DRAKE STEELE
Halfway through the internship and I really appreciate all the encouragement to grow through the many resources of ideas and experiences that have come my way. I had many expectations of what this internship would bring to my perspective already volunteering through Kingdom Causes, as well as, passing out gallons of water and food on my own time. Through these past couple of weeks throughout the homeless outreaches I have done with Manny, Daina, and Maria we have infiltrated the cities wanting to reach out to those who are in need of resources to get off the street. While some don’t want or need help there are plenty of our homeless neighbors that want to make a change but just need a lending hand to encourage them to head down the right pathway. One thing I truly didn’t expect while on outreach were the minor setbacks of car breakdowns from the flat tire to the battery dying on the car. These abrupt stops cut our time to do outreach in the cities but it also allowed us to become closer as a team relating from our past as well as sharing our future goals.
One thing that was hard for me to understand, knowing this would happen, would be the "no show" of someone who has a set an appointment for a turning point in their life. Especially, when the person praised how blessed they were for getting the opportunity to take their next step to get off the street. It's easy for me to expect someone to act in a way if I were in the situation our client was set up with, yet, I’ve had no perception on the client's environment from her childhood to her current state in life to even impose of an idea of what I felt her decision should’ve been. I realized that this is just something I have to let go and that is out of my hands and I can’t allow it to lose hope in people wanting to change only doing everything I can through prayer and my empathy to encourage our clients to make a change.
Another thing I wasn’t really expecting was for one of our homeless neighbors was to fiddle with us knowingly lying about what he’s done in his past time and in denial of being homeless only wanting to use us to get out of the mental facility for being on the riverbed not wanting to connect to resources to get housed. Most of our homeless neighbors realize that they have been away far away from god at the time and I feel we need to introduce many more people to the gospel. Not by always speaking about his teachings but more so showing the actions that we have learned from his word to love and care for one another.
I hope to donate some hygiene kits coming up in the next couple of weeks especially with more feminine products that have been requested by many. Its honestly crazy how fast these past two months have gone by so quick as we pass through the halfway mark. I only hope to help maximize the team’s efforts to build relationship and convince our homeless neighbors to take the next step.
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MORGAN ERICKSON
The first half of the summer interning at Kingdom Causes has been a fruitful and
challenging time. I have greatly enjoyed working at the Summer Sports Camp at Ramona once a
week, and getting to interact with parents. Though this time can be stressful with running around and ensuring all the forms have been filled out and then jumping in to help coach, one of the
greatest blessings has been encountering the gratitude and excitement these parents’ have. It is a
time of fun and getting knees dirty, but it is also a time of community where families can come
together and socialize while their kids play sports. It is a neat thing to witness and be a part of,
and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so.
It has also been a joy to simply be in the environment of Kingdom Causes. Unfortunately,
I have not been able to be in the office as much as I would like to because of my other job, but I
am hoping to spend more time there in the weeks to come. I have felt greatly encouraged by the
people I am surrounded with when I am at Kingdom Causes, and have loved seeing firsthand
how a system can work hand in hand with the message of Christ. I have loved being around
people who devote their daily lives to meeting people’s needs through a process of empowerment
that closely models the life of Jesus, and who recognize the humanity in all of our neighbors. I
have been encouraged in areas of my life I feared had run dry.
My hope is that this will continue to be a valuable time of learning and exploring
different avenues for my own future career, as well as a time of being in community with people
who have similar passions and goals. I hope to take advantage of the resources at Kingdom
Causes in the weeks to come by learning from those around me and the basics of what they do. I
will probably be working more on the KCB Experience project that is designed to give people
who are not homeless an idea of what it would be like to be homeless. This includes all of the
difficulties and challenges that often times are overlooked in the process of trying to get a job or
house.
I think I expected myself to be able to spend more time at Kingdom Causes than I have
been able to so far which has been disappointing, but my goal is to do the best I can with the time
I do have there and glean the most from my experiences and conversations. I am excited for the
rest of the internship and all that it will hold.
