Reflections on last semester

My friends and family who I touch base with sporadically ask me "How's your internship thingy going in Charlottesville?" I still haven't been able to come up with a handful of adjectives to describe it as a whole, but I'll try to recap, as disjointed and incoherent as it might sound.

Working with Amy Sherman has been a great learning experience. This summer we did some travelling around the US, and I really enjoyed that because I got to pick her brain and glean wisdom from her. She is one of the most driven people I've every met, and she is passionate about the work that she does. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her work, she is a researcher/writer/speaker/consultant for ministry work among the urban poor. She founded Abundant Life Ministries in Charlottesville, the place where the Fellows tutor (I'll tell more about that), and now she does capacity building work for ministries around the US. There is one other girl in the office, Becca Saunders, who is my age, and is a lot of fun and easy to work with. It's hard to say one specific thing that Amy does because she usually has about 5-10 projects going at once. In terms of writing, she just finished a book called The Relentless Pursuit about the story of a ministry her friend Kit runs in Phoenix, and she's working on writing an article about communities in resistance. I've helped her with the research for that article and had the chance to read Nelson Mandela's biography (which I've been meaning to finish since I started it while I was in Cape Town), and writings by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Another major project we did was a survey of the impact the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) has on its members. It was exciting to be able to interview different ministries from around the country and hear their stories. I had the chance to go to the CCDA conference in St. Louis with Amy and Becca in October, where I heard speakers like John Perkins and Shane Claiborne, saw a beautiful picture of the Church coming together to discuss work among the urban poor, and was able to worship in a multi-ethnic setting, which I don't find at Trinity (the church I go to). The most consistent project we've been doing is a curriculum for a program designed to teach urban youth how to manage their money. So I've been creating lesson plans and games for kids. And we've been playing them. So basically my job is reading books and playing games.

The job is 3 days a week, and on Thursday and Friday we have a different seminary class each morning. I really love studying theology. I grow to love it more and more. These classes have shown me the unity in the scriptures - how the Bible is a story with a beginning and a future which has a consistent narrative throughout. It's eye-opening to find our place in the story - living in the tension between Jesus' death and resurrection, and the future when all things will be made new. In this tension we see glimpses of the kingdom of God but not a full realization. And the practical application of this is bringing God's kingdom to earth, as spoken in the Lord's prayer, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And we do that by working for the justice and peace that Jesus came to establish through himself. I have sensed the feeling that I should continue theological studies after this year, so I am applying to seminaries and divinity schools while I'm at home over break.

Tutoring at Abundant Life has been a great experience. The boy I tutor is a 4th-grader named Juwan. Between substitute teaching at Griswold, teaching at Providence Summerbridge (an internship I did for a summer), and tutoring at Charity Family Life, Juwan is one of the best-behaved and most polite kids I've worked with. The two of us have had the chance to do some other things outside of tutoring with the other kids and tutors, such as bowling, ice-skating, and going to the park. His family is very nice too - he has a sweet sister who is always smiling, and his mom is a very nice lady.

One thing that I'm really thankful for is the opportunity to be involved in the church plant that Abundant Life is undergoing. The kids and families at Abundant Life come from the Prospect Avenue area, which is a low-income area in Charlottesville made up of predominately African-Americans residents. Abundant Life has great leadership from two men and their families who live in the community - Rydell Payne and Eddie Howard. Eddie is my mentor, and we try to meet together once a week. Eddie knows just about every person in the neighborhood, and the first day we got together, he took me around from door to door to meet people on Prospect Avenue, and in the Blue Ridge Commons, the housing project in that neighborhood. I've learned a lot about ministry from Eddie, and I'm excited to learn more from him in the future. Eddie and Rydell are the two who are planting and pastoring the church. The folks from Trinity Pres are helping out a lot too. I go to the church services on Saturday night in a tiny building that holds 30-50 people tops. At the beginning of the year I was asked to play guitar for the kids choir at Abundant Life, so I've been doing that since August. I love that opportunity because it allows me to get to know the kids better. Sometimes I'll take the kids to the park before the service to play basketball or play on the playground. One day we made an obstacle course on the playground and timed each other going around it. That was a blast. It's fun when the other Fellows come and hang out with the kids too. We're all hoping to do more of that next semester.

I'm living with a host family, the Breedings. They have been very warm and hospitable since I've been there. It is a family of five - Greg and Lyndee are the parents, plus there is Jordan who is a junior in high school, Grace who is in 8th grade, and Anna, who is in 6th grade. Jordan has a great sense of humor and plays guitar. So he's fun to hang around with, and we've had some good jams. Grace and Anna are both very sweet girls. One day when I came home I saw "Welcome home Reynolds" written in big sidewalk chalk letters on the driveway. Anna did it. I don't spend much time at home, so I don't see my host family very much, but hopefully I'll see more of them next semester.

And finally, but certainly not least, the other 11 Fellows. Doing life with 11 other people makes for an unique community dynamic. My closeness to each of the fellows rotates, depending almost entirely on circumstance. I'll be really close with one of the fellows for 3 weeks, and then the next three weeks I won't talk much to that person because she or he couldn't go out to lunch for three meals in a row, or something like that. And then I'll get close to three different fellows. But looking back at the semester as a whole, I've grown close to all the fellows and had personal time with all of them at some point. It is a great group of people with a wide variety of personalities and gifts. I've learned from them and have begun some friendships that I will probably consider valuable for years after. At the same time, I do feel limited in developing our community. We see each other in such short periods, and living in different houses makes developing community a challenge. I've been pushing the "community house" idea for next year to Dennis, the director of the program. But for now, we're trying to be more creative and intentional about finding ways to strengthen our community with the set up we're in.

So that's the rundown on last semester. Feel free to email me if you want to know more: reynoldschapman@gmail.com!