What do I hope to be doing in 5 years? Am I on the path to getting there?

This past summer, after a long and arduous process of finishing my final integration paper encompassing my internship in Thailand last year, I was supposed to end it by answering the question: "What can I see myself doing/hope I will be doing in 5 years?" (Hmmm...I'd just like to know what I'll be doing next month...or next week...let alone in 5 years!) I couldn't answer the question specifically, but I did lay out principles that I had learned through that experience that I always hoped to live by. Now, post-grad, post-summer adventure in Europe, I am 2 months in to my job as a case manager in the Survivors of Torture department, working with clients mostly from north and central Africa at the International Institute of NJ and I confess that much of the time I don't know what I'm doing. Still, I am trying to live towards some of the goals I had set/hoped for myself, but when I stop to look at the big picture, I'm not sure how this is going.

I am certainly idealistic to a degree in the things that I wrote in that paper, and hope to remain so. However in the world of social work (especially with immigrants/refugees), I don't know how long being idealistic about "being the change" can last. Some long-term people in my office view myself and others new to this work as bright-eyed young people paying their dues to society and who then will go on to bigger and better things than styaing with a non-profit trying to remain afloat on almost non-existent funding and whose workers are jaded by the many stories they've heard, all the hoops that they and their clients have had to jump through and all the beauracratic crap and screwed up policies of our government. When the rubber meets the road and realism sets in, it's hard to keep from getting cynical and to remain optimistic about one's ideals.

Here are the thoughts I had written 6 months ago about where I hoped to be headed:
"Of all the principles learned through the HNGR program, the one I believe was ingrained in me most was identification with the poor. It is one thing to have sympathy; it is another to have empathy. After living in a community of women largely surrounded by poverty, I came to see them as my sisters, and my friends. Their faces and their voices will always be in my memory banks, reminding me of who they are and the circumstances that they have been born into. I am very aware that I do not deserve the life that I was born into and that I could have been born into their life. Now, after living with them, a part of my life is wrapped up in their narrative. This is something that I will never be able to shake.

As consequence, with every new opportunity I am given, I will think of them, and other women in the world like them who will have no such opportunity and who have no choice. With every situation of employment, every chance and means to travel, to enjoy a day in the city, take a dance class or receive more education, I will always remember what it feels like to be in a community of women who knew that I came from a privileged background, who felt somewhat jealous at the life I had and they didn’t have, and (for the most part) accepted me into their community anyway. I will never forget the sting of hearing about the pain of being abandoned or sold by parents, knowing that mine were always there for me and that I could not become a parental figure for them. With every major choice I make, I will think of life at New Life Center, the life that I briefly shared in, and will always remember the call to identify with those that are considered least in our world.

Beyond identification, I want to remain committed to both keeping myself informed and spreading awareness about global poverty and issues caused by it (specially human-trafficking) and also things that are happening in global missions. I have become extra-sensitive to messages of a health and wealth gospel because I have seen that God identifies with the lowly and does not desire to give us comfortable or “successful” lives by the world’s standards. I have also become sensitive to the discourse on global missions within the church and how the “first world” views going to the 2/3rds world to spread the Gospel and engage in other endeavors. I cringe every time I hear about someone coming back from a missions trip to the two-thirds world and having an “awesome” time. Perhaps, post-HNGR, I have become somewhat cynical towards people going overseas and having "blessed" or "amazing" experiences doing ministry. I am sensitive to our evangelical eagerness to jump overseas to preach before we are eager to listen, before we even stop to realize that there are probably (percentage-wise) a lot more genuine Christians in the global south than in our own country, that maybe what the "poor people" need is not a group of well-intentioned, but somewhat uninformed Americans showing up with medical supplies, beanie babies and tracts, but people who want to come into relationship with them, agendas aside. I am committed to use my education in anthropology and HNGR to find ways to change the attitudes of paternalism (specifically in the church) that exists in the west towards the non-west.

I also have learned and seen that there is power in giving people a voice. The ability to have your voice heard is both an agent of healing and a source of power. Whether this is pursued politically, relationally or through therapy, there is dignity given when the privileged and powerful humble themselves enough to quiet down and give voice to the poor. If I can practice and be an influence to those around me to listen to voices of the 2/3rds world, I will consider that success. I pray that in five years, God will have given me the grace to pursue a lifestyle where I can, in His strength, be an agent for change and redemption in whatever capacity He calls me to serve."

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. This is mostly just a reminder to myself to look at the big picture and to keep evaluating where my focus is in the light of where I want it to be.
There will be more to come on this...