Shelby Lingeman

EXPL 290

5 November 2017

Final Reflection

A Jesuit education is a remarkable experience, especially when it is centered on Loyolas

mission to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.

These values were put into action through my Experiential Learning course, where a synthesis of

classroom learning and hands-on service created an incredibly enriching educational experience.

This is a delicate balance: it is easy in academia to get wrapped up in abstract discussion of

topics while slowly taking away the faces and names of the people involved, turning them into

numbers. This approach keeps all of the energy and efforts inside the classroom, where it is not

benefitting anyone except the students. It is also easy to jump right into serving without any sort

of analysis or critical thinking about why and how the service is taking place. This leads to an

all service is good mindset, which can end up doing the opposite of what is intended by

helping. Therefore, these two endeavors must be taken together. After three months of putting

this into practice, I pause to reflect on what we have accomplished and where we still have work

yet to be done.

At first, I was apprehensive about the broadness of the name Refugee Topics, but I

think it was beneficial not to limit the scope of our studies. We started in the classroom delving

into texts about the history, legal aspects, and current issues surrounding refugees. We wrote

about, discussed, critiqued, and debated about these issues together. Then, armed with that

knowledge, we served the community of Edgewater/Uptown by both tutoring refugee women

and youth at Madonna Mission as well as partnering with Catholic Charities to develop a
curriculum to help refugee youth adjust to life in the United States. Both of these activities

challenged me, grew me, and occasionally frustrated me.

The Catholic Charities refugee resettlement program is doing incredible work in the city

of Chicago to help people coming to the States find stable housing, education, and employment.

However, despite these good intentions, we learned heartbreaking information about the process

that refugees have to endure in order to even get to the point where Catholic Charities can help

them. I was so shocked and dismayed to learn about how long it takes and how frustrating it can

be for people fleeing war or persecution to get settled in safety. Much of this is controlled by the

government. While it is within my power to do small, everyday things to make life easier for

refugees, the idea of changing policy on a large scale is very intimidating and discouraging to

me. This was furthered by conversations I had with many refugee women at Madonna Mission,

who told me stories about their treks from their home countries to Chicago. Most took more than

5 years and all were heartbreaking. I was also extremely humbled by how much cultural

competence I lacked when creating a curriculum to teach youth about the United States. I was

reminded that my small part of the world, though it seems the loudest and the most dominant, is

not the one right way to do things, nor is it even necessarily the best. Through learning how to

culturally adapt the lessons and my conversations, I realized how much I have to learn from

other cultures that are not inferior to my own, just different. By expanding my knowledge of

cultures unlike my own, and recognizing the inherent God-given worth in all creation, I am

better able to serve humanity humbly through learning, justice, and faith.

My experience at Madonna Mission was also perspective-widening. The best part of

volunteering there was that because I am in an Arabic class at Loyola, I got to learn from the

women I taught as they learned from me. I was a bit nervous about being in a position where the
relationship could have been vertical, as I was teaching something to someone that they did not

know, but being able to put myself in the position of student as well was so humbling. I was so

privileged to be able to learn from them, both about the Arabic language but also to develop

relationships with them and learn about their home countries, their stories, and their families. But

beyond that, my favorite part of Madonna Mission was the children who came with their mothers

to tutoring. They were supervised by a wonderful Cambodian woman while tutoring was

happening, but I loved spending time with the kids before and after my lessons with their

parents. Communication with the adults was sometimes quite awkward as we both tried to

convey what we meant and felt inadequate about our ability to do so, but children are

wonderfully unashamed of their lacking language abilities. The kids and I communicated in

laughter, shouts of joy, and exaggerated hand gestures. They would show me their drawings, or

sometimes just a stray crayon or toy, with so much pride and happiness. They also played with

one another so peacefully, despite huge language barriers. Watching a child from Sudan play and

laugh with a child from Syria, not able at all to speak the same language, was so beautiful and

encouraging. I found myself wishing we could all be like these children, who do not see color or

even hear differences in speech, they just want to love each other and share what they have.

Another amazing part of my experience this semester with refugee populations was how

closely it ties to the work I want to do professionally in the future. I am studying psychology and

hope to go into trauma counseling for people who are refugees or have been internally displaced

due to war, famine, or natural disasters. This was my first close experience with people who have

experienced massive tragedy and trauma in their lives, and while I was obviously not counseling

them, listening to their stories and seeing the strength and resilience in them solidified over and

over my desire to work with populations of people who have experienced trauma. Where others
might see a depressing profession, I see potential in the plowed ground left by tragedy and it was

so moving and inspiring to talk to people who have had to leave behind everything familiar and

restart their lives here in the United States. I really believe that spending time with my new

refugee friends has given me valuable experience pertaining to my professional aspirations and

will inform my approach to trauma in ways that I was not expecting going into this semester.

While I sincerely hope that the efforts of my classmates and I this semester have been

beneficial to the populations we sought to serve, both through our tutoring and curriculum

development, I am sure that I have learned much more from the people I met than they could

ever learn from me. Sharing a classroom with other students who are also passionate about

refugee issues and challenging myself with the class material made my service experience so

much more enriched than it could have been if I had completed the service on my own. I am so

grateful for the privilege it was to expand my cultural competence, serve with my education, and

perhaps contribute to a more just world for refugees.