2008/2009 Barnabas award winners encourage others to serve

Student and faculty member honored for combining faith and community service

Every year, the Agapé Center for Service and Learning presents the Barnabas Award to one student and one faculty member based on their ability to combine community service with faith, scholarship, vocation. The award criteria includes demonstrating the positive impact of one's ministry on the community.

The recipients also must demonstrate spiritual maturity and strong commitment to their work. This year’s winners— James Krimmel, associate professor of accounting, (left), and Jessanna Hall ’09, a social work major, (right), embody all of these qualities particularly well. Krimmel has worked extensively with Hope International and World Vision, providing their staff with fraud prevention and detection training workshops in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Krimmel says of his experience, “God has used me to help these organizations as they serve those in developing countries and has allowed me to be put outside my comfort zone in the process.”

Hall gives her time to many different social organizations. Besides co-founding “Project B,” a ministry for the homeless, she has volunteered at local halfway houses for women and with various agencies helping youth in India. Through Messiah College’s Agapé Center, Hall has worked as the coordinator for Youth Mentoring and Prison Ministries. “Don’t let a day pass without stopping to ask the Lord what he has planned for you in that day,” she says. Service is a way of life, as evidenced by this year’s Barnabas winners, and a purposeful decision to search for ways to help others.

By Abigail Long