“Despacito! Play Despacito!” Repeats from around the 15-passenger van as ten 8-14 year old refugee youth call out for my fellow intern Wendy and I to play the smash hit from Louis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber. “It’s the radio” we say with a laugh, “we can’t control what comes on, but if you wait long enough it will probably come back on again”. And thus begins, and usually ends, the day at Heartland Alliance’s Youth and Family Service’s Summer Program.

Being an intern in Summer Program has provided me with a great experience to work with some incredible young people, and has been a thoroughly rewarding experience. First, a little about what Summer Program exactly is. Every day of the week in Summer Program takes us to a different location and provides a unique experience, all of which generally center around our program theme of “Good Neighbor”. Mondays, we meet at a local church where youth participants play games, make crafts and learn a little about the general theme of the week, topics such as conservation, creativity, etc. Tuesdays, our program takes youth around the city on different field trips designed to show our participants, all first year refugee youths, different places in Chicago and provide them with unique learning experiences; places such as the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Heartland Alliances Urban Farm or the Evanston Art Center. Wednesdays and Thursdays take on a little bit more of a fun, laid back approach; Wednesdays consist of playing soccer with other refugee organizations. While Thursdays are visits to the beach, where in addition to swimming and playing in the sand our program engages in a bit of a beach garbage clean up, thus encouraging our theme of “Good Neighbor”. As is evident, each day is unique and a whole lot of fun, however it provides so much more for both participants and staff.

For our participants, these activities provide the chance to get out and explore their very new city, and see some of what Chicago has to offer. It also gives them the opportunity to consistently practice English and meet new kids from different cultures and parts of the world. One of the coolest parts of this experience is that on a daily basis one can watch kids who speak different languages become friends and hang out, despite the lack of a common language. Observing and being a part of this serves as a daily reminder that at the end of the day all of us are more alike than we are different. While that may sound cliché it really is powerful and rewarding to be a part of a program that brings people together and shows recently arrived refugee children what America is really about; a place where all are welcome, and a place that values diversity and inclusion.

Being a part of Summer Program has provided me a lot, including a never-ending loop of Despacito playing in my head. Through this ongoing experience in Summer Program I’ve also come to truly appreciate the value of non-verbal communication and learn the power that a positive disposition and a smiling face can have, especially when the populations you are working with might not understand what you are saying. Additionally, every day provides a host of new learning experiences: including learning simply phrases in Arabic and Kurdish, learning about the foods and cultural norms of other cultures, and just coming to appreciate the unique and wonderful nature of all people. Every day is an opportunity to improve the lives of the youths we work with, and every day is a chance to improve the world just a little bit, and I consider myself extremely blessed to have had this opportunity this summer.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s already my last week at Heartland and in the Chicago area. I’m purposely refraining from reading my first blog post so that I can read both side by side and see how much I’ve grown.

Because yes, I truly feel like I’ve grown. I remembered being intimidated and even a little terrified my first few weeks: there were so many heavy tasks I was thrown into with little to no instruction, so many language and culture barriers, so many weights I didn’t feel strong enough not to get crushed under. But now, I feel completely transformed. I’m proud to say that I’ve developed the skill of communicating effectively with non-English speakers to a level in which I consider it one of my strengths. I feel comfortable coming into the office each day instead of a little apprehensive. Both the newer interns and the refugees come to me to ask questions when the case managers aren’t around. I’ve even been sitting in the case managers’ desk area (because we have more interns than computers in the “intern cave” now, which is a great problem to have!), and the case managers talk to me like a co-worker. All of these have made me feel more a part of the team than ever, and it’s very empowering.

Not only have I experienced that sense of the empowerment myself, but I’ve had the joy of witnessing it among the refugees, too. I’ve been here long enough now to be able to see their growth over their first month or two here. For example, one of my jobs is to conduct home visits both their first 24 hours in the country and after their first 30 days. During the 24 hour visits, the refugees are often exhausted from travel, culture shocked, and afraid. They feel like a foreigner, a guest in our United States. During the 30 Day visits, however, I typically see a huge transformation. The refugees are happy, confident, and assertive. They consider me a friend. They open their homes to me, usually with great food and as much jovial conversation as they can manage at their English level. Now I am a guest in their home, their Chicago, their United States. They become free and autonomous, and while the road for them is anything but easy, they are able to taste their dream of living in a place where they are safe, loved, and accepted – a dream that we as lifelong US citizens so often take for granted.

All of this will go with me even after I leave the office for the last time on Friday. My CAPS experience is occurring in the middle of my greatest life transition yet: In May, I graduated college, and said goodbye to Valpo as well as my friends, mentors, commitments and activities – really my whole way of life – there. In two weeks I leave the 60-mile radius of the Midwest I’ve lived in my entire life move to Denver, Colorado, a place where I’ve only spent about 36 hours total and know virtually no one. As of last week, my family officially completed their relocation to Charlotte, North Carolina, where my dad was transferred for work, so I also said goodbye to my childhood home, my hometown, and my old friends and neighbors. While navigating this huge life change in the midst of an experience where I must reflect on my calling and purpose in society, I have had another question thrown into the mix: who am I? When all of your roots are pulled from the ground – all of the places and activities that up until this point in your life made you who you are – what is your identity? I wish I had the answer for you. I do, however, have one valuable insight I want to share:

The experience of your life may be unique to you, but it is shared. It is shared with everyone you smile at on the street, everyone you commute with on the subway, everyone you dedicate your time to the same cause with. Every time you interact with someone, you are bearing witness to their story, and they yours. Community, I believe, is the essence of our existence as human beings. To love in all its forms is our calling, and to use our strengths to give, receive, and perpetuate that love in the biggest or smallest of ways is our purpose. My CAPS Fellowship – and my entire experience at Valpo, honestly – has helped teach me this.

I suppose the idea of CAPS is to figure out how you specifically fit into that grand idea of love and life. I don’t know if working with refugees is my entire life’s calling (if I even have an entire-lifelong calling), but it was this summer. God brought me here to do good work, and I did. Now, He sends me to Denver to do even more. I’ve started to turn away from the idea that we have one specific calling and one specific purpose. Last spring, my calling was to apply for CAPS. This summer, my purpose was to help resettle refugees. My current calling is to go to Denver and complete a Master’s program in International Disaster Psychology, and my purpose there will be revealed to me in due time. For now, I am endlessly thankful for my CAPS experience, and I’m beyond excited to take my new skills, experiences, and growth into my next chapter of life.

One of the most exciting things about moving Chicago is being able to say that I live in Illinois!  It may only be temporary, but for someone who has spent the last 18 years of her life living in Valparaiso, IN (minus a semester in Costa Rica), spending two months in the big city is a pretty big deal.  One of my favorite parts about living in the city is listening to people speak in their many native tongues.  When I’m at the train station, I can hear a pair of students conversing in Arabic.  While I’m walking through Millennium Park, I can understand the parents talking to their children in Spanish.  When I walk down the street, I recognize one of the very few German words I know as a man talks on the phone.  During the time I spent at my internship over the last two months, I have heard conversations in French, Arabic, Rohingya, Burmese, Tigrinya, Somali, Mon, Farsi, and a plethora of other languages that I don’t know a single word of.

As a self-declared lover of languages, hearing so many languages in such a small space is exciting.  As an intern at Heartland Alliance and as a language teacher, listening to their voices is inspiring.   This is what the whole world will probably be like in a few more decades, and I for one can’t wait to be part of it!

Unfortunately, not everyone shares my love of languages, and even more unfortunately, not everyone recognizes the value of living in a community as diverse as Chicago.  Once the United States accepts 50,000 refugees this year, no more will be welcomed in unless they have a close family tie here.  Thousands of people who have been waiting in refugee camps for years will be denied access to the place they want to call home.

Instead of sparking political debate, I want to use the remainder of this blog post to praise the efforts of people who are working to welcome people into our country.  Last week, my family and I had the opportunity to attend Chicago’s celebration of World Refugee Day.  The day was one of protest, but the time was mostly designated for celebration and fun!  It was a wonderful opportunity to interact with coworkers and participants outside of the work environment, but more importantly, it showed them that they are valued in the larger Chicago community.  We gathered together as people from all over the globe to participate in a march, eat international food, watch the “Refugee World Cup,” and dance to international music.  One of the songs they played there was also the song that the English students sang loud and proud at their graduation from the last quarter of classes, and I can’t think of a better way to sum up what the refugee experience in the United States should be like:

“This land is your land, this land is my land,

From California, to the New York Island.

From the Redwood Forrest, to the Gulf stream waters.

This land was made for you and me.”

I’ve been working at Water to Thrive for over a month now, and the time has flown by. My main project is a marketing plan that W2T can use to reach out to their Christian audience. Although W2T is a faith-based organization with roots in a Lutheran church, they don’t currently have any marketing strategies to reach one of their biggest donor bases – churches. That’s where I come in.

Like with any project I’ve done for school, I started with research. This included looking up Christian publications, nearby churches, and best practices for nonprofit marketing. I also needed to know everything I could about Water to Thrive, an organization I had never heard of before I worked here. I also had to go through all their currently marketing, especially social media and print collateral to see how I could tweak it to appeal to a Christian audience. My favorite part has been creating sample social media posts, when I get to channel my creativity and minimal graphic design skills.

Current W2T marketing materials

I’ve learned that creating a marketing plan is a really good way to get to know an organization. I’ve had to include statistics, such as how W2T has funded over 750 wells since 2008, which have affected over 400,000 people. I’ve looked at their recent campaigns, which have come from churches, universities, and weddings. I’ve poured over their annual progress reports and learned about how the organization has touched lives on both sides of the Atlantic.

The motto of W2T is “Build Wells, Change Lives.” As I work, I’m constantly amazed at how deeply lives are actually changed. Clean and accessible water is something that we constantly take for granted. We can have it everywhere – in our houses, in our schools, in our churches, in almost every building in the country. But that’s obviously not the case in rural Africa. Women and children walk for miles to get water, which is often dirty and contaminated. But a single accessible well can flip their lives upside down. The children can go to school because they don’t have to spend hours walking for water. Women have more time to care for their family and cook better meals. There is less disease from waterborne bacteria. The well becomes a place of communal pride for the whole village. While some in developing countries may believe that drinking water is just a “fad”, for many around the world, water is life.

But the lives being changed don’t stop in the African villages. Here in the States, people are continuously being affected by the work of W2T. Wells are funded through campaigns, where a group or individual raises $5,000 to sponsor a well. There have been campaigns by churches, university groups, elementary schools, even couples sponsoring wells in lieu of receiving wedding gifts. In the grand scheme of things, $5,000 isn’t that much to change the lives of hundreds of people. I love that there are people here that are so willing to donate just a few dollars to a campaign in order to change the lives of Ethiopian villagers halfway around the world. They’re willing to host small fundraisers, attend W2T’s annual events, and educate others about the African water crisis. The dedication of W2T supporters around the country is unbelievable and it inspires me to do all I can to spread the message of this organization. Although my work isn’t immediately affecting anyone in Africa, I can do my best to make sure that it does influence churches, who can take the steps to launch their own well-building campaign and change lives.

Three generations of W2T CAPS Fellows: Lars, Louisa (me), and Krista

As someone who was born and raised in the Midwest, life in Texas was certainly an adjustment. I studied abroad in England last semester, yet I experienced more culture shock during my first few days here than months in Europe. The most obvious difference is the heat. The locals laughed when I complained when it was in the mid-90s. They said it would just get hotter. And it sure has, much to my chagrin. There’s prickly pear cacti and aloe plants along the street and in front yards. And people do actually say “y’all” all the time. But besides the heat and birds that occasionally try to attack me (grackles are the worst), Austin is a really fun city. There’s always something to do, whether it’s hiking, live music, free movies, taco festivals, exploring museums, or hanging out with former W2T CAPS Fellows (shout-out to Lars and Krista). And I could write a whole other blog post about how great the food is here. But I’ll save that for another time.

The train hums me awake in the morning as it zooms under my window each day. It used to be something that jolted me awake, but now it is a part of my morning routine. In the always moving city, I have become used to the sounds, crowds, and lights. Each day as I head to work with my backpack, work shoes in hand, tennis shoes on, I am constantly surprised that in one of the largest cities, how many people I repeatably see each day, on the train and on the street.

The pace in the office of Ingenuity, like the city, is fast. Printers are printing. Meetings are in session. People are talking. I have worked at Ingenuity, the leading arts non-profit that works with getting quality arts education into every Chicago Public School for every student, for about four weeks now, as the Partnerships and Professional Learning Intern. I have already learned so much. With this position, I am tasked primarily with managing, facilitating, and implementing one of Ingenuity’s institutes called The Partner Starter. This institute is designed as a “how to” for new arts partners to Chicago Public Schools. At this event, they will learn the tools of how to form a “shared language” with Chicago Public Schools. Forming that language requires many conversations, and understandings about what it means to work within the school. This requires a multitude of conversations and voices on different levels, between teachers, school administrators, arts partners and teaching artists, arts administrators, and arts liaisons. I have learned how important listening to these different voices are to the work that Ingenuity does and the teamwork between the community, arts organizations, and surrounding schools.
It is really an amazing feeling to see my previous experiences leading me and helping me figure out the ways around this new experience. I see the conversations that I have had in classes, and the skills I have learned from previous jobs help me with this internship. The threads of my own narrative—my own life—that did not always make sense to me at the time are now coming together in interesting ways—in ways I never expected. My eyes are opened to a whole new world beyond my almost four years at Valpo.

Sometimes as I leave work, I wonder what students in schools are getting to play an instrument for the first time, or getting the opportunity to step into the museum and see a whole new way of thinking. Being able to be part of the back-bone of arts partnerships has left me with good conversations, important questions, and different narratives that are all coming together in meaningful ways. I am excited to see how this experience continues to stretch me.

Millennium Park

Lastly, at the end of these four weeks I have reflected on many things, but also noticed some funny details. One, Millennium Park is not called Millennial Park even though a lot of us millennials go there. Two, it is important to always be ready for surprises like running into your co-workers at a random coffee shop in the middle of this very large city. Finally, and most importantly, I have realized that home can be many different places, people, and moments. Right now, Chicago, with all its sounds, crowds, and lights, seems like a good home to be at with other CAPS Fellows to share the experience with as we grow together this summer.

Whenever a teacher or professor announced, “for this assignment, you’ll be working in groups,” I would internally (or at times, externally) groan and lament the impending onslaught of scheduling via 600 emails, navigating group dynamics, and inevitably picking up others’ slack. As an English major, I much preferred writing essays on my own time, in my own way, and with my own quality of work standards.

However, my internship with Ingenuity this summer has turned group work on its head for me. I am part of the Data and Research team, and our projects are way too big for one person to tackle on their own. Even though we are only a team of three, we bring professional contractors, advisory panel members, and art education stakeholders to join in on our work. Our giant projects all of the sudden feel manageable as everyone in the room brings valuable insight and technical skills. Projects are broken down into specific timelines, tasks are delegated, and progress is tracked. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a room full of dedicated and talented people.

My own dedication to the Data and Research projects is not hard to muster, as I am passionate about the work Ingenuity does. As a non-profit, Ingenuity serves as a “backbone” organization for arts education in Chicago. We work as a hub for data, strategy, advocacy, and partnerships supporting more than 600 Chicago Public Schools and a similar number of community arts partners.

All of the past State of the Arts Reports and the beginnings of this years

One way we provide data to the Chicago arts education community is through the annual State of the Arts Report. My main task for the summer is to be the lead on this project. I spent hours my first week reading through the last four reports and internally geeking out that I get to have a hand on such an important document. However, my excitement was coupled with uncertainty. How was I, “just the summer intern,” supposed to analyze the numbers, establish a narrative arc to the data, write up the findings, and advise design decisions all in a couple months? Thankfully, this is a group project.

While I definitely have a lot of work on my plate, I’m not left to flounder on my own. My supervisor Steve initiated a contract with a design firm. My co-worker Tom aggregated all of our data. All three of us divided and conquered data collection and clean-up. Both of them are readily available to answer my questions and provide feedback. Our advisory panel will offer final reviews and recommendations. By the end of the summer, our report will be well on its way to publication due to our combined efforts.

Witnessing group projects in a professional setting is a whole new experience from college. Team members are here to work, (and thankfully are not bogged down with 18-credit course loads, five extracurriculars, and a part-time job). Seeing the dedication of the rest of the team encourages me to do my best. Besides, this definitely beats pulling an all-nighter to write a paper by myself.

Greetings!

My name is Katie Karstensen and this summer I have the opportunity to be working with ICDI, or the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants. When people ask where ICDI is located it’s hard to give one central location because we are all over the Chicagoland area, and even outside of the state of Illinois in some of our ministries and work. To share what it has been like so far interning with ICDI and talking about all the different ministries we do, I thought it would be easiest to take you through my week and share some of the stories I have encountered.

Mondays

On Mondays you will find me near the South West suburbs of Chicago at our main office where our executive director, the two Sisters who have founded this organization, the fundraising team, and volunteers have their offices. I have done various tasks such as pull staples from religious materials so we may bring them into county jails, file different documents for immigrants we have helped over the years, alphabetize our donor files, and do an experiment of printing out prayers on different colored sheets of paper and testing which ones bleed color the most so that we may take the best ones into jails, where we have learned from conversations with detainees that they save the Sunday comics and separate prints into different colored ink paper, mix the paper with water, and use it to paint. Our goal is to give the prayer sheets they may be able to easily tear apart and mix with water to paint with, as paint is not available to them.

Tuesdays

On Tuesdays I am in a South suburb in Chicago working with one of our Post-Detention accompaniment ministries. ICDI offes short and long term support for immigrants who have been released from detention and have nowhere to live, and may be in the process of seeking asylum, or have been granted asylum and are waiting for other documents before being able to support themselves in this country. I get to work alongside with volunteers working to offer spiritual care, transportation, meals, clothing, and other necessities as needed. We have a house for men, a house for women and children, and a 24 hour on call service that will offer immediate services to those who have been released or are in need. My project at the women’s house this summer has been organizing all of the donations we receive, and I have been creating relationships with residents of the house and sharing stories and meals with one another.

Wednesdays

You will find me at the Kankakee County Jail on Wednesday mornings where we participate in pastoral care for those in detention. Detainees are allowed phone calls once a day they must pay for and allowed only one visit for no more than half an hour each week with family members or friends. Thanks to the hard work of the two sisters who founded this organization, and promoting that those in jail have the right to pastoral care, they have managed to get their way into jails so volunteers can visit face to face in the same room as detainees each week. ICDI visits detainees in Kenosha, McHenry, Dodge, and Kankakee County Jails, where we make 4,000 contact visits every year. I have met one on one with detainees from all over the world, some who were picked up by immigration upon entering the country, and those who have been in the country since they were a small child, have a career, multiple children, and are facing deportation and returning to country and culture they may know little to nothing about. This ministry is intense, but extremely necessary. Prisons are for long term sentences and normally have lots of programming, but county jails are for shorter terms and have little to no programming, but we have met with many people who have been in detention for months and months at a time. During our allotted thirty minutes to visit with detainees, we listen to their stories, speak of whatever they wish to talk about, offer a space for interfaith dialogue, and provide religious materials to them they are able to keep. An occurrence with someone at Kankakee that I have not been able to get out of my head and don’t know if I ever will was when one of the men I had finished talking to as he prepared to leave and I shook his hand and thanked him for coming to sit with me, said “Your group of volunteers that meet with us are the only human hands that touch us without wearing latex gloves.” Never had I thought about one simple handshake having the potential to mean so much to a person.

Thursdays

On this day I visit two different Immigration Courts in downtown Chicago where “court watchers” go into immigration cases and sit in the courtroom in solidarity and support of those who have hearings. Final hearings are usually the only hearings in which detainees physically come into the court, otherwise there is a television screen set up in the courtroom and that connects with detention centers via televideo. Everyone in the court can see the television, but the detainee on the other side can only see the judge, and hears all that is said by the judge, attorney, government representative, and translator through one microphone. And if the detainee speaks a different language than English or whatever languages the translator may be able to interpret, the judge calls an over the phone translation service and the phone translator is projected over a loudspeaker, which I cannot imagine from the detainees perspective is a very effective way of communication when dealing with such sensitive issues. And all that is interpreted are the words addressed back and forth between the judge and the detainee, not what the government or attorney have to say.

I have found my time in court to not offer much humanity for those who go through this court system, and am thankful ICDI encourages volunteers to enter court systems and offer some humanity on behalf of those waiting to hear about their immigration or asylum status.

Fridays

On Fridays you will find a group of passionate people holding a prayer vigil on the steps of the ICE Office in Broadview, Illinois. This is where all the ministry of ICDI began, when Sister Pat and Sister Jo Ann saw every Friday at 7am immigrants being put into busses to be taken to O’Hare and deported back to their countries of origin. Every Friday, rain or shine, summer and winter, all year round people gather in this place to pray and send good thoughts for those being deported. The first Friday of every month we have an Interfaith prayer vigil where reflections of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist traditions are shared among one another, and the other Fridays of the month we pray the Catholic Rosary together. This week I was able to share the Christian reflection as a part of our Interfaith service:

https://youtu.be/fP8f4qKgrW8

Saturdays

Every other Saturday I volunteer with our Unaccompanied Children’s Interfaith Ministry, where we provide spiritual care to migrant children who are in this country without a parent or guardian. Many of these children are fleeing the most violent areas on earth. We meet with these children to provide spiritual accompaniment through prayer, songs, arts and crafts, other creative activities across many language barriers based on interfaith themes such as hope, thanksgiving, and strength for the journey they are on. In conversation with these children, it does not feel as if I am talking to a child, but rather someone much wiser and older, and who has lived through much more than I ever hope to go through or experience. These children have been through much, but they are resilient and they are strong.

On a Saturday I was not visiting our unaccompanied children’s home I had the opportunity to represent ICDI at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s convention in Tinley Park where I was able to share our ministry with the wider church.

Going into this internship I admit I did not have a large amount of knowledge about the immigration system in the United States. After working with this wonderful organization for a month now I cannot believe how much I have learned, how much there still is to learn, and there are many steps to take until this is truly a humane system.