We Are A Crew
From Belle Liang, Board of Directors Co-Chair
Earlier this month, four astronauts splashed down in the Pacific after becoming the first humans to fly around the moon in over fifty years. One of the astronauts, Christina Koch, stepped onto a stage in Houston, still finding her “earth legs,” and said something I haven’t been able to shake.
She defined what a crew is.
A crew, she said, is a group that is in it all the time, no matter what. A group working together every minute toward the same purpose. A group willing to sacrifice, often silently, for one another. A group that gives grace and holds each other accountable. A crew shares the same cares and the same needs. They are inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked.
Then she described looking out the window of the Orion capsule as Earth grew smaller. What struck her wasn’t the planet itself. It was the vast blackness surrounding it.
“This tiny lifeboat," she said, "hanging undisturbed in the universe.”
And it dawned on her: Planet Earth… you are a crew.
Compass may not be sending young people to the moon, but we are placing them somewhere unfamiliar, alongside people they didn’t choose, in service of something larger than themselves. And something happens.
They encounter their own potential and joy in tangible ways: with dirt under their fingernails, laughter over meals, the crisp feeling of air on an Icelandic night that accentuates your view of the aurora borealis.
As a professor at one of Compass’ partner institutions, I often hear stories of faith transformation from students after they return. One student put it simply: “Jesus was an idea to me before. Now I know He’s the one calling me.”
They also discover what it means to be genuinely linked to other people.
I saw it again this week. On Thursday night, I met fifteen students preparing for a study abroad trip to Japan. Four of them had been on Compass Path trips. One had never left the United States before traveling to Iceland. She spoke about the courage it took, the camaraderie they built while exploring and serving together, and the growing realization she was created with purpose.
Now she’s going to Japan.
Jesus didn’t recruit tourists. He called a crew. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” That’s the invitation we extend on every Compass trip. We invite students to accept that, for the next week, we are in it all the time, no matter what. We sacrifice our time and resources to be here. We give grace. We hold each other accountable. We bring different perspectives, and yes, sometimes we experience tension. But we are linked. By shared purpose. By shared responsibility. By a shared belief that who we are and what we do on this planet matters.
Compass isn’t a vacation. It’s not just another trip. It’s a tangible lesson in a world fraught with anger, impulsive disunity, and dehumanization. It’s a lesson in what it means to be part of a crew.
