Haz el bien, no mires a quien

Swell, I'm officially past my half way mark (bien? eh...asi,asi. mostly because I'm behind in the homework side of things). During the past few weeks I've had loads of interviews with mentoring programs (14 to be exact). And it wasn't till Friday that things got, well, interesting. By Friday, I was SO BORED with the interviews. I had to do a phone interview with a very skeptical lady, I had 2 email me their answers to which I had to follow up because they didn't quite give the kind of answer I was looking for, and I was tired of driving around Miami to get to these of offices.

But, it's what I have to do. It's my only research. So, on Friday, I had 2 interviews. The first one was interesting because the lady's organization doesn't have a mentoring program anymore, they do after school tutoring. So, for consistency's sake, I asked the same questions I asked the other groups and then gave tweaked follow up questions to her specific case. The one later was when life got spicy. It was a larger organization I was interviewing, but my email/phone conversations with my contact there was really positive. He was all about this and was very friendly to me.

For those of you who have never tried setting up interviews with a group who does the same thing you do, kindness and trust does not come easily. Especially in the US, and especially in Miami. It was really rare to have a program director be so engaged in my project before the interview. So, you can imagine my excitement to met with someone who I wasn't going to have to sell my product to in order to get full participation.

I went in and he and a woman who was in charge of the mentors themselves greeted me. I started to explain to him who I was and who I worked for and what my work is.
Me:"Well, I'm a senior in college interning for the summer with Family and Children Faith Coal-"
Man:"Ooohhhh. faith based."
Me:"...umm....yes"
Man:"yeah, we're not affiliated with any religious groups."
Me:"..well, that doesn't really matter. You run a mentoring program. That's what I'm looking for"

It took me off guard because no other groups had made a verbal reaction to the organizations name (which, they're thinking about changing because the "Faith" part causes distrust and disinterest with potential partners). If anything, the interviewee would use the phrases like "Praise God!" or "They're a God-send" or "Pray" because of the "faith" part.

We finished the interview, no problem. He gave me 3 booklets of literature from their program and a DVD. I then explained to him the new addition to my research (volunteer booklet) and made the mistake (maybe not "mistake". Part of me wishes I hadn't said it) of mentioning FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) in my list of groups who might be interested in signing up for mentoring.

Man: Yeah, again, we don't do the religion thing because the last thing we want is for a kid to go home and say, "mommy, so and so told me I'm going to hell!"
Me: ...well, yeah! No one wants that! and even with our mentoring program there are boundaries to prevent that kind of thing from happening.
Man: I have 4 evangelical brothers who believe that every moment the have with someone is God telling them to preach to them. That's really the last thing we need on our hands to deal with.
My thoughts:well, I mean, God does put us in certain places. Does he mean outright verbal evangelism? or like, I can show this person kindness and love by helping them carry their stuff to the bus? If we were perfect, wouldn't we do the first? but since we aren't we do the second, right?
Me: well, yeah. I'm a Christian (that's the first time I've had to say that outloud on my internship) but I believe that sometimes the best way to show Christ's love is by actions. that, and you're too afraid most of the time to repeat John 3:16 to the Publix cashier
Man: Right, and that's just the extreme. Any kind of extreme is bad

I continued with the volunteer directory thing. Our conversation continued about the extremes of Christianity. The man told me about how ridiculous he thought Catholicism was (don't ever say that too loudly in Miami) because you do something wrong, tell another human what you did and everything's right with the world. The woman told me about her experience of going to Catholic school. Sorry, ECS, but my high school experience wasn't too far behind hers. Both were pretty legalistic. I told them that those things broke my heart because then there's an unrealistic standard people think Christians have and when they fall short of it, it's a huge deal. They agreed with my view.

Man: Here's the DVD. WATCH IT! It will make you cry and if it doesn't, you're not human, and you're definitely not a Christian. Haha.
Me: Not the first time someone has said that to me before.

I left the office and waited for the elevator, shaking because that was the FIRST time on my entire internship my faith has been brought up outside of church. It was unexpected and at first scary, but it was good to try giving views of real Christianity to 2 people who were obviously sick of religion.

It was a good conversation to have because I'm positive this will be a consistent problem post graduation.