On a Mission: Flower Mound Brothers Lead by Serving
For most young men their age, a trip to South Africa, Guatemala or Greece would be a bucket list trip to add to their resume, but for brothers Dylan and Cody White of Flower Mound, it represented something much more than a personal accolade. It was an opportunity to serve. Cody is a current student, and Dylan is an alumni of Valley Creek College, where they focus on academic excellence, spiritual formation, relational skills, leadership development, and missional living.
For Dylan and Cody, this meant far more than boarding a plane to serve overseas for a week. Their mission was a culmination of months of preparation, ministry work, and reflection that will continue to shape them long after they return home to Flower Mound.
A Transformative Journey
For Dylan, what stood out most about his time in South Africa was just how diverse and different it was from his home in Flower Mound. This African nation hosts 17 distinct cultures, ranging from the colonial influences of Europe to the native Zulu traditions of Africa. His time there stopped feeling like an assignment and started feeling like adventure.
“Getting to see different cultures is so fascinating,” says Dylan. “Getting to see how other people experience things, how they function, how they talk, how they perceive the world, and the more I learned, the more fascinated I was.”
Although missions are structured months in advance, once there, however, each day’s itinerary varies. Often the day’s agenda is announced that morning. One day they may be asked to help clean or maintain the church’s facility, other days they may pass out bibles or meet with a local school or institution to share a personal story called a testimony.
Classes on biblical foundations of mission, cultural awareness training, and prayer time with their team shape a student’s testimony, but these stories remain very personal in nature. For Dylan, who is now 22, he shared stories about his anxiety as a youth.
“When I was younger, I struggled with anxiety,” shared Dylan. “I used to not be able to leave my house, but when I placed my faith in God, I was able to overcome it.”
Through his coursework and devotion, he was eventually able to stand up and speak in front of nearly a thousand students in South Africa. In many respects, these acts of service empower students, teaching them life skills and empathy as they position themselves to become “kingdom leaders for life.” For both brothers, global missions at Valley Creek College are less about going somewhere and more about becoming someone, the kind of person who carries a message of hope and faith into every room, every country, and every conversation.
Not Just Students, But Ambassadors
Cody’s journey led him to Greece—a place where ancient history, modern crisis, and quiet spiritual hunger all collide. As the youngest member of his family, Cody, 18, moved from home to home early in his life, something he feels made him more adaptable as he grew up. Seeing desperate refugee communities firsthand, Cody realized how complex the world is, testing even his ability to “go with the flow.”
Cody was given the task of serving as “an ambassador of fun” on his mission. With a limited knowledge of local customs and unable to speak their language, it was his job to create a team building experience to share with a group of young refugees. He turned to a game he enjoyed at home: Spike Ball. With a little patience and practice, the refugee boys were soon playing with as much passion and tenacity as Cody’s friends back home.
At that moment, the cultural barriers collapsed between the young men. Cody saw them not as refugees but as peers, and he was quite impressed by how good his new friends were at the game. But Cody was doing more than just teaching them a game. He was connecting with them, and in the process, he, too, was learning something about himself as well.
“I’ve always felt like I have had a servant’s heart,” says Cody. “Throughout the mission trip, I felt I was able to serve in little ways.”
Reciting a quote he learned from the lead pastor at Valley Creek, Cody shared, “Big people do little things because little things make big people. I did many little things that allowed me to become a slightly bigger person.”
Like other students, they still study, write papers, and work toward their degrees, but their classroom is as much a village street or an impoverished community overseas as it is a desk in Flower Mound. Through Valley Creek College’s global missions, Dylan and Cody discovered that the world is bigger than they imagined. When you choose to serve, you can make a bigger difference than you ever realized.
