Alumni Weekend is coming up soon. For me, it was 1995—and I remember those high school years as some of the happiest times of my life. We didn’t worry about much, except getting to the front of the cafeteria line for lunch and dinner. As a boarding academy, life revolved around living and sharing with friends. Classes and learning were just part of the daily routine—something we had to do, but not what defined us. We didn’t plan much for the future; if it wasn’t happening that day, it felt distant and almost unreal. College seemed like a mystery, and the idea of the year 2000? Unthinkable. Surely Jesus would have come before that big year!

Around this time of year—early September—we were gearing up for our class trip. Earlier that year, we’d made a decision: we wanted the whole class to go, no one left behind. That meant fundraising, and we knew some classmates would struggle to raise the money. So, we chose a different destination than previous years, cooked our own meals on some days, and did everything we could to save money and support each other. In the end, everyone was able to go—and it truly became a trip to remember. The choices we made and the unity we experienced brought us closer together and helped forge lifelong friendships.

Our class verse was a powerful one: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15) When Joshua spoke these words to Israel’s leaders, he knew his time was short. He wanted to leave them with a challenge—to choose whom they would serve and be ready to live with the consequences.

In our school in Argentina, that verse became our senior class motto. In Spanish, it read: “Yo y mi 5nto serviremos a Jehová.” At the time, Argentina’s education system included seven years of elementary school and five years of high school—so the fifth year was our equivalent of senior year. Looking back, we were young, bold, and full of conviction. We wanted to declare to the world that we would serve the Lord. It was an honest desire, a noble aspiration. But the question remains: Did we do it?

Now, 30 years later, after forming families and building careers, are all of us still serving the Lord? The answer honestly and sadly is no—not always, and not all. Therefore, the next question is even harder: Are we, each of us who made that declaration, somehow responsible for the spiritual lives of our classmates?

What about you? Maybe your class didn’t have that specific motto. But what about your family? Your circle of friends? Your church? Your community? Your city? After all, we are our brother’s keeper.

Yes, salvation is personal. The desire to serve the Lord must come from the heart of each individual. But it’s also true that the people around us—their influence, their support, their example—can shape our decisions more than we realize.

My prayer is that it could be said of each one of us what was said of Joshua and his generation: “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the LORD did for Israel.” (Joshua 24:31)