On my first night of training for this job, the other interns and I sat awkwardly around a table eating spaghetti as our Executive Director, Bill Buchanan, said something that would stay imprinted  in my brain for the rest of the summer. “This is kingdom of God stuff, y’all” he said with sincerity, while the other interns and I pondered what that really meant. Fast forward to my second summer as an AYM intern, I can say with absolute certainty that the people I’ve met and the agencies I’ve worked with are truly part of that “kingdom of God stuff”.

​At the beginning of the summer if you had asked me what I imagined God’s kingdom looked like, I would have told you something that was truly perfect and profound, something that was flawless and impeccable. Surprisingly, I still agree with that statement, but now an explanation is required along with it. 

If you’ve ever hung around me or my family, you would realize we have no problem talking. The conversation at our dinner table runs at a pace fast enough to scare a stenographer away and my friends often ask me to “repeat that” or “sloooow down”. For me, it’s not the act of speaking that is hard, but the work of using just the right words so that my message isn’t hidden in a pile of useless fluff.

​For my first week at RYM, I was very nervous. I was in a completely new state, with completely new people. I did not know anyone and was anxious about the group I would soon be meeting. The first mission immersion site that I went to, with my group, was the Welcome House. This is a Christian led organization that provides home for refugees and supports them throughout their transition of moving from the country they were born in and lived their whole life, to a place where they knew no one and are alone. They feed and care for the refugees until they are able to get on their feet and support themselves. What surprised me about this place was that, although run by Christians, the refugees do not have to be Christian to reside there. They do not try to push Christianity on them but, instead just showed them love and acceptance.

This is one of the core values of one of our worksites called The Lord’s Acre*. At Asheville Youth Mission, we have the pleasure of visiting their extensive and productive garden almost every week. In their mission to fight hunger in western North Carolina, they grow fresh, organic, healthy food that they then distribute to a handful of local agencies in Fairview, Black Mountain, and Asheville, completely free of charge. Our students get to spend the time we have there helping with weeding, harvesting, washing vegetables, and other garden upkeep tasks, in addition to participating in activities and discussion to learn more about hunger.

Upon the completion of my last worksite with Asheville Youth Mission, I was left with a curious thought: how should I measure my time spent this summer? In other words, what will I tell my friends and family about my internship at AYM when I return to college? Of course, being the science kid I am, I looked first to trying to understand what time really means.

​How do we measure time? Well, historically, we measured time by dividing one orbit of the earth around the sun into little chunks. Namely, the second. First defined as 1/86,400 part of a mean solar day, the second now caries an even more curiously-arbitrary definition. Currently, the second is defined as “9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom.” That’s ridiculous right?!

​At Memphis Youth Mission, one of the community partners that we go to every week is St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral on Wednesday mornings for a worship service that is open to everyone, and they mean everyone. After the worship service, the group will help serve breakfast to those who attended the worship service and others from the community.

​For me, this service site has been particularly meaningful. MYM had an Episcopalian group come earlier in the summer and I had the privilege of sitting next to one of the group leaders during the service. She was overwhelmed by the joy, love, and compassion shown to those who normally would not be so welcomed in a traditional church setting; she wept at the idea that this church was opening its doors to anyone and everyone that wanted to come in. It was a powerful experience for me to watch her during the service and afterwards during the breakfast, talking to people and helping welcome those on the margins.

Community:

1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. 

2. a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

​We all belong to communities. We are on different teams and parts of different clubs. We attend different schools and different churches. However, the one community without any divide is the body of Christ. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are our people!!! Throughout the summer, I have had the opportunity to engage in many different communities that have taught me so much about who makes up the body of Christ. Although getting up and to work by 7:30 seems to be getting harder and harder, the communities being built seems to make it more and more worth it.

A core goal of Raleigh Youth Mission is to deter participants from the “savior mentality”, because we believe it is a toxic standpoint, and not a true reflection of the gospel. To achieve this, as a staff we are intentional to define the concept of mission immersion. Prior to arriving to Raleigh and receiving training- I was a bit unclear on the concept myself. Several friends and family members would ask.. sooo what exactly are you doing this summer? Mission immersion is like a mission trip in that you are volunteering, working with others, and maybe providing some relief to those in need. However, mission immersion takes this concept a step further. The immersion aspect is a dual idea that while we aid agencies in their mission, we are also learning ourselves. We learn about the agencies, how they’re funded, what services they provide, and much more. So instead of simply helping those facing poverty, homelessness, or food insecurity, we also teach our youth where these problems come from. At RYM, we teach curriculum to middle and high school students that challenges systemic issues such as gentrification, generational poverty, racism, and privilege awareness.

​This week at RYM we learned about what it means to live abundantly, what living abundantly looks like, and how God has called us to serve those who lack abundance. During the week, we played an activity called ‘Continuums.’ In this game, someone reads out a statement, and people place themselves accordingly on a scale of “agree” versus “disagree.” The last statement in the game was “God cares the most about people who are poor and/or oppressed.” Once this statement was announced, the majority of people moved more towards the 100% agree spectrum. This shocked me. If anything, I feel neutral to this statement.

The first week of anything can challenge us and even be difficult. My first week at AYM was no different. It was difficult, but just because something is difficult doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth doing. Our first week was worth any difficulties that we encountered, because we were able to serve the people in our community here in Asheville.

​Our first week I took Northwest Presbyterian Church of Atlanta to 12 baskets and we helped serve the meal for the people who came in to eat. Almost immediately my group of 6 middle school boys saw that there was a chess set on their coffee tables at 12 baskets. They were all excited, most of them loved to play chess. They asked if they could play a game of chess and I told them that maybe if we had some time at the end of the day then they could. After that we started getting ready to serve the people coming in.