The Wait is Over

Ladies and Gentlemen:

As of Monday, October 5th, I will be the newest employee of Breakthrough Urban Ministries, on the West Side of Chicago (www.breakthroughministries.com). I will serve as their Volunteer Coordinator, ie, be a liaison between the Program Directors (programs=men's shelter, women's shelter, kids programs-mentoring and sports, outreach to prostitutes) and volunteers, helping keep everyone happy, involved, etc etc and spending lots of time cultivating relationships. The perfect job for me? Quite likely. I love liaising.

Breakthrough's model of urban involvement is unlike any other organization I've heard of before. I can't really do it justice in just a few sentences, but I'll try. We've all heard it's not what you do, it's who you know, right? Breakthrough strives to specifically built up networks (call them "communities") of people to surround those who are part of each of these different programs. Therefore, when participants graduate from a program or from a school, they aren't suddenly left in isolation to fend for themselves and somehow market their skills to people who already have ideas and prejudices against them. Instead, each person has this network, this community, to continue to reach out to, to be encouraged by, to encourage. They may walk out of the door of a program, but they don't thereby walk into isolation. The reality is that it's these sorts of networks/communities that we know (because we've all experienced it in some form or fashion) that make a difference in our lives. That call us to that "better life", that help us network to find that job and help to encourage us when we're feeling less than our best. I think this just might be the way to help transform communities, be they urban, suburban, rural, black, white, Asian or anything in between.

And so I start on Monday. It's been a long road. In the last month, I've held four different jobs. No really, I counted. MCC. Consulting. Bakery. Law School. Each job has taught me a ton about myself, about people and about the value of work. And now, here I am. Health benefits. 401k. Paid vacation. I have never in my life been more thankful for a job. And the fact that I couldn't have dreamed up a better position? Utterly priceless.