If those of you who have gone on service trips are anything like me, you can relate to that save-the-world passion that comes from the stories you hear and injustices you see while traveling. You also know how easily the energy you thought was sufficient to shoulder the world's problems can fizzle when the realities of school, work, friends and March Madness arise. Sometimes it seems like the more adamantly we tell ourselves that this time we will follow through on a mission trip's call to continue serving, the harder it is to keep that promise.

I went on a M.A.P. trip to New Orleans this spring break to learn about how the city was affected by Hurricane Katrina and to help in the rebuilding efforts. As is typical on service trips, the other members of my group and I met a lot of people and heard a lot of stories. There was a man called Mac, who gave up his dream of opening an antique car shop because he saw a greater need for building a community center. A woman named Marlo donated her destroyed properties to serve as lodgings for volunteers visiting the city. And Jocelyn, a former McCormick Hall minister, left her post at Marquette because she felt called to work as a community organizer in New Orleans.

These stories inform how we view the issues facing the people and places we serve, whether in Honduras, Akron or anywhere else. But when these stories are no longer right in front of us as they are on mission trips, it is harder to connect with the problems and needs they represent.

Such stories, however, are everywhere. Especially in Milwaukee. They are in the people who sleep on cardboard they scrounged from a dumpster. They are in the single mothers who quietly wait for meals at St. Ben's, The Gathering at St. James or any of the other sites where Marquette's Midnight Run volunteers serve. They are in the people we ride Milwaukee's buses with.

We are very fortunate to go to a school that calls service one of the four values it seeks most to develop in its students. This means we will be presented with countless opportunities to give to those most in need in this and in other communities, for example, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Hunger Clean-Up and Best Buddies. These may not grip us as strongly as the stories we hear on mission trips. They may seem less exciting, less important and may not be the answer we expected when we wanted to come home and save the world. But these stories need as much attention as the ones we hear on our service trips.

If we return from mission trips expecting to carry the world's problems on our shoulders, we are guaranteed disappointment. We can't feed every hungry person or provide shelter to every homeless person. But we can help some people, providing food and listening to a story that perhaps no one has wanted to hear before. Though this may seem like a step back from the complete immersion into a community's struggles and though it may fall short of our desire to save the world, it could mean the world to those individuals if we take the time to listen in our own community.

Brian Harper is a sophomore in the College of Communication.