Dispatch from a Baylor Summer Fellow | Lochlan Walsh Part 2
When I first applied to the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty Internship, I was buzzing with energy and eager for real world experience in the fight against impoverishment in America. My passion for justice had been nourished that previous semester through the topics of solidarity with the poor and Christian liberation theology that were presented in my honors classes. However, little did I know that I would be placed in Kentucky and would spend two months working as a Migration and Refugee Intern at the Catholic Charities of Louisville just as the topic of immigration in America became more politically heated than ever.
I spent my time doing all the different varieties of work that nonprofits usually entail, including filing and front desk management, while also working directly with refugees and their children in ESL classes and the Youth Summer Program. The more time I spent with my coworkers who shared in my ideology and with the migrants who were eagerly seeking new opportunities, the more my heart for this work grew. I had always been taught through sermons and Bible studies that Christians were to go to the nations and teach them about the love of Christ. But here I was with the nations feeding their babies and speaking in countless languages in the lobby everyday, and I was the one who was learning from them. Three sisters in the Summer Program taught me Kinyarwanda, the front desk manager from Bosnia gave up her time to help me plan projects, and the on-site immigration lawyer let me shadow a green card appointment with a family of 6 from a refugee camp in Tanzania.
Being welcomed in an environment of such rich cultural exchange and mutual consideration grew my humility and desire to create this same environment for those who needed it most. However, my heart was broken just as often as it was warmed. The migrants and refugees lived in a constant state of fear that they would be sent back to the dangerous situations that they were trying to escape by the same government that was supposed to offer them protection. I saw the looks on parents' faces as they were told that SNAP benefits, the ones used to feed their kids, would be taken away. Catholic Charities had their funding cut by 75% and constantly wrestled with possible solutions. I wrestled with my own dissatisfaction with the current policy and would often turn to my faith in feelings of heaviness and grief.
Looking back at my time in Louisville, I am immensely thankful for the opportunity given by Baylor’s Center for Engaged Learning to be exposed to tangible poverty-fighting efforts and to those who are directly affected by the decisions that the government makes. I am thankful for the positive and negative moments because both have fanned the flame of my desire for justice. Being a Christian who seeks to offer world leadership does not simply mean going to where help is needed, but it also means providing a space where those who need help can come to you.
I know now that I want to live in a country that represents safety and opportunity for other nations, not uncertainty and fear, and I want to do everything in my power through further education and effort to see that happen.
“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.”
Amos 5:24