Mission Arlington was actually established in the year 1986 by Burgin Tillie. As a matter of fact, the organization begun as remarkably small group of volunteers. Their main intend was to study the Bible in humble apartments in their mother country. Tillie family had been in South Korea for missionary mission, hence when they came back to Arlington; they felt that it was crucial to do it at home. Mission Metroplex on the other hand, was formed in 1990 in order to support the fantastic work of mission Arlington.
Additionally, the organization is faith-based which in most cases utilizes volunteers and services so as to assist individual in the society with intellectual, physical, spiritual and emotional needs. The organization through this help reaches approximately 800 adults and youths every day (Mission Arlington Metroplex, 2010). Furthermore, Mission Arlington provides the needy in different ways, which include clothing, food, health care, dental care and transportation these depends entirely on limited budget.
In any organization, it is the vision and the missions that guide them to achieve its goals. Mission Arlington organization mission is to always serve God and loving the people of God. In human life, this is a realistic scenario of serving God. The satisfaction of Gods people makes much difference, than only preaching the word of God. The volunteer activity made me learn more in the organization mission. The non-profit making organization fulfills its mission by joining hands with families, individuals, schools, civic organizations as well as businesses all in the name serving God. Furthermore, mission Arlington organization are able to achieve their mission because of working with fantastic community of loving and caring individuals who sacrifice their time and money so that needy people can receive emotional, spiritual and physical support.
The organization I volunteered to work with targets various groups in the society. Due to diverse services they offer, almost all the groups get help and support from Arlington organization. The target populations are the sick people who cannot pay insurance fee and medical fee, youth, students, children, handicapped and families. Bible studies are carried out in the community regardless of religious backgrounds. The targeted population as I learned during volunteer that all people are served and helped in spite of their race, creed, nationality or religion. The critical factor is helping the needy without discrimination; their serves are based on the Bible as well as the work of God and Jesus. At all costs, no individual is turned around empty handed, they are given furniture, food, formula, clothes, shoes, diapers, medical care, pay bills, dental care, household goods, medical care and teach English those who need ESL lessons.
The staff of the organization is well organized. They have experts who volunteer to help in the organization. They include doctors, teachers, students, drivers and all other professionals required by the organization. I and other groups of volunteerism were amazing blessing to the organization. The work they carry out makes tremendous difference for the needy and generations to come. Many of the beneficiaries grow up in faith, as well as becoming leaders and servants of the lord.
The organization has numerous strengths that have made them progress in helping the needy in both spiritual and social. Mission Arlington is always servants who serve from the front. In fact during my volunteer service, we were to serve people as our superiors rather than the needy. Leaders are not the bosses in the organization; Jesus Christ is the leader of the entire organization. Additionally, all that happens in the organization is because of God and all credit goes to him.
My group members valued the power of prayer. The strength of mission Arlington is attributed to prayer and worship. I was inspired so much on that day; above all I understood that service and volunteer without any connection to God wouldn’t be fruitful and effective. Strength of the organization is meeting the needs of the less fortunate in the name of Jesus. In life there is real connection between spiritual and physical need and that showing love and care to people who are hurting is significant in the eyes of the Lord. The greatest gift that I offered during the service was the free gift of God’s love. Based on Gods power, the organization builds its guide from the Bible. Each of the volunteers believes that the Bible is inspired by Lord and is always beneficial for reproof, teaching, instructions as well as correction.
The organization faces numerous challenges. Above all is the financial problem, the organization finances is unpredictable because they depend on donations. Moreover, the number of people who are in need of help is increasing at an increasing rate, to the extent that the organization cannot handle (David, 2009).
Actually, most nonprofit making organization such as mission Arlington have difficulties in measuring monetary size, this is because its significance and power are defined through qualitative measurement, which include effectiveness at carrying out charitable goals, spiritual and missions (Paul & Loek, 2003). Due to dependability on external funding, changes in revenue flow influences the predictability and reliability with which mission Arlington can help the needy in the society. Probably, during volunteer I was given to manage some resources that the organization have. On my observation, such act may cause mismanagement of resources this is because volunteers are not held accountable in any way. The entire management depends on the love and responsibility that the volunteer has.
On the financial sector, the organization depends primarily on donations and grants from well wishers. With technological innovation and inventions, mission Arlington have used social networks and Internet services to announce the need of help. To my realization, many people in the world have helped the organization.
In order to improve the organization, I visited the interaction and social sites such as facebook and influenced my friends to read on the organization and help. The financial crisis can be reduced by popularizing the organization and informing people on the benefits to the needy in the whole world. Encouraging my class mates and people to participate in helping the needy could also improve the agency.
Choosing to volunteer my services to mission Arlington was an immense challenge for me and my profession. The experience was meaningful to me because I had a chance to help those in need as well as putting into practice theory of human service. I felt good, spiritually nourished and a sense of triumph after leaving the agency. Working with different types of people strengthened me and watching how professionals were dedicated to help without remuneration build my carrier in social work. At the beginning of this class, I could not belief in volunteering activities, but the social work class made it a reality.
The service had some connections to my course work, in that the theories of human service that we did in class was put into practice. The service enlightened me on how to help the needy in the society as well as connecting the available resources to the individuals in need. Finally, the scenarios discussed in class were made to be a real situation. Actually I learned that the progress of mission Arlington organization was the work of the Lord. Honestly, it was a culture shock to for me from the beginning because I could not belief that a good number of people could volunteer.
References
David, L. (2009). Non-govermental Organization and Development. New York: Routledge.
Mission Arlington Metroplex. (2010). To Reach Our World For Christ. Retrieved on 6th July 2011 from http://www.missionarlington.org/
Paul, D & Loek, H. (2003). The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York:Wiley.
