"My Salvation Lies in Your Love..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Last Tuesday I learned that my preschool teacher, Miss Stacy, was held at gunpoint and sexually assaulted on her wedding day.

In response, she started an agency that provides assistance to victims of trauma, from helping a Iraq war veteran with PTSD find counselling after the death of two of his children in a fire on Christmas, to finding a foster home for an abused baby, to providing medical care for a mentally retarded homeless man some folks found in a truck in the woods last winter. One of her biggest goals is to get her clients to a point where they can join in the helping: thus the veteran offered his spare camper as a temporary home for the homeless man while the agency found a place for him to live.

So, people are pretty amazing, I guess.

She offered me a volunteer position. It's a forty-five minute drive, but I kind of think I should take it. You know? There's not a whole lot of time left in the summer, and it seems like it might be more important to do this than to sit in on Daphne's meetings in her air-conditioned office two days a week. And it was such a coincidence to meet her--went with Daphne to talk about ways to get money/support/useful information for a shelter for domestic violence victims in Perry County, since Miss Stacy has been running her agency for a long time and knows who to contact and what's feasible and what's not (she even knows which restaurants will give leftover food/free food to people if the Food Bank is unavailable and was hooking someone up with one such restaurant when we came in), and she just happened to recognise me--anyway, if it weren't such a tricky theological thingy and a statement that makes me seriously uncomfortable, I might be tempted to say it was purposeful.

Which, granted, it is so hard to know what is just ordinary life coincidence and what is God saying HEY YOU DO THAT OKAY. There are never any angels or sparkles, which would make it SO much easier. But.

Should I give up my internship to volunteer with this agency, or should I keep the internship since it is providing some practical experience and will certainly look good on my resume?

Comments

[tulipmonster.livejournal.com]

this might also look p. good on your resume

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

this is a good point.

[watchcry.livejournal.com]

My opinion is twisted a little bit because I do not care about practical experience nor resumes, except insofar as I need to begin caring about them. (oh dear god I need to figure out how to put together a writing portfolio). But I think that you should give up your internship, if you can do that with a minimum of hassle, and if you can handle the 45 minute drive as often as you'll need to handle it. It seems like it suits your passions in an indefinable way. Or perhaps a definable way that I am unfamiliar with. In any case, I suspect that you ought to lean towards it.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

♥ This is sensible advice and I am glad for it. And you.

[zero_pixel_count]

Life's too short to worry about resumes.

On the one hand, you've expressed dissatisfaction with your internship and daphne's guidance.

On the other, how does she feel? Would you be letting her down to go off and do this?

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

It's been pointed out that I could possibly combine the two, especially since working with Daphne only takes up two days a week. Even with my library job, that's still four days a week to find time to volunteer with the agency. I think I will talk to Daphne to-morrow about a compromise.

[raanve]

Is there some way you can work this volunteer work into an aspect of the internship? (In my mind, they're somewhat related. I might be getting the wrong impression, though. Feel free to correct me.)

My only concern would be that dropping the internship might be translated as a negative, although the work you're looking to do is most certainly a positive.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

That's what Heather said! and I think it might be possible, I will have to consult with Daphne.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. Especially after it was so much like pulling teeth to get it.

[hinkydoodle.livejournal.com]

I would keep the internship and see if you can defer the volunteerism or include it somehow--or even find someone else to volunteer in your place so that neither is left short-handed.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it would be possible to incorporate the volunteerism. I actually didn't think of that possibility, and maybe Daphne would be amenable to it.

[josiana.livejournal.com]

I'm not very helpful in these areas, but would giving up the internship negatively impact your future, as far as you know? Er, I think the best thing to do is figure out some kind of compromise, if you can.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I am definitely starting to think that is the best idea.