“If you could say one encouraging thing to a survivor of sexual assault, what would it be? Write it on the wall.”
On the campus of University of Oregon in Eugene, over 20 volunteers from the Storyline Church spent several days connecting with students and staff through a project that makes its first return since before COVID – the Solidarity Wall. The Solidarity Wall is a four-sided, 12ft x 8ft black structure where anyone passing by can stop and write a message of support and encouragement for survivors. “You are more than what happened to you,” said one message. “1 in 4 need these messages,” said another. Before long, the wall was filled with hundreds of handwritten notes.
“We had volunteers positioned around the area and down the street a little also passing out love letters. Each love letter was a message of God’s hope and love, but worded for a secular campus,” said Jess Berwick, a member of the Storyline Church. One letter read, “Dear Friend, you may not know me, but I want you to know that you matter. You are loved, and you deserve to live life abundantly-full of meaning and happiness. There is no one else like you, and your life has a unique purpose. Wherever life has taken you up until this point, please know that even the most difficult moments are coming together for your good. There is always hope. Just as your life is valuable, so is every other person’s life. Not everyone is easy to like, but everyone is worthy of love. There are people in the world that only you can bring healing and hope to. May you be a positive influence in someone’s world today. – From someone who cares.”
“We were passing out these letters on the sidewalks,” said Jess. “A lot of students were happy to receive them, but even the ones who didn’t want them were super polite. Almost everyone took a letter. You would see them open the letter up as they were kind of walking away, and you’d see them stop. It was like something that they had read resonated with them. Some of the volunteers even shared that some would stop and turn to look back before they left. Several students came back and said, ‘I wanted to say thank you for the letter you gave me. I really needed to hear that.’ A lot of students were very open and shared with us. I heard a lot of stories from people who had survived sexual assault and others who were just very supportive. Even staff members came by. There were just a lot of people deeply affected by it, and so many that said, ‘Thank you for being here.’”
“They just needed someone to listen,” said Jess. “They didn’t need advice, just someone to listen. And that was really impactful for me.”
Although their mission was simply to show love and support to their community, Jess said their group got a lot of curious questions about their church. “There were several staff and students who would ask us, ‘Who are you guys?’ We would tell them, ‘We’re Storyline, but we’re not here to get people to come to our church. We’re just wanting to come out here to show support and love. There were so many students that told us how much they appreciated us doing that, because their experiences with churches had been that they only showed up to try to get people to come to their church.”
“When you show people love, you’re showing them God,” said Jess. “Because God is love. You don’t have to say his name in every single conversation, because ultimately, it’s God, not us, who is responsible for someone’s salvation. That’s between God and the person, and He can do amazing things. He can do so much better than we can, and He knows what He’s doing. All we need to do is be willing to be His hands and feet, and to share His love.”
