It's For Everyone - Trey

For Trey, serving with The Human Impact has become about much more than volunteering. It has become a practice of gratitude and a way of putting his faith into action.

Trey was first introduced to The Human Impact through his friend David. He had encountered the work before, but this time something drew him deeper. What has kept him coming back, he says simply, is “the work of the Lord.”

And somewhere along the way, the people he came to serve stopped feeling like strangers.

“Volunteering has helped me to see the unhoused not as just people, but as friends,” Trey shared. “It taught me to remain humble because I could easily be in their situation.”

That shift—from seeing people as a group in need to knowing them as friends—has changed the way Trey thinks about serving. It has also encouraged him to change the way he celebrates his birthday.

Each year, Trey chooses to spend his birthday serving in some capacity. This year he walked the streets with us and got to hang out with some new friends. He says there was a time when his birthday felt like “the most selfish day of the year”—a day centered completely around himself. But as his faith grew, he wanted the day to represent something different.

“The Lord has given me more than I could ever ask for,” he said. “So, I decided to show the Lord that I fully surrendered to Him through my actions.”

One of the moments Trey remembers most clearly is washing the feet of friends living on the streets. The simple act immediately brought him back to the story of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet.

For Trey, though, some of the clearest pictures of God’s Kingdom have come not from what volunteers were doing for their unhoused friends, but from what he watched those friends do for one another.

He has seen people experiencing many of the same hardships encourage each other, care for each other, and pray for one another.

“I’ve especially seen God at work when they began to pray for one another even though they were going through similar situations,” he shared.

And that is part of what has surprised and blessed Trey most. He came expecting to give, but he has received something too.

“Our friends have taught me to be loving and grateful for the breath of life,” he said.

Through friendship, service, feet-washing, prayer, and birthdays spent differently than they once were, Trey has discovered a deeper kind of gratitude. A gratitude that isn’t dependent on circumstances.

“My experience here has shown me to be grateful through every situation,” Trey said, “and to always serve others and put the love of God in action.”

That’s why this work is for everyone. Because when we come close enough to know one another, service stops being one-sided. We discover that everyone has something to give, everyone has something to receive, and God can use friendship to change all of us.