DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Interns find ways to blend faith and policy.
Maggie Machledt says she experiences God in her internship at Joseph's House, a community-based hospice for formerly homeless people.
The recent Hope College graduate mops floors, does clerical work, cleans bedpans and on a recent scorching afternoon took some residents out to the National Zoo.
“It just feels really holy being with them at that time, and just seeing where God meets them,” said Machledt of the dying residents.
She and her five housemates at the “Bon House,” named after anti-Nazi Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, have yearlong Washington internships through the Lutheran Volunteer Corps.
It is one of dozens of religious organizations — including the Baptist Joint Comittee and the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — that seasonally turn the capital into a training camp for scores of college students and recent graduates. The internship programs, crossing religious and denominational lines, teach them how public service can be an expression of their faith. Many interns get to put their faith in action — frequenting Capitol Hill to advocate for policy that's infused with religious values.
Forty students attended this summer's Washington Seminar of Brigham Young University, a Utah school affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Students attended a political science class on Fridays and interned during the rest of the week for various public offices or nonprofits. Some interned on Capitol Hill for Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah; Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.; or Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism had 35 students in its summer internship program. The interns took a course titled “History of the American Jewish Social Justice Experience” and were placed in various internships through the Jewish Coalition for Service, a national umbrella group of Jewish volunteer programs. They kept three for their own offices.
At the United Methodists' General Board of Church and Society, the Ethnic Young Adult Summer Internship brought together nine students from the denomination's black, Hispanic, Asian-American, Pacific Islander and Native American caucuses in Washington for the summer. They interned at social justice-oriented nonprofits and explored how intentional diversity can enhance their faith.
“Going to different Methodist churches with very different worship styles has truly [helped] me see, understand and embrace our cultural differences,” Sade Young, a 20-year-old summer intern from Los Angeles, said in a posting on the group's official blog.
Other Washington organizations with internships include the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of the United States.
Many former interns enter career paths they see as expressions of their faith values.
“When I started looking into human rights, I was doing it in a very secular way,” said Erick Veliz, a participant in the Methodist program last year. “But I wondered how my activism fit my spiritual vision.”
He is currently working at a nonprofit in Nashville, Tenn., which focuses on enforcing fair housing laws, and volunteers as a national board member of Amnesty International, a human rights group.
Kyle Sampson, the current chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, decided to pursue politics after his 1991 Brigham Young internship on Capitol Hill gave him his first close exposure to politics.
“I read The Washington Post every day that summer,” Sampson said, “and I never stopped.”
Religion News Service
MARYLAND
Motorcycle ministry hosts former Hell's Angel
The sun reflected off polished chrome. Leather and denim, some with crosses, a few with death heads, was the dress of the day. The roar of bikes rumbled through the afternoon.
The bike show at North Arundel Baptist Church in Glen Burnie, Md., last June drew 1,000 people for a swap meet/biker flea market where bikers could buy gear and paraphernalia, pick up literature and free Bibles from Christian bike clubs, check out the clean and sober clubs, eat some hot dogs and hamburgers and listen to live bands. As the day drew to a close, Rick Holmes, North Arundel's music minister and motorcycle ministry president announced winners.
The next day, the church hosted former Hell's Angel evangelist Barry Mayson, author of the book, Fallen Angel. He was in the club during their glory days of the 70s and lived a life of drugs, alcohol, prostitution, gambling and violence. When he refused to murder innocent people, he had to flee. With former “brothers” pursuing and surrounding him, Mayson prayed to accept Christ.
It was Mayson's mother, Mary Carter, who never gave up on her wayward son, who led Mayson to redemption. Mayson choked up several times talking about his mother. She always had a “Holy Ghost grin” on her face, even before she died, he said.
When Mayson was running a bar with gambling, drugs and prostitution, his mother would march in “lovin' on everyone” and giving out little cassettes about Jesus.
“I lost more girls that way,” Mayson said.
Mayson said he told his mom she had to stop doing that. He told her, ‘Mom, I'm a Hell's Angel, I chose that lifestyle for myself and that's all there is to it.' She told Mayson that he wasn't a Hell's Angel; he was a child of God. Mayson said if anyone else talked to a Hell's Angel like that they'd be on the floor before they knew what happened. But he couldn't bring himself to deck his mother.
He shared about a time when he and his wife, Fran, were doped up in a house with an arsenal of guns. They heard a car pull up. Mayson asked Fran, “Is it the police?”
Fran shouted, “No, it's your mother!”
The pair quickly ran through the house hiding what they could and sprayed air cleaner around. Mary Carter marched into the house and immediately began rebuking Satan in the name of Jesus.
Mayson had an alter call and at least 20 people went forward with first time commitments or re-commitments.
North Arundel has a strong motorcycle ministry. In addition to the annual bike show, members meet monthly. They go to nursing homes with the church's praise team, support other church's rides and community events and reach out to some of the more notorious motorcycle clubs.
Maryland/Delware Baptist Life