By Grace Bolton, Staff Writer
During the 2025-26 academic year, Wheaton College alumnus Lincoln Going gathered a small group of students to pray for the unhoused community. Those students then began to serve in local shelters, forming Dwell — a new Wheaton student organization centered around bearing witness to, attending to and dwelling with those who are unhoused.
Dwell serves the local unhoused community through meals, prayer and interpersonal relationships. This year’s president is Ian Park, a junior double-majoring in philosophy and Bible and theology. To Park, the ministry’s name reflects its understanding of service as an encounter with Christ. Dwell represents both the belief that God dwells within his people and the opportunity to encounter Christ through relationships with those experiencing homelessness.
“When we dwell with those people, we are seeing Christ there, and they’re hopefully seeing Christ in us,” Park said.
Last year, Dwell started as just prayer. After praying for about three months last year, the group established connections with local shelters. In December 2025, students began preparing meals at DuPagePads’ Client Access Center, a winter warming center. Using their own funds, they initially prepared meals for about 15 people.
Then, in April, Dwell expanded its outreach to DuPagePads’ Interim Housing Center, which houses about 200 people. Students began preparing and serving meals there, bringing about 10 volunteers for one of their early visits.
This year, Dwell aims to serve a meal at the Interim Housing Center once a month, reaching about 200 residents. When the Client Access Center opens for winter, the group hopes to increase its outreach to twice a month.
Yet, for Park, the ministry became more than an opportunity to provide food. During his second visit, he met a man named Paul and heard about his experiences of suffering.
“After that encounter, it felt like I sort of saw God so much clearer in this life,” Park said. “I started to see what it really means that the poor in spirit are blessed.”
The experience challenged Park to find ways Wheaton students could respond more directly to their neighbors’ needs. He said the ministry grew from a desire to help students take the Christian call to serve others seriously.
Dwell sees prayer as a part of the call to service. The group gathers at Goldstar Chapel or the Phelps Room in Lower Beamer on Tuesdays at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. to pray for the unhoused community — including single mothers, people struggling with addiction and those experiencing financial insecurity.
Park emphasized that homelessness is not one overarching experience, but many, each shaped by the story of the person living it.
“When we say the homeless community, we think of this capital H homeless community, but each and every individual has a different story that we have not heard yet,” Park said.
Dwell members also plan to spend time with children at the larger shelter through crafts and a Thanksgiving gathering.
“Our focus is not so much on evangelism, which I believe is crucial, as relational building,” Park said. “And saying Christ more with what we do than with our mouths.”
Dwell’s emphasis on relationship building has also shaped the experience of club members like Reid Price, a junior philosophy and economics major and Dwell cabinet member. Price said serving meals and hearing residents’ stories at DuPagePads has given him a new perspective on homelessness.
“Having the opportunity to serve food and hear the stories from the people there gave me an awareness of their struggles that I didn’t have before,” Price said.
Price said Dwell aims to turn students’ interest in homeless outreach into opportunities to serve.
“Part of our vision is to be a club that creates opportunities for people with the desire to serve the homeless and enables them to act on that desire,” Price said.
Caleb Chong, a junior Bible and theology major and Dwell cabinet member, joined the club after seeing Going’s table in Lower Beamer. To him, the club was a way to put his faith into practice.
“I joined when I saw his table in Lower Beamer and scanned a QR code, mostly because my resolution for that year was to stop ignoring homeless people,” Chong said.
Chong said Christians can often express sympathy for people experiencing homelessness without taking action to help them. He believes Dwell encourages students to move beyond good intentions and respond directly to the needs of their community.
“We can offer thoughts and prayers, sighs of sympathy, say our hearts are with the poor, but thought does not turn the heart,” Chong said. “We need to stop thinking and start doing.”
