CHANGING LIVES THROUGH HOPE & COMPASSION

BY JOHN WHITSETT '82

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, people were freed from debts, servitude, and slavery during the Year of Jubilee. This image forms the vision behind Jubilee Partners—a community outreach founded by Kristen Donovan '07 dedicated to the support of at-risk youth by providing opportunities to enhance their education, build healthy relationships, and develop life skills.

Raised in Enid, Oklahoma and active in the Nazarene church, Kristen sensed a call to ministry and came to SNU largely because of the Ministry Internship program. While serving at the First Indian Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City, her life trajectory changed. “I had no idea that ten miles from campus there existed such extreme poverty that stepping out of my car was like stepping off the plane in a third world country,” she said. This experience, coupled with the classroom content she was receiving, powerfully influenced her life.

Kristen with children at Reading Challenge Rewards

“My experience at SNU helped me understand the life of holiness includes life with the ‘other’—those who may not be like me, but by whom I more fully see the nature of a God who made all people in His image.”

After a stint on a church staff in New Mexico, Kristen felt a longing to return to the relationships she’d built during her internship. Without funds to receive a salary, she agreed to become a volunteer urban missionary and raise her support. This laid the foundation for Jubilee Partners—a 501(c)(3) non-profit that has become an oasis of hope and peace in a neighborhood blighted by generational poverty, drug dealing, gang activity, and a history of family incarceration.

After School Tutoring

She continues, “In Isaiah 61, the prophet talks about the favorable year of the Lord and how those who are broken are restored when a different vision is placed before them. I’m inspired by the thought that these precious people can be the ones who display God’s glory and repair the brokenness that has been present in their families for generations.”

“Compassion is recognizing the need of another and choosing to participate in meeting that need..."

“Compassion is recognizing the need of another and choosing to participate in meeting that need, whether it be refugees from a foreign country, victims from a recent tornado, or people in the cancer ward at the local hospital,” says Kristen. At Jubilee, compassion involves helping vulnerable children discover that, with the right guidance, there is hope for a bright future. Their key programs designed to precipitate compassion are an after-school care program, a summer Kid’s Club, and Jubilee Academy—an early intervention preschool at their building near downtown Oklahoma City and a phonics and reading intervention program at a nearby elementary school.

Says Kristen, “What I’ve found is that compassion changes the lives of both the receiver and the giver. The receiver has a need met and experiences hope through the love shown, and the giver experiences a depth and richness to their life they’d not previously known.” 

Learn more at www.jubileepartnersokc.org