Teaching campers how to make friendship bracelets

I worked as a counselor and waterfront coordinator at Camp Lakeview in Seymour, Indiana during the summers of 2013-2015. Here I had a lot of practice with disciplining children, leading Bible Studies and and whole- and small-group devotions, and cooperating with my co-workers, even when we had different ideas about the best way to accomplish a task. I learned to ask God for patience and energy, even when I didn’t think I had any left!

I have also been blessed with many opportunities while at Concordia to work with students from diverse backgrounds. My freshman year, I participated in a poverty simulation, and as a junior I volunteered at People’s City Mission, a homeless shelter in Lincoln.

In the poverty simulation, I was the parent, and I really felt the crunch of time as I tried to take care of my family (a daughter, a son, and a grandbaby) and go to work, too. I ended up leaving my nine-year-old son at home alone with the baby while my twenty-year-old daughter and I both worked. I relied on him much more than I should have, and my daughter missed her college classes for weeks in a row.

At the mission, I realized that the only thing that keeps me from being one of these people is the family God placed me in and their loving support. I also saw the lack of

Teaching left and right while playing Twister at People’s City Mission

consistency in these children’s lives: they never know who will take care of them or where their food will come from. It’s easy to sit in my middle-class world and say I would never allow certain things (such as the nine-year-old baby-sitting) to happen, but when I was actually in the circumstances in the simulation I was faced with some tough decisions. Now I will not judge parents struggling with poverty and think I could do a much better job, and I will understand when my students have adult responsibilities. I will do my best to learn about their home life, not add more pressure by asking them to bring in something they don’t have, and just be a constant in their life.

I have also:

Taught high school Sunday School and planned youth events, at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Topeka, Kansas, Jan. 2022 – present

Teacher Aided, 8th grade English, St. John’s Lutheran School, Seward, Nebraska, Fall 2014.

Worked as a counselor at Camp Dixie, Elberta, Alabama, Summer 2012.

Volunteered at the Seward Youth Center, Fall 2011.