When Rev. Michael Davidson, S.J., was growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, a group of Boston College students visited his school for several weeks. Davidson remembered these students for their kindness and encouragement.
When he took a position at BC 25 years later, he ran into one of the students who had visited him years before, and the two remembered each other.
“She saw me, she said, ‘Mikey!’ and I said, ‘Christine!’’ Davidson said. “And I said, ‘No, I have to do that—replicate that for the kids there who, some don’t have a father, some don’t have a mother.’ And it worked.”
Davidson, director of the Montserrat Coalition, founded the Jamaica Magis service immersion trip in 2012 after he participated in the Arrupe International Encounters program. Davidson said he wanted students of color to be able to experience an immersion trip and serve others.
“A lot of Black and brown students at that time were worrying about, ‘Boy, I don’t fit in here,’ but when they go down to Jamaica—and we work in a school—they are with students who will do anything to be in their shoes,” Davidson said. “They realize that there’s a privilege that they have and an opportunity for them to do good for the world.”
Despite this, Davidson emphasized that the trip is more about service and community than race.
“It is very clear that Magis is not a Black trip or a white trip,” Davidson said. “It’s a place [for] people who want to experience the ‘more’ in their life, who want to give selfless service, who want to build a community.”
Jamaica Magis organizes two trips each year, one in the winter and another in the summer. Students spend several months preparing for each trip by learning about Jamaican history and culture. The first trip to Jamaica hosted 15 students, but the most recent trip in January had 26 participants.
According to Davidson, “magis” comes from the Latin word meaning more. On the trip, students serve the local Kingston community and work as teacher’s aides at the Holy Family Primary School and Holy Trinity High School.
“Our primary mission there is to be the ministry of presence in the classroom,” Davidson said. “We work with the teachers in the class, but we also go to orphanages, to feed children, to bathe them. We feed the people that are poor on the streets.”
The Power of the Present Moment
Before the trip begins, students are given very little information about what they will be doing in Jamaica.
To help participants stay fully present and focused on serving the community, the trip leaders collected everyone’s watches and phones, according to Lana Mburu, MCAS ’28.
“None of the clocks worked accurately,” Mburu said. “We couldn’t know what time it was—they took our watches. If we asked them what time it was, they’d say, ‘Be present.’”
Sevine Klitz, MCAS ’26, participated in Magis during her freshman year and led the most recent trip in January. As a first-time participant, she was eager to know what was coming next, but as a leader, she encouraged her group to stay focused on the present moment.
“I remember my first time doing it, begging our student leaders, like, ‘What are we doing next? What are we doing next?’” Klitz said. “But just coming back as a student leader and being able to be the one, like, ‘Guys, just stay present,’ it was really fun. And seeing their excitement when we’d announce different parts of the trip was really cool.”
Skyla DeSimone, MCAS ’26, returned to the Jamaica Magis service trip this year as a leader after taking the trip during her sophomore year.
In her leadership role, DeSimone emphasized the importance of ensuring participants felt physically and emotionally safe, given that the trip’s activities were not disclosed to the students in advance.
“As a student leader, I had to keep reiterating to people, ‘We have you, we got you, we are here for you,’ DeSimone said. “‘There are questions we’re not going to answer, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t care about you.’”
DeSimone explained that maintaining an element of mystery about certain aspects of the trip was intentional, as it encouraged students to focus on their service work without distractions.
“If you keep stressing about that the whole trip, you’re gonna be even more exhausted, and you’re not going to be able to get the full experience,” DeSimone said. “Because if you’re truly present, all you’re focused on is what’s happening at this very second.”
“The Ministry of Presence”
Unlike other BC-sponsored programs, Magis participants don’t engage in physical acts of service or raise money for the people they meet. Their service is distinct—it’s about being present and fully attentive to the people around them.
For Klitz, this approach was equally meaningful and broadened her understanding of service.
“I think I learned a lot about what service is to me because of Magis,” Klitz said. “We always talk about the ministry of presence, because we’re not really like building a house or giving people donations directly—it’s more just being with people and chatting with people.”
In the 13 years since the Jamaica Magis program began, Davidson students have made a lasting, positive impact on the students they visit in Kingston, Davidson said.
“The school had boys who were being killed at 14,15, girls getting pregnant at 11,” Davidson said. “That has changed. They see themselves in the Boston College students.”
For many participants, however, the impact was mutual. The trip provided an opportunity to connect with the community and witness firsthand the difference they were making.
Nnenna Okorie, MCAS ’26, first joined the Jamaica Magis trip in the summer of 2023, after her freshman year at BC. She worked primarily with kindergarteners and said they immediately embraced her.
“Even as someone who didn’t share a similar background to them, they were just so welcoming,” Okorie said. They were always giving me hugs and offering me slime during play times and to play with them.”
Klitz recalled an interaction with a young student at the primary school in Jamaica, who remembered her for her kindness from her first trip more than a year earlier.
“I remember one of the coolest parts of the trip this time was I ran into one of the girls that I had played with her at recess, I think,” Klitz said. “She stopped me and was like, ‘You’re the one who told me that my eyelashes were beautiful.’ It’s those little interactions that they remember so much that I was able to see that second time around.”
While a significant component of Jamaica Magis includes serving at the school and building relationships with the children, students also devote time to working with multiple Mustard Seed Communities.
Founded by Monsignor Gregory Ramkissoon in 1978, Jamaica, Mustard Seed Communities are residential facilities that aim to care for vulnerable individuals, including children and adults with disabilities such as schizophrenia, autism, hydrocephalus, and cerebral palsy.
In her first few days in Jamaica, the students served at a Mustard Seed Community dedicated to caring for elderly men and women abandoned by their families, Mburu said.
“We’d clean windows and help make their beds, and then, on top of all that of physical service, we also just hung out with them,” Mburu said. “A lot of times they don’t see people outside of those who live in the building.”
Mburu said she formed deep connections with several residents, including one woman who had difficulty speaking.
“There was this woman named Dorothy,” Mburu said. “She had a little notebook, and on the very last page, it had her name. She [couldn’t] say her name out loud, but she had it written down. And then I wrote down my name in the book. And then I [said], ‘I’m Lana.’ And then she said my name back.”
A Lesson in Love
Beyond the connections they made, students gained a deeper understanding of love, service, and human connection through their experiences in Jamaica.
Mburu said the trip encouraged participants to step outside their comfort zones and foster empathy as they engaged with individuals in vulnerable situations. This experience, she said, helped her grow spiritually and revealed the greater meaning of service.
“I feel like a big part of that, the mission of that trip was to just see God’s love and see God in others,” Mburu said. “ I feel like doing that type of service was impactful in the way that we could connect with people, no matter their circumstances.”
DeSimone said the importance of affection in Jamaican culture and the eagerness to show love had a lasting impact on her.
“It’s common in our culture and in a space like Boston College to not fully appreciate that and to not express love,” she said. “In Jamaican culture, you call everybody ‘auntie’ or ‘uncle,’ and it’s like you’re all family. It’s like you are all one because we are all human. I want to bring that back here.”
Esosa Owens, CSOM ’26, expressed a similar sentiment and said the Jamaica Magis trips helped her learn how to show love to others.
“Jamaica, people know it as ‘one love, Jamaican love,’ and I would say going on this trip twice has allowed me to really see that and how the people of Jamaica embody it,” Owens said. “I feel like the biggest takeaway that this Magis experience gave me was how you just should be able to love everyone.”
Delight Kolade, another January Magis trip leader and MCAS ’26, said he learned the importance of presence and valuing life and those around you.
“I’ve gotten to see so many outcast communities that we don’t necessarily not just see, but pay attention to at BC, or even America in general,” Kolade said. “So being grateful that you’re born with this opportunity and to get to live the life that you live, and not necessarily taking it for granted once you come back.”
Love can take many forms, but for Owens, the Magis trip revealed that everyone deserves to experience love, no matter their circumstances.
“A lot of the people that we interacted with did not come from very privileged backgrounds and had many hardships, but one thing that they were able to do and show to the BC students is how much they love and care about us, even though they don’t even know much about who we are,” Owens said.
Owens said she hopes to continue showing love in her everyday life using her experiences from Jamaica Magis.
“Being able to showcase an ounce of love to everyone you interact with is something this trip definitely has helped me see in my life and has allowed me to try to implement that at BC and even beyond,” Owens said.
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