deefekilt

Every day, something happens that triggers this mental note, "Kelley! You HAVE to write about this when you get home!" But then, something else will happen and then another something later in the afternoon. Pretty soon, I'll have learned and experienced more things in one day than I could adequately depict in a 1,000 word blog entry. I don't know where to start or how to end. Perhaps I must write a book. Or commit myself to writing blog entries almost every day, and then compile them into some massive journal. Between the stories I'm compiling and memories I'm making with the refugees through this internship at World Relief, and the experiences I'm encountering with the women coming out of the sex trade and staying at the emergency housing shelter, and the soon-to-come lessons learned from my time as an intern with the Clarke County School District, I have so much to write about.

I feel privileged that I get to know these people and be a part of their lives, if only for a few hours, days, or weeks. I know that I am blessed to be in a position to serve and love them, and to be served and loved by them. Every day I see the face of Jesus in the families with whom I work. Every day I learn a little more about how to love like Jesus loved. Every day I make mistakes and am (at times) selfish and proud, but, every day I am extended grace and continue to learn in love. Does that sound cheesy? Maybe, but it is true.

Even though I spent three months in some of the rougher (i.e. poorer, crime-ridden) parts of Washington, D.C. last summer, and even though I was one of four leaders charged with the daunting task of leading ~60 teenagers & their adult leaders and providing meaningful service opportunities for them in the district, it is only through this job in this city with these people that I feel I have truly stepped into the 'real world' of adulthood (whatever that means). I do things like activate food stamp cards, chance the PCP because a client is on PeachState and not WellCare Medicaid, take clients to get their social security cards, argue with DDS employees, drive 12-passenger vans to the chicken plant and check IDs and tax forms so they can get processed, teach families how to comparison shop at Thriftown, apply for waivers for the $50 deposit for home phone service, get money orders cheaper at the gas station across the street, put clubs on the cars we drive, explain to families why they really can trust the police and why they must not use their AK-47s to defend themselves, and so, so much more.

Sometimes my job feels like a scene out of the controversial and immensely popular film, Borat. (Ex: Upon discovering and attempting to use a water fountain for the first time, a young Nepali woman said, "Ooohhh, dees eez very deefekilt." ... also: "No, I cannot take you to my special social area for you to meet with my father to discuss a marriage proposal on my behalf.") Other times I feel like I'm an interviewer for the National Geographic or New York Times. (Ex: a Sudanese man is a witness to the crimes of genocide in Darfur and is being flown to Prague to testify at the ICC.) Occasionally I feel like a taxi driver. (Ex: every Tuesday morning I drive the passenger van full of refugees to get their social security cards; frequently I drive them to get groceries, to doctor appointments, etc.) Sometimes I feel like an interpreter. (Ex: Apparently some of the doctors from the CDC don't know how to speak slow, broken English. So I listened to them in regular, educated English and spoke to a client in the hospital for TB in slow, broken English.)
Always I know that THIS - assisting my two supervising case managers and working with these Iraqi, Bhutanese/Nepali, Somali, and Burmese families - THIS what I'm supposed to be doing this summer. Even when it is hard and stressful and overwhelming, it is good, and it is right.

I see the nations.
I see Him.