I volunteer with Project SHINE teaching refugees in Utica to speak English. Before I started the program this year, I sat through the required information session.
"This is how it works…"
And, "What do you expect?" Those well-acquainted with the program prompted us to do a little soul-searching, identify and flesh out the fears, hopes, concerns that plagued our hearts and minds.
"I hope to learn a lot about me and others?"
"I hope to help people?"
"I hope that I don't buckle under pressure?
Vague were the responses. Speculation is not necessarily the best means of pinpointing deep-rooted sentiments and bringing those sentiments to the forefront in order to address them.
And I never could have known what light SHINE would, well, shine in and on my life.
Four weeks into Project SHINE and I am every day both challenged and amazed, overwhelmed and impressed, a little bit saddened and renewed with hope. The last 30 minutes of SHINE this past Friday, I ditched the lesson plan and simply spoke to — and more importantly listened to — the two refugees I had been working with, one from Sudan and one from Liberia.
"Show me where you're from and where you've been on this map. Please, tell me why you left and how you feel now," I urged.
Oh! The personal histories of these people would stop a historian in his tracks and feed a poet infinite inspiration. More than needing to learn the difference between the long and short vowel sounds, these people needed to share themselves with others, to be acknowledged in their uniqueness, their humanness. And in conversing with them with genuine interest and care, I could feel both their passion for living, for learning and mine expanding with each question, with each sigh, with each nod: "I truly want to know more."
So, I consider now: what are my hopes?
With each lesson to please remind those I work with that I genuinely care, and that they have just as much — if not more — to teach me about the world, and life, and love, and family than I have to offer them.
And my fears?
That the program will end too early for me to take it all in, make it mine, and grow — and then translate all of that to the refugees (my teachers).
