Blog 1: Community

Blog 1: Community

 June 11, 2019

Coming into this internship I didn't know what to expect.  Yes, I knew there would be four women and four men, and that we were all ethnic young adults, but what does that mean?   The term ethnic spans across virtually every ethnicity except Caucasian.  I didn't know how I would get along with the other interns or what it would be like living in an intentional community for the first time in my life.  Especially coming into the experience as an only child who had only ever shared a room in freshman year of college.  

Today as I sat in a congressional house hearing and looked around the room at the 120 people or so, I realized that less than 1/5 of those people were minorities, and it made me cherish my EYA peers.  I have never been apart of a group wherein all the members were minorities, and it turns out it makes a huge difference in the feeling of community and comradererie that builds in the group.  I look forward to getting home and discussing my day and hearing about theirs, I feel comfortable around them even though we've only known each other just over a week, and most importantly, I feel like Helen when I’m with them.  When I'm with my EYA peers, I am an individual with my own thoughts and feelings and opinions.  I am not the token anything, or the De facto representative for my race as I so often feel designated as in many other settings. 

Last Saturday, having only known the other EYA interns for five days, I didn’t want to spend my Saturday morning apart from them, though I had to due to a previous commitment.  I found myself rushing to get back to hang out with them.  We are only in week two of this internship, but I know I am making memories that I will look back on fondly forever.  These last two weeks have given me an incredibly valuable experience.  I have bonded with people from across the country and globe that understand the nuances of being a minority, but more so are just really cool and enjoyable people.  I don’t think about our ethnicities or different backgrounds when we’re together, it’s just interesting and fun to learn about them as people.  Stepping out of that bubble and realizing what a precious gift I’ve been given this summer makes me feel so immeasurably grateful to God for this experience.  I can’t believe that we’re in the middle of week two and that ten days ago I didn’t know any of these people.  In ten days, they’ve gone from strangers, to my community.

-Helen