Chris Madison
I am new to the P.C. (USA), having grown up Catholic. A resident of Grosse Pointe Woods, MI, I attended U of D Jesuit High School in Detroit, where I received a foundation in Ignatian spirituality. There, I found many friends through a shared commitment to theatre and choir. During my sophomore year, I realized I had both affinity and enjoyment for Spanish. Christian Service would also figure into my high school activities- my fellow classmates and I would participate in Focus: HOPE’s food deliveries to home-bound inner-city senior citizens one Saturday morning a month; in July 2006, I was part of a school mission trip to Nuevo Paraíso, Honduras, where I witnessed life in the Third World first-hand.
In Fall 2007, I entered Kalamazoo College, where my passion for foreign languages led me to major in Spanish and study Chinese. I met friends from different parts of the country, and since K has such an array of study abroad connections, from all over the world as well. Having attended Christian schools since before kindergarten, I found it jarring now and then to encounter people’s disdain towards religion. That said, I’m glad to have lived in a secular environment for undergraduate; I feel it allowed me to learn a bit more about what Muslims, Jewish, Ba’hai, skeptics, atheists, and others believe. I also became friends with the campus chaplain, Rev. Liz Candido. A Presbyterian minister, it was she who would later let me know about the YAV program! But furthermore, I fell more in love with music than ever by singing in the college’s Choirs and studying Voice. I had a wonderful choir conductor and private voice instructor in Jim Turner; he and his partner Jack Brooks (piano accompanist) played an integral role in my musical development.
June 2011 meant it was time to graduate college; for me, it was both a high and an incredibly sad moment. I had always sensed that between my foreign languages and my musical involvement, I would find success, but at that time I simply wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue professionally. I returned home, and felt completely cut off from all the ways in which I thought God had given me the talent to express myself. It was a lonely time; for the next couple of years, I would fill the time by watching countless hours of TV/movies, reading some philosophy, but most significantly, by practicing yoga. Many devoted yoga teachers I came to know showed me great care, for which I will always be grateful. I got to know Jessica and her husband Michael outside of class, and eventually, they introduced me to the choir director at their church, knowing I was looking for work as a singer.
I stepped foot in Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church (of Detroit, MI) for the first time on Maundy Thursday of 2013, and knew I had found someplace special. Over the next couple of years, I struggled with jobs where I felt I was not reaching my true potential, knowing also that the world is full of people who yearn to have any job at all. I wished (and still wish) I could realize my talents in some way that would alleviate the suffering of those in poverty. The presence of my fellow musicians, my pastors, and my new friends at JAPC guided me through this time of uncertainty. In May 2015, I was admitted to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey to study Translation and Interpretation (Spanish), but chose to defer to serve a year in Mexico as a YAV.
I chose the YAV program because I felt it was a good chance to be of service to those most truly in need, while continuing to discern my faith and my vocation. Over the summer, I was placed at a Presbyterian organization called Frontera de Cristo in Agua Prieta, Sonora (sister city to Douglas, Arizona), and I now know that I will be serving in the Migrant Resource Center, where deportees and others en route may receive food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities as they transition. I believe my time here in Agua Prieta will prove a unique opportunity to learn about the Border region and to work for justice in a variety of ways.
If you read my entire bio, God bless you. Oh, and when I’m not working, I love spending time with my dog, playing tennis, doing yoga, reading, doing crosswords and/or Sudoku, watching Survivor, listening to Rob Has a Podcast, classical music, and alternative rock. That is all.
