October 2009 Archives

So yesterday we switched things up a bit and went to Vitnamese Social Service for the day.  This will be a once a month thing, which is quite exciting! Seong, another intern, was there as well and we worked together with Sharon on doing the complete GC process in one sitting.  We got the flow going, and it was really fast! I really enjoyed working with Karen.  It's a population I don't know too much about, but the people, and the translator, really helped explain some things about them that I didn't really now.

They don't have a nationality, and most of them have never had any form of education (meaning they don't even know how to write their own language) and so the english classes they're taking right now are some of their first times writing or reading.  Crazy! some of the Somalis I work with at SALT also have those problems.  But yes--Another thing about the Karen culture (note it's not Korean) is that they do not associate things by dates.  One of the mothers did not know her children's birthdays, or when her husband died, or when they were married.  Things that we think are so vital for knowing--have no real importance in village life.  All their birthdays ended up being 01/01/year.  That's true for most refugees.

It's funny, as Sharon was explaining, that USCIS want all the data and evreything to be so exact and perfect... yet to be honest most of the dates they put down are all made up! It's true, and sometimes I wonder why exactly we're so concerned about some of the dates. Ah well!

It's also very expensive to file for permenant residence or citizenship! Most of the clients that come in have low income and/or public benefits, with kids, and trying to find a job but struggling to... and then expected to pay 500 dollars to get a green card and 1000 for natualization (roughly).  Right after paying for their tickets to come here.  And it's just hard to realize that like, hey. I can hardly afford that, let alone someone whose stuggling with so many other things.

WELL. that's my rant. To be honest, I can't wait to get researching these things and try and figure why USCIS is so crappy in terms of getting back to people, losing things (that cost about 60 dollars to get then charging the people to replace it...and they have to resend everything in again), and having cases that are not responded too for 2-3 years....

yes. should be interesting!

I just have learned 2 very interesting ideas to me that I just wanted to share on here, because I know that some people read this, some don't, but I want to be able to look back and remember!

First off, is at Chapel on Monday.  Ike spoke, and it was about the game of Sardins.  There are two types in the game--the hiders, and the seekers. When we are hidden, we are lost in the dark, and we want to be hiding--we don't want to be found. We're free to do whatever we want there!!! It's awesome! But it's very dark...
The seekers on the other hand have the light.  They are able to move around, be free to search, and when they find someone in the dark, they bring them into the light, and then the person who was once hidden, now is free to move about and also go and find other people in the dark and they find it's more free than they ever thought in the dark! Pretty soon, it's an exciting game where there are a group of people searching and still people hiding.
One thing to be careful of though, is when there's a big group in the light, it's easy to forget about those in the dark, and get distracted with other games that we are allowed to play.  We forget about the children who are still hiding, secretly wanting to be found!

This helps me visualize the mission work that I'm called to do--both in the refugee world, but more close to home as well, here at CSP, in my friends back home, in my family...I want to "play life" with them! Anyway, it was really cool visualization, and so I wanted to remember it.

Another thing that I am reading right now in Inter-cultural Communications is the style of time in our society.  We are very much a M-type society--we revolve around time. no questions asked. people don't come first... and I have very much fallen into the category.  But yet, they talk about how many times, women are programed on the P-type--that they can do lots of things at the same time, not having any schedules. Yet, as we're programmed to do that, that doesn't mean that we won't have to conform to the M-type...and when relationships fail, because of this type, we tend to get anxious and depressed.

That's way too close to the truth. Ask anyone--I like schedules. But, I love people, I love friends, I love going off on adventures.Yet, this whole schedule thing has KILLED that and I never have time for the ones I love.  This leads to anxiety about my friends and my friendships, and makes me worry that maybe I have no meaning in what I'm doing.It makes me very insecure with my outreach personality, especially how at LSS it's very much scheduled, and M-type of work, which is hard for me.

It just made sense to read it, and realize it. It's something to think about, I think...

Not really Honors related, but we're talking about being Christian and Living in the world, and I'd say it's good to understand and learn from lots of things.

As I work on my midterm presentation, I can't stop thinking about how awesome it is that my project is something that really is a part of my life.  Along with doing the office work at LSS, I am really enjoying my time at SALT.  There isn't too much to update with LSS, except the exciting news that starting this coming Thursday, once a month we will be working at VSS (not sure what that stands for) helping people start their green card process, yet this will not just be the first step, but all of the steps, so I will get some good practice with going through all the steps.

Because there are not that many new things to talk about with LSS, I'll talk about SALT as well here, because it deals very closely with my project, I feel it is appropriate to explain what I am discovering there as well.  I have become in love with these students.  Each one of them has such a huge smile and love hugs (I acutally really wish that we as our culture would start doing that more often).  Khadra has some attitude every time she sees me and I say that I'm not going ot be there tutoring... and Anisa and Khadra also feel that they have found my husband for me and keep convincing me to marry him.  I give those two ladies a ride to and from SALT every Wednesday, so we have some good talks on the way. 

Anisa has 5 kids and is a single mother. She loves the phrase, "crazy people" because she lives such a crazy life and has to deal with balancing everything along with trying to learn a new language AND taking care of her kids when her flaky babysitter doesn't show up.  This helps me get a glimpse into the life of the refugees outside of just the office room in LSS.  There are so many situations that I can only guess at, and will never know unless I take time to learn about them.  I know one student at SALT has 14 kids.  Fadumo, a 20 year old SALT student, has 7 brothers and sisters, but only 3 are in the US... the rest are somewhere in Africa or across the world. 

Basically, I am getting the good practice and learning how to help refugees in the paperwork whelm, but I'm getting a very well balanced look at their background lives as well through SALT. AHH! God is good.

Well, quite a few weeks have past while doing my internship, and what was looking like the perfect internship, is turning into a decent internship.  Sadly, many days that I am there, I am catching up on Tracking, or Application preparation.  This is VITAL to the process, and is really really good, yet, I am finding myself really missing the one on one interactions with the refugees and asylees.  Luckily today I was finally able to sit in for an hour during walk-ins, as the past 2 I have either been doing paperwork or NO ONE has come in. 

I find myself becoming more and more disheartened when I realize what little we can do for them, Immigration really does have our hands tied.  Yet, so many people are so patient and kind and determined to help their family out, that it is a good experience with them.

I'm finding that I'm actually quite good at paperwork, as in I seem to catch a lot of little things, and I understand and catch on to things quickly, but I am not feeling like paperwork is where my joy meets the world's needs.

This is SUCH a blessing to find out NOW instead of a couple years down the line when I work on getting a job, maybe at a non-profit organization.  I thank God for letting me get this experience of still helping people, and still enjoying this internship and experience, and yet getting the sense that this is not really what I'm called to do. 

Sharon's still the bomb, but she is gone a lot, and so there have been quite a few days that I haven't been able to come in, so I'm a bit concerned with hours, but I voiced the concern and she told me if I ever need to work more hours, just let her know and we would work on something.  So in that sense, I am very grateful and I feel that I will be able to get the hours done on time.

I am concerned about getting my body in motion for working on Chapter 1, but things are so chaotic, that I have not had the chance to REALLY get started.  But I feel like it will be fairly simple with LSS, and I'm really looking forward to the chance to do some research about Immigration and so I can better understand what I'm doing!

I have learned that I now know TONS of form names, such as the I-131, I-90, G-325A, I-485, I-730, I-120.... oh man, JUST ASK! I could tell ya. But I am also learning names, and stories, and the fact that one person has about 10 kids. WOAH!

Today's convocation was with Professor Rolf Jacobson, the speaker at the Honors Banquet this fall. I loved his talk. I know somewhat the difference between Law and Gospel, but this convocation really helped me piece together what I am learning in my Old Testament class this semester.  I also liked how he explained the "different flavors" of Lutheranism.  I many times wonder the differences between so many, and it helped me make sense of some of the differences!

The three uses of the Law really helped make use of what I'm learning.  Going through the laws in Leviticus, with the idea in mind that it is NOT God's "self-help" plan, but instead a way to protect and help His Children, really helped me get past this idea of, "I just need to do this and not that to be in a relationship with God!" The law is given for the neighbors, not about us or to make us better!

The discussion of reductionist and mutalist options helped me view of how to use the idea that the law is summed up with, "Love your neighbor as yourself." I used to be a reductionist, and say that as long as we love each other, you don't need to know the other laws.  Yet, I agree with the mutualist option, that you don't have to choose one or the other, they mutually help each other!

And finally (Josie just  told me this is only supposed to be a one paragraph reflection, but I'm going at it anyway...), I was so happy that vocation was tied into this. It really was an answer to my not so brilliant question of concern about my passions changing all the time.  It was a good confirmation that it realllllly is ok that it may change! we all have different vocations at different times, and multiple ones as well! That's pretty awesome.