Ivannav Davila Garcia knows brokenness and where the cracks are.
Ivannav, 23, immigrated to the United States from Venezuela in 2016, when she was 14. She traveled with her mother and father, who sought asylum after her mother’s public advocacy and anti-corruption work drew the ire of government officials in the family’s home state of Táchira, Venezuela. Soon after the family arrived in Miami, her father was jailed; he remained there for two months. Ivannav and her mother wound up in a detention facility in Texas, sharing a room and bunk beds with five other mothers and their daughters.
“I was very, very frustrated,” she says, reflecting on the experience. “There was a narrative of the U.S. being a Christian country and a caring country, and at the same time, there were people speaking so poorly of some immigrants or having no regard for separating families.”
Eventually, the family was reunited. They relocated to Indianapolis. There–as her family waited for their asylum applications to be processed–the light began to shine through the cracks for Ivannav.
It took the form of what Ivannav calls “an amazing ESL program” at her public high school. And it shone in her mother, a former nurse, who took jobs cleaning houses and doing other unsalaried work to help provide for her family. It also flooded in through groups Ivannav participated in while attending Taylor University on a leadership scholarship: the Latino Student Union, the International Student Union and the Global Engagement Cabinet. Those groups helped her feel less alone at Taylor and in the small town of Upland, Indiana.
Now Ivannav works to shine light for families like hers through Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC), a 45-year-old ministry that places volunteers in full-time fellowships with social justice organizations across the country. As an LVC fellow for 2024-2025, she serves as a paralegal for the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington, D.C.
“I am truly just trying to show that love and kindness, because I think that’s really the thing that held me together,” Ivannav says.
This commitment to paying it forward is a common thread for women who serve with Lutheran volunteer organizations across the U.S. Their work toward change is rooted in a deep, abiding belief in Jesus’ commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” as well as a desire to bridge the gap between what is and what could be. Similarly, the volunteer organizations they serve seek to “be Christ’s hands and feet in the world,” in the words of St. Theresa of Avila. These long-running Lutheran volunteer groups equip people who feel called to serve–whatever their faith tradition. Here are three other women, in addition to Ivannay, who do just that.
LOUISA NTAJI
Like Ivannav, Louisa Ntaji serves as a fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Lutheran Volunteer Corps. Louisa’s placement is with the Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, where she supports work aimed at abolishing the death penalty worldwide.
“It’s an intricate diplomatic process,” she says. Her work involves helping to coordinate legal education events on global death penalty laws and writing responses to U.N. Human Rights Council recommendations for protecting human rights within individual countries.
The work is close to her heart. Louisa witnessed the devastating effects of political instability in her home country of Nigeria. Frustrated with what she saw as a failure of the country’s leadership to effectively address humanitarian crises, including the separation of children from their families during periods of conflict with militant groups, Louisa pursued degrees in human rights law at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and the University of Minnesota.
After graduating with a master’s degree in human rights law from the University of Minnesota, Louisa wanted to work for a nonprofit organization with a global focus. She came across Lutheran Volunteer Corps in an online search. After a conversation with Shae Agee, LVC’s national partnerships and program director, she was sold.
“I had struggled in the past year with my relationship with religion, because I had lost my uncle, a very close member of my family,” Louisa says. “When (Shae and I) spoke, we spoke about loss [and] how difficult it can be to find your part when you’re struggling with grief.”
Being in community with others who strive to balance the hard work of “heart work” with taking care of themselves–mentally, spiritually and physically– has been invaluable, Louisa says. Thanks to LVC, Louisa adds, she’s experienced what it is like to be part of a supportive community, even while pursuing her interests and her career.
Christy Lafave Grace is communications manager at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Naperville, Illinois. An Indiana University journalism graduate and a longtime business editor/writer, she now writes (and runs) in and around Naperville.
This excerpted article appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Gather. To read more like it, subscribe to Gather.