Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress, we had this big wide city all to ourselves.

I am straight addicted to coffee in a very dependent, I-Need-You-To-Function kind of way. Some days I wish that I could inject it straight into my veins. Is that bad? Too much? Whatever. I've never thought of myself as the addictive personality type, but there are worse things to be addicted to, at least that is what I tell myself. I've always enjoyed coffee, but these days I can drink it black. I prefer a little bit of half and half in there, but if I run out, I'm still drinking it. I definitely don't use any of that sweet, specialty creamer. Hazelnut and peppermint and french vanilla have no place in my coffee. How did I get here? When did I start being capable of drinking my coffee black?

If you would like some answers to what I have been doing for the past four months (clearly I have not been blogging), you can go here, and read about my experience as an intern at Church World Service (CWS). If you want some faces to match the experience I have had as an intern, you can go here, and read about just a few of the beautiful people I got to spend time with this semester. If you want to know a little bit more about what I've been up to, how I've been feeling, and what I've been learning, you can  keep reading. My intention is to put words to where exactly I am at this moment in my life, and how exactly I got here. We'll see if that happens. But now you know my intentions.

I started off the semester with hazelnut Coffeemate in my refrigerator. That stuff is non dairy. aka there is no milk in it. aka what is it? I ended the semester with half and half in the fridge, but only because I recently went grocery shopping. This is the tale of how I came to drink my coffee black, how I came to feel more tired than I've ever felt, and how I loved every second of it (except for that one time a client threw up in my car. I actually didn't love that).

I started the semester off nervous and unsure, eager but insecure, anxious and very much aware of the inevitable shift that is happening and in many ways has already happened in my life and the lives of my friends, my peers. We are grown ups. We're not done growing, maturing, and learning. My prayer for us is that we would never stop learning, that we would never close our minds and hearts to new things, that we would hold on to a small part of our youth, our innocence, our desire to become something more, something better, forever. But in the eyes of society, in the eyes of the Law, and in the eyes of our mothers, we are grown ups. We do grown up things like go to bed before midnight and go grocery shopping and buy light bulbs. We do a lot of things now, because they are expected of us, but I think my favorite part about being friends with grown ups is just that - being friends with grown ups.

I have always had people that love me. I have always had good friends. Jesus has never left me feeling unloved (duh), but being friends with grown ups is one of the coolest things I've experienced so far in the game of life. My grown up friends love me so well. When I am sad, they are sad with me. When I am happy, they are happy with me. When I am in crisis, they know without me having to say a word. They know and they care and they respond in a way that demonstrates that they care. They know me. they know my hopes and my fears. They know what I am passionate about and they know what makes me angry. Being friends with grown ups means that I can't always be a hero. I can't always be right. I can't always be blameless. I can't always have the answers, because being friends with grown ups means knowing and being known. Being friends with grown ups means loving and being loved. Being friends with grown ups means facing life in the context of community, in the safety of trustworthiness, and in the beauty of light and all that relationships have to offer. I am afraid of a lot of things, but I am thankful for my grown up friends and the ways that they know me, the ways that they love me, and the ways that they encourage me to be more like I was made to be.

My friends are not perfect, but as we have matured and grown and learned, as we have begun to enter the real world, I have felt a shift in the way that we treat each other and the way that we care for each other. I think we value each other more now that we are grown ups. Things are different than before. We can't spend as much time together as we could in college or high school, but maybe that's the point. We value the time that we do have. We see that there is something there to be valued and protected.

I am shaken to the core each time I think about you guys. I would survive without you, but life would be a lot less full. Thank you for bringing fullness to my life. My heart is so full, so open, and so overjoyed, because of your continual demonstration of love and grace. Grace and love. Love and grace. This semester, I have come to appreciate just how much I need you and just how good it is to need you.

I began the semester feeling small and incompetent, but I was not alone. I was supported and loved like you wouldn't believe. If you clicked on either of those links above, you know that I've spent a lot of time, almost 500 hours, at CWS over the past several months. Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services. When I tell people that I worked as an intern in an agency that does Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services most people need more explanation, and most times I am not so good at explaining. But here it goes...

I did a little bit of everything, but most of my time was spent working in the Citizenship Program. My supervisor was over the Citizenship Program at CWS. The purpose of the Citizenship Program is to help clients become citizens of the United States. There are all kinds of reasons that immigrants want to become citizens but it's not an easy process, it's not a short process, and it's rarely a process that occurs without any bumps in the road. I spent time teaching classes that were designed to help people pass the citizenship test. I spent time tutoring clients with test dates approaching. I spent time registering newly naturalized citizens to vote. I drove to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Charlotte quite a few times with nervous, sleepless clients for test appointments.

I expected to gain good experience, but I had no idea what I was signing up for. I have learned more than I ever could have hoped to learn about the process of Refugee Resettlement and the process of becoming a legal citizen of the United States. I have learned about how grant writing works (a little). I have learned how to communicate [relatively] effectively with an individual that speaks very little English. I have seen the importance of strength based practice and cultural competence. I have learned about many resources in Greensboro that I didn't even know existed before my time at CWS. I have learned so, so much. I now have faces and specific instances to place next to things that I once read in a textbook.

I have also learned about the innate dignity that each of us hold. I have learned about the beauty that can be found in differences and disagreements, if we would just take the time to look. I have learned the value of open ears, of listening without a clock, of meeting someone exactly where they are, even if that is right in the middle of the muck and the mire. I have learned what true joy looks like on the face of someone who has tirelessly worked their ass off for months and months and months to finally be able to call this place home. I have learned that courage doesn't always look like we think it should and strength is not always big and loud. Sometimes, it is quiet, almost invisible, undetectable until you catch a glimpse of it and it takes your breath away; it levels you in a way you didn't know was possible.

I learned that this city (and others, I suspect) is full of people that don't look like me, don't speak like me, and don't know the same things that I know. These people are not all that different from me. I have learned that these people are not to be feared. They are not to be treated like children. They are not to be exploited or ridiculed. They are beautiful, they are precious, and they have given me infinitely more than I have given them.

Hearing their stories has helped me to grow up. They have helped me to become an adult. Being a part of their lives opened my eyes and allowed me to see things I had never seen before. I am humbled and grateful for their trust, their dedication, their words, and their actions. I could write endlessly about any one of my students and all of the beauty that lies within them. They have reminded me of why I am here. They have worn me out, well I guess I have worn myself out, but I wouldn't want to be this tired for any other reason. They have left me forever changed. And they have helped me to enjoy black coffee.

I have been reading Ephesians lately. Of course this is in Ephesians.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Never has the term, "fellow citizens," meant something so special to me. Never has the gift that Christ died to give me seemed quite so unique. I know what it takes to gain citizenship in the United States. It's hard. How can I even begin to imagine what it took for me to gain citizenship in Heaven. I know the anxiety and stress that my students try to hide as their test dates approach. I know the relief, the joy, the wonder and possibility that they each radiate when the day finally comes for them to stand and pledge their allegiance to the United States. Ear to ear smiles. Security. Home. Freedom. Family. Safety. Sanctuary. That is what they hope citizenship in the United States will promise them.

There are many reasons that people come to this country. It's  often not the paradise that was promised or hoped for. There is not an unlimited supply of job opportunities. Creating a life here is by no means easy, but then again, I've come to realize that easy was never what they were after, at least not the people I have met. They want life, not death. They want hope, not hopelessness. They want a chance, a choice, not a paradise, not streets paved with gold or money growing on trees. They don't want to take anything away from anyone. They only want what we all want, the opportunity to have a life worth living, to give their children the things they never had. They would give anything and often times have made incredible sacrifices to be here, to have this chance, to call this country home.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household...

Never has that sentence filled me with so much gratitude. Never has the gospel touched that nerve in exactly that way. I have it all. I have freedom that no government can give or take away from me. I have citizenship in Heaven. I have a spotless record and abundant life for all eternity. Because he loves me. Only because he loves me. Above everything else, they have shown me that - he loves me and he loves them. He loves us. Watching my students work so hard everyday for this gift that I never had to work for reminds me how much I don't deserve any of it. These people have worked so hard, they have worried so much. For many of them this has consumed their lives for months, even years. I have it all and I can't point to a single thing I did that merits my status. And that is so freeing and beautiful and humbling. How can that bring me to a place of anything other than gratefulness?

These past four months have changed the way I see the world, the way I see injustice, and they way I drink my coffee. These past four months have changed me, I hope for the better, but sometimes it's hard to tell. These past four months have changed me and I'm sure the next four months will continue to do the same. In the midst of all of that I am sure that he loves me. I may have changed. He hasn't. He loves me. He loves me still.

May those of us that are troubled by the trials and chances of this life rest in his eternal changelessness. Amen.