Hi, my name is Grant Davis and I am the Real Life Serve Team intern this year, focusing on our pancakes and parking ministries! I grew up in a single parent, Christian home in Medford, Oregon. We went to church off and on while I was growing up but it wasn’t until the summer before my junior year that I really understood the need I had for Jesus in my life. There was a lot of different things going on in my family at that time, and I needed something to turn to and lean on. I went to a church camp that summer, and that is when I first prayed the prayer to ask Jesus into my life. From there I joined a youth group back in Medford, and this helped lay a solid foundation in my faith and understanding of Jesus and the Bible.
I graduated from South Medford High School in 2014 and moved up to Corvallis a few months later. My youth pastor had stressed the importance of finding a community to plug myself into, but I was a shy 19 year old and didn’t know where to go to find a community, so I just stayed in my dorm and found friends at my job. This was fine for awhile, and one of my coworkers even went to Calvary and brought me a few times. He eventually moved away though, and that is when I began to live a life more synonymous with the typical college lifestyle.
When I turned 21 I began to go out and drink with my coworkers all the time, and this naturally led to more sin. I knew what I was doing was wrong and not a life bringing honor to God, but I didn’t have any other community and this was what my friends were doing. This eventually reached a low point after a rough night of partying. A few of my friends and I realized we needed to stop this and start living our lives the way we knew God wanted us to. That next Sunday we began to go to Calvary, and it has been my home church ever since.
A few months later I was baptized, and the next school year is when I joined Real Life. This community has been a huge blessing from God, and I thank him every day for providing me a place to grow in my faith and love of him, while also providing me with some of the most loving and supportive friends I could have ever asked for. I’m so excited to give back to this community as an intern and small group leader this year!