You Are Never Alone

Good evening everyone. My name is Adwoa Asare and my placement was Habitat for Humanity. The Johnson Intern value that most resonates with me is COMPASSION.

“I can’t believe that it’s over”. That’s what I keep thinking as I stand in front of you today. This thing, this program, these people have become my every day. It’s hard to try and sum up what I’ve learned during these 11 months with these 7 wonderful strangers but I will try. 

A theme that I feel reflects our year is “you are never alone”. In a four bedroom house that only shares “common” rooms there is no “quiet” space. There is no private room or confessional where you can go to shut the world away or even shut your roommate out. There is no sacred space that is all your own. We were going to learn how to become a community due to the physical structure of our house if nothing else. But fortunately there was something else. In the midst of the unexpected, the unpredictable, and the unconventional there was love.

Each of us had a roommate and I know that wasn’t always easy. Kelsey and I got along pretty well in the early months but didn’t do much talking in our room. It was perfect. We enjoyed each other’s silent company and embraced the rare moments of quiet and “solitude” that a bedroom should offer. We enjoyed our mutual cohabitation until we encountered an experience that made us need each other for mental and emotional stability—loosely translated we needed to vent!; to keep our sanity. Our spring praxis project disrupted everything we knew about sharing our sacred space. We needed a place to let it all hang out and help reassure and encourage each other with the unspoken words that here in this place “you are never alone”. 

One wish that I have is for my fellow interns, my friends, to know just how important they are to me. For many of us the circumstance under which we arrived to JIP this year was a windy path. For me it was a step of faith. I needed to put myself is a place where God could continue to show me my path. The Gospel of Matthew 7:14 tells us that the gate that offers life and not destruction is small and that way is narrow. That is the path that I am on and it’s worth every bump in the road to know that there is purpose in my existence.

A few nights before I first arrived at JIP I wrote a blog to my accountability partners in hopes that when times got tough this year and I couldn’t remember why I was here, they would remind me of this scripture.  It’s from Isaiah 55, an Invitation to the Thirsty:

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
       come to the waters;
       and you who have no money,
       come, buy and eat!
       Come, buy wine and milk
       without money and without cost.

 ² Why spend money on what is not bread,
       and your labor on what does not satisfy?
       Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
       and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

This year I gave up money and excess so that my soul could be satisfied by what is truly good in this world; being connected to Him and to His people. 

God has shown me compassion during this year and I hope that I have been able to reach out to others in the same way. My heart has been pricked to love more genuinely and from a place of full acceptance and little to no judgment. That challenge has made me consider how I interact with my co-workers, the other interns, people in the JIP family, and even total strangers. Do I only love the pieces of you that I am okay with or can I treat you with all the love you are deserving of?

One weekend at church I was given this chain. A chain only possesses strength when each link is connected to something else. The chain I received happened to have 7 links on it. These 7 links represent each of my friends in this program. As links connected to the chain of my life, I will hold you in my heart and remember that “I am never alone”. Every time I look at it I will remember our commitment to each other and all the many ways we showed our love. 

I’d like to share something with you that I shared with the other interns during one of our Parakaleo nights. Parakaleo was our corporate time of spiritual practice. It’s a funny sounding word but the definition that Susan Gladin first gave us is so simple yet so profound: it means “To walk along side”. Parakaleo was particularly meaningful to me because it gave me intentionality every few weeks in how I opened myself up to God. My faith journey is relational, but a lot of times I don’t know what to ask for. So in the weeks leading up to my turn to share I always opened myself up widely to what God wanted me to share with my housemates. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this word Parakaleo. Each week and really every day we are given the chance to walk along side each other. What we do on that walk is up to us. Whether we enjoy the view, have a chat, quicken the pace, or walk in the opposite direction we as interns have been bound into an 11 month experience of Parakaleo. Even bigger than the interns I feel that all of us in this room tonight are meant to walk along side one another and are doing it right now whether we are intentional about the process or not. To my fellow interns, I hope that these words will ring true to you in your darkest hour even if I am not there besides you to speak them, remember that in it all and through it all “you are never alone”.

The best is yet to come,

~Adwoa