Internal Affairs

At 5:45 a.m. my husband, Bob, sat up in bed, shook me awake, and demanded, "How can you be so calm? I'm so nervous I can hardly stand it!"

With that abrupt awakening, we greeted the day we had been anxiously awaiting. As coordinators of Sojourners Internship Program, we were finally to meet the eight people who would be with us for a year as interns.

Only two weeks before, Sojourners Community and congregation had bidden a very sad farewell to the folks who had been our interns in 1985, the first year of the program. Dolores Johnson had left late last summer, and over the course of a week, Michael Clapp, Judy Crawford, Barbara Ryan, Ronna Seibert, and Marcia Welsh left, one by one, until by week's end we were exhausted and red-eyed from all the emotional farewells. Truly we had come to love these good people who had risked much to come and participate in our brand new intern program, with all its kinks and wrinkles.

The only thing that got us through that week was the knowledge that soon we would greet eight new interns. After the very difficult task of selecting them from more than 100 applications, Bob and I spent many weeks preparing for their arrival. We made many trips to Value Village thrift stores looking for used mattresses and desks, planned a rigorous orientation schedule, and worried for weeks over the other seemingly endless details necessary to such a program. Now, on this very early morning, we both came face to face with the reality that this was the day--anything that we had forgotten to do by now would probably not get done.

By evening, seven of the eight had arrived. We sent two people to the airport to fetch the last intern, who had spent three unplanned hours in-Memphis. She finally arrived, tired and a little frustrated, but happy nonetheless to be here.

For our first evening together, we wanted the interns to feel relaxed and welcomed into our midst. We planned a quiet meal and vowed to resist the temptation to bombard them with information about their year with us--there would be a very full orientation in the days and weeks to come.

But almost immediately the questions began.

"Is it safe for me to park my car out on the street in this neighborhood?" "Do you all do war tax resistance?" "How are we ever going to work out cooking supper and buying groceries for this many people?" "Does Sojourners have any acts of civil disobedience planned for 1986?" Clearly these folks were ready to jump in and find out what in the world they had gotten themselves into for a year.

IN THE DAYS that followed, we had more orientation sessions than anyone cares to remember. Practically, there was much to learn about the how's and why's of the internship program and our life here at Sojourners. But easily the highlight of our time together was the sharing of our personal histories--the recounting of those events, experiences, and relationships which have nurtured, pained, and shaped us.

Rose Berger's career as a radical threat to the status quo began at the ripe age of four when, while at a political demonstration with her parents, funny-looking men in dark glasses snapped her picture and asked her name. Rose is our peace ministry intern.

At the age of 12, Ellen Sarrett, our new tenant organizer, was answering phones at the offices of the Congress of Racial Equality and was deeply influenced by Martin Luther King Jr.

Nancy Champlin's young age--she is 22--is deceiving. She speaks with the wisdom and insight of one much older. Her own small community in a poor neighborhood of Los Angeles has "commissioned" her to learn and gain experience in community living, and she is working in our neighborhood children's program.

Last spring John Prindle was one of three graduates in the first Peace and Conflict Studies program at the University of California in Berkeley. He will be using his peace expertise in our Book Service, packing nonviolent book orders into nonviolent boxes.

Trish Stefanik left a glamorous job as an art director with an advertising agency to do sometimes-glamorous work in the publishing side of Sojourners magazine with Joe Roos. Trish's friends consider her year with us to be a year off from "real work," but she considers it a career move.

The thing one most immediately notices about Mark Honeywell is that he laughs at all attempts to be funny, whether successful or not. This attribute could come in rather handy as he endeavors to find humor in keeping the lives of two of our editors, Joyce Hollyday and Karen Lattea, orderly and sane.

Carol Leslie is second only to the pope in the category of "most countries visited." She returned from Egypt to assist Jim Wallis and Dennis Marker in the year's outreach activities.

Gladys Almes is a remarkable woman who, at the age of 61, brings experience and wisdom as well as a courageous willingness to accept risks and challenges. She will work on our subscription staff.

As each of our new friends shared their stories, Bob and I were struck by the incredible courage of eight people who left very secure homes and jobs to come and do the sometimes exciting, sometimes monotonous work of our various ministries.

As the interns settle into their new homes and jobs, they are learning where to park their cars, when we will have acts of civil disobedience, and how to buy and cook for eight. It's too early to tell what the year will bring. But it is clear that we all share great hopes and expectations for our time together.

Susan R. Masters was a member of Sojourners Community, and directed Sojourners' Guest Ministry and coordinated the Internship Program with her husband, Bob Hulteen, at the time this article appeared.