Interns Live Their Faith Through Public Service

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, 20, a summer intern from Los Angeles, said in a posting on the group's official blog.

Young said the program brought passion to her civic involvement.

"I've always believed in certain causes. But I would just talk about it," said Young, who interned at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Other Washington organizations with internships include the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the Southern Baptists' Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, 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, who was 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 that focuses on enforcing fair housing laws, and he volunteers as a national board member of the human rights group Amnesty International.

Megan Joiner was a legislative assistant with the Unitarian Universalist Association last year and will begin classes at Union Theological Seminary in New York City this fall.

"I know that I want to be in the pulpit, because I get to talk about the things that matter," Joiner said.

Kyle Sampson, the current chief of staff for U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. 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."

But a big office next to powerful people isn't going to be a part of Maggie Machledt's next steps. The Lutheran Volunteer Corps program ended yesterday, and she will begin another Washington internship that will allow her to continue working with formerly homeless people who are terminally ill.

"I learn so much from being with people who are suffering and about my own vulnerabilities," Machledt said. "I think we all heal each other that way."