Making a difference in someone's life

I thought some of my readers might be interested in reading about my experience volunteering at the New American Center, a place where we tutor refugee students from African countries between the ages of middle school and highschool. It's been a life changing experience, and it's something I'd love to share with others. Enjoy :)

Today was my last day at the New American Center and I found myself extremely sad to be leaving. These kids are a light in my life, a candle in anyone’s darkness. I am so thankful to all of them for so readily welcoming myself and the other Gordon volunteers into their lives and being willing to work so hard to reach their goals and dreams.

            The minute I entered the New American Center and David mentioned my name Jihad swiveled around in her seat and smiled so excitedly. Very few times in my life have I seen someone so genuinely excited to see me, and to think I only met her last week. She bounded over to me and automatically asked If I would help her with an essay (I obviously earned my reputation as a gifted writer when I helped her with her storybook project the week before) to which I laughed and answered yes. It turns out she was filling out an application to attend the Cushing School Summer Session, something she had attended the year before as well.

Jihad isn’t the first student I’ve worked with at the NAC who was applying to attend Cushing. If they get accepted, these kids get a chance to get away from home for about a month (something they usually desperately need) and to learn and live with their peers. Though those accepted usually have to pay 6,000 to attend, most of the kids at the NAC get scholarships which cover this cost. Education is so important, I’m glad to see the government giving money to kids who genuinely need it and deserve it in this case.

Jihad and I automatically jumped into working on her essay question asking her to describe why she wanted to attend Cushing Summer Session and what she hoped to achieve if she was accepted, but before I knew it we were chatting about anything but her essay. Talking about faith with the kids at the New American Center is something you usually have to tread carefully with, since many of the kids are not religious and the organization is not faith based. Even so, I found myself talking to her about my own faith, and this was hardly a one way discussion. Jihad explained that she had no faith, she didn’t believe in anything, but that she wished she did. She asked me about my religious beliefs; had I grown up in a Christian home? What did I think about sex before marriage? How did I feel about lesbians and gays? What was my viewpoint on other religions? How did I like Gordon, etc.? It was obvious to me that she was searching for some understanding of this “faith” that she could not understand, from a mentor she looked up to. It’s true my faith me be unconventional; I explained that I enjoy learning about various other religions from Hinduism to Buddhism, Judaism to the Muslim faith and that though many people believe there is only one “right” religion, my belief system says otherwise. I don’t personally believe that God will send someone to Hell because they chose to worship him in the “wrong” way. I explained that I didn’t think being attracted to the opposite sex was really that bad, and that yes waiting for sex until marriage was important to me. Jihad has schools with a great reputation in mind for undergraduate school, among these Columbia, University of Massachusetts, and Lowell, schools in Connecticut, Miami, Georgia, Arizona, and even Gordon.  However, she admitted she is wary of going to a school like Gordon because of her lack of faith. In her world, if you were not born believing a certain faith and raised in that tradition, that’s that. You will never have any faith. I explained to her that this is not true, anyone who is interested in any type of faith can study it and many adults come to faith long after their childhood.

After discussing faith we talked about education. She explained her issues with staying focused on homework, educational goals, and how she wants to be a counselor or a creative writer when she grows up. I can easily relate to this, since my hope in studying social work is to become a children’s counselor and I also love creative writing. I gave her tips on studying habits, and explained to her that money isn’t everything in choosing a field of interest. If you can help somebody else through the profession you love, it’s worth every moment you spend regardless of the wages you make.

When I left the NAC I realized not only how much I had impacted Jihad’s life, but how much she had also impacted mine in just two short weeks. She’s a bright, compassionate, loving, humorous girl I believe can do great things with just a little guidance along the way. Discussing the day on the car ride back from the New American Center, the others seem surprised to hear what all Jihad and I had talked about. The others all agreed that they had never connected so deeply with any of the kids before, they had never discussed such important topics. I’ve always known my calling was to work with children—it’s something I appear to be a natural at—but I count myself as the lucky one for getting to experience the relationships I have at the New American Center. I find my volunteer time here highly pertinent to my studies as a Christian social worker. Already I’ve gotten to experience a type of counseling and how to carefully integrate my faith into my teachings. I’ve experienced the sticky situations many social workers find themselves in, unsure of how to respond to certain situations. I’ve experienced a love for helping others, something that goes along with the profession. I grasp the importance of helping others for a living regardless of how much money I may make doing it.

Tonight I added Jihad as a friend on Facebook. She commented on one of my statuses and I commented back, telling her I hoped I’d be back at the New American Center next year to continue our tutoring/talking sessions, she told me she hoped I would too because she finds our talks interesting. Rather than just some assignment I was given in class, I find my experiences at the New American Center more like life-altering practice for a future profession. I can’t wait to return to the New American Center next year to foster relationships with more kids, to make a difference in someone’s life and feel them make a difference in my own.