being held in turn, by the others. We are stronger and more joyful for it. It is a fitting end to our trip.’

The trip was filled with moments of yelling at trees for existing, watching each other turn into puddles of exertion, and – what I found most inspiring – seeing the willingness to meet challenge in others’ eyes. People hurt at times and there were moments we needed to ask for help or take a break. Yet over and over I witnessed one and then the next rise to the challenge. Self-doubts and evil narratives were broken. Through the seemingly simple concept of carrying a bag, maybe two, or a canoe through the forest, God met us in these places and wrote His strength over our weakness. He showed us our beauty where we saw a corner of us we’d rather ignore, and filled us with hope and joy where we couldn’t see endings.

Over the course of 9 days we ended up traveling 160 kilometers and portaging 16 of those kilometers.”

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