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.

As the first CAPS Fellow to officially start her placement, I am already entering my third week at my placement site. I work at Heartland Alliance Refugee and Immigrant Community Services under their Resettlement & Placement department in Chicago, which works with refugees and immigrants during their first 90 days in the country. I entered the experience 3 weeks ago both excited and nervous to work with a population I have never worked with before, and in not knowing completely what to expect, I tried my best to keep my mind open.
 
 
On day 1, I was already diving in head-first. Within the first half hour, I was on my way to visiting a refugee’s home with my supervisor to make sure they felt properly accommodated. By day 4, I was conducting these home visits on my own, without supervision. The general pace and dynamic of the office seems to be “Do first, learn after.” My supervisor would send me on errands with the refugees – such as applying for food stamps and social security cards, obtaining a State ID, and teaching them the public transit routes – with little to no prior instruction, and then sit down with me to debrief and teach me the process. Hands-on is my favorite way to learn, and I love not having to sit at a desk all day, but even the people most fit for this kind of work would find it overwhelming at first. I’ll spend three hours with a Syrian refugee family resolving their State ID processing issues at the DMV and be greeted at the door upon my return by a young Burmese man who needs to be taken to the bank immediately to open a bank account. Most of my tasks are stacked directly on top of each other, and they sometimes even overlap.
 
 
The fast pace is definitely overwhelming at first, yet the most difficult aspect of this position, I’ve learned, is the language barrier. Refugees come to us speaking languages I’ve never even heard of before starting at Heartland: Rohingya, Tigrinya, Oromo, and so on. We have translators available in the office and over the phone, but speaking through a translator in itself is an art form that takes practice. Even speaking English now takes much more thought and deliberation; I must make sure I am speaking clearly and slowly enough for a refugee who speaks little English to understand, and I have to catch myself from using American figures of speech that they may not recognize. It has definitely reinforced the fact that having foreign language experience is crucial in this field (I suppose it’s common sense, but now I’ve experienced it first-hand). I’m trying to learn common words and phrases in each major language used by our participants, and I plan to take some foreign language classes as electives when I start graduate school in the fall.
 
 
Despite all of the overwhelming pace, stress, and sometimes frustration of the position, I come home every evening feeling a sense of fulfillment. All of my energy may be spent, but I know I spent it on directly helping and supporting a population that needs it desperately, especially in the current political climate. I think back to the many heartwarming experiences I’ve had so far – when an Eritrean refugee considered me enough of a friend to share with me his poetry and songs about his horrible experiences before escaping, when a Syrian woman tried to teach me Arabic and spent the whole train ride home telling me about Ramadan while her husband took my hand and smiled in gratitude for my company, when a Burmese family invited me to sit on their only couch and offer me hospitality while the 4-year-old daughter shouted the English words she knew with a smile – that make it all worth it. I know I have a purpose to dedicate my life in service to God’s most vulnerable children, and although I’m not convinced that this exact line of work is for me, I know that this summer, I am doing the work God has called me to do. I look forward to all of the growing and learning yet to come. Now that I am (finally) not alone in the city anymore and almost all of the other Chicago CAPS Fellows have arrived, I am excited to do that growing and learning alongside a community of peers that truly feel like home. Here’s to an amazing rest of the summer!