2. During my internship this summer, I have many things I hope to learn. With it
being an internship with my church, I hope to learn how to balance my work life,
classes, and my relationship with God. It will definitely give me a glimpse into my
life after graduation when I get a job and have more responsibilities than just
school and church in my life. Although school takes up a lot of time, I feel my
future job will take up a lot more, so learning how to create a balanced schedule
will be a key skill I hope to gain from my experience interning at H2O.
I also hope to gain new leadership skills, especially when it comes to planning
meetings and events. I know my role this summer will contain a lot of that, so I
hope as the summer moves along, that I will be able to run meetings smoothly
and effectively. This is definitely a skill I could take with me after graduation. With
planning events in mind, I know I am not the best when things are chaotic, and I
know that when planning different events, things will be a little crazy sometimes. I
hope to be able to remain calm and organized in the midst of this chaos and learn
to go with the punches.
Another leadership skill I want to obtain is through listening. With this being
an intern with a non-profit, you get to hear a lot of different stories. I hope with
this internship I can really listen but also ask deeper questions about people’s
stories to show that I actually care and want to know more about them and their
lives.
One final thing I really want to learn during this internship is how relationships
with coworkers tend to work. I’ve never had an actual job before, so I don’t know
how work relationships turn out and how much you can/are able to get to know
the people you’re working with every day. I feel this is important because
relationships with coworkers can easily make or break a job.
3. I led prayer meetings (left picture is of one of the plans). I also
helped with slices of life, which are people’s life stories they tell
during a session or at church (right picture is of Google form I
made to get volunteers).
4. The left picture is of my weekly hours I had to put in.
The right picture is of a chili recipe because I led a food
crew that helped make meals throughout the summer
program (feeding 50+ people).
5. I also attended two retreats.
The top photo is of the Kick-
Off Retreat, which happened
at the beginning of the
summer. The right picture is
of the Women’s Retreat that
happened in the middle of
July.
6. The picture below is of the
small group I led over the
summer (I’m in the
middle). The picture to the
right is one of the meeting
agendas I made.
7. Both of these pictures depict my work on the Closing Ceremonies. I
did a lot with organizing the gifts (photo albums) and putting them
together. The left picture is the boxes of photo albums I put together,
and the right picture is the order of things I had to collect and put
into the 50 albums.
8. Throughout my internship with H2O, I have acquired so many new skills that I am excited to
put to use in the future! The first skill is a combination of dealing with chaos and scheduling
my week. With the internship, my schedule was all over the place and never stayed the
same from week to week. A lot of my time depended on if other people could make it, and
a lot of these meetings were easily cancelled or moved to a different time. Adjusting to this
lifestyle was extremely difficult for me at first because I am a fairly organized person who
likes to have a daily routine. But, throughout the summer, I was able to get used to the idea
and actually enjoyed not continuously working throughout the day. I was able to figure out
consistencies in my schedule, so I wouldn’t have to worry about those. I learned to ask
people very early on when they could meet, so I wouldn’t have to stress when I couldn’t
make the meeting happen for the week. And sometimes these meetings didn’t happen, but
I learned to go to my supervisor and explain the scheduling problems we both had, which
she completely understood.
Another big skill I learned was through listening. I had a lot of different meetings with
different girls I was discipling (helping them grow as leaders in the church), and I had to
listen and ask the hard questions to help them engage what was going on in their lives. I
wasn’t the greatest at this at first, but I definitely got better throughout the weeks.
One final skill I obtained was planning meetings and events. I was able to stay pretty
organized throughout the ‘chaos’. I planned prayer meetings, lead small group meetings,
and helped plan the closing ceremonies (a final dinner party for the leadership training
community). I learned to start with the basics and then get into more details; this was the
best strategy that didn’t stress me out and kept the meetings moving effectively.
Finally, one major thing I learned about myself this summer is that I love to serve. I
went to Stowe Mission over the summer in Columbus to serve, and it was absolutely eye
opening. I could definitely see myself working their someday, serving the low-income
families and homeless in Columbus. Hopefully, I can continue volunteering there over the
school year.
Overall, my internship with H2O was an experience I will cherish forever.
