wfn.org | [ENS] Internships at 815 provide opportunities to serve and learn

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Internships at 815 provide opportunities to serve and learn

By David W. Fleenor

ENS 081005-1

[Episcopal News Service]  The Episcopal Church Center--also known as
"815"--buzzes this summer with 10 interns, more than in recent memory,
working in a variety of program offices.

Recently, the interns were pleasantly surprised to receive
hand-delivered
invitations to have lunch, with Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, and his
wife Phoebe, at their private residence on the top floor of the Church
Center. Bishop Griswold, and Mrs. Griswold acknowledged the interns'
contributions to the Episcopal Church and thanked them for their hard
work.
Each intern received a lapel pin with the Presiding Bishop's unique
insignia
on it. Mrs. Griswold praised the interns for their decision to serve as
interns at 815. "This building is a doorway to the world," she said,
referring to the global impact of the many offices at the Church Center.
Bishop Griswold also commended the interns for their decision to
participate
in the life of the Church by working at 815. He later joked that he had
never been to the Episcopal Church Center before he was elected
Presiding
Bishop.

Curious to hear their stories, the Griswolds invited each intern to
share
about themselves and the work they are doing this summer.

Jay Hobby-Shippen, a senior at the General Theological Seminary in New
York
City, is an intern in the Office of the Anglican Observer at the United
Nations. The highlight of his  summer was an assignment to write a
report on
the control of small arms and light weapons, an issue about which he is
passionate. "I basically went to the meetings at the U.N. and took
notes,"
said Hobby-Shippen. "I then wrote a formal report for the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Anglican Consultative Council. At the end of the
report I
was asked, based on what I had seen and heard at the meetings, to give
my
recommendation on what the Anglican Communion's position should be."
Hobby-Shippen has learned a lot about the Anglican Communion, its global
impact, and its relationship to other organizations like the U.N. "It
has
been a joy to help the Anglican Communion work to address the needs of
the
world by participating in the dialogue at the U.N.," he said.
Hobby-Shippen
will be ordained in less tha
 n a year. Asked how he thinks this internship will shape his
priesthood, he
says, "I think that I will be much better at and more involved in
promoting
the Church's principles at all levels of political power. This
experience
has helped me see how important it is for the Church to use its power in
the
public sphere to prepare the way for God's reign of peace and justice. I
am
more committed to that now."

Kayt Fitzmorris, a 17-year-old senior at the Field School in Washington,
D.C., has virtually unfettered access to the United Nations because of
her
status as an intern in the same office. She spends most of her time
sending
letters to churches abroad and running errands to the U.N. Planning to
pursue a major in international relations when she graduates from high
school, Fitzmorris says, "This experience will really help."

Across the hall in the Office of the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies,
Megan Sanders is spending the summer archiving personnel files and
sacramental records of Episcopal military chaplains dating from WWII to
the
present. Sanders, a middler at the General Theological Seminary, is
discerning a call to military chaplaincy herself. "Journeying through
this
office's chaplain service files," she says, "has been like walking
inside
the footsteps that have gone before me on the beach - many different
trails
have been blazed by those who have answered this specific call to
ministry,
and it's been my honor to integrate their experiences into my own
discernment." A special moment occurred when Bishop George Packard,
Bishop
Suffragan for Chaplaincies, presented Sanders with an artifact relating
to
the heroic Chaplains of the U.S.S. Dorchester (four Army Chaplains who
perished in 1943 after sacrificially giving up their life jackets to
soldiers as their torpedoed ship sank). Packard kn
 ew of her admiration for the Dorchester Chaplains because of their
conversations about it this summer. Sanders was honored to receive such
a
meaningful gift and said, "It made me feel valued and connected to the
mission of this office in a unique way."

Martha Korienek, a senior at Berkley Divinity School in New Haven,
Connecticut, served as the assistant to Margaret Larom, director of
Anglican
and Global Relations. Korienek met Larom last fall and remembered
thinking
that she would like to work for her. "She seemed like she would be an
amazing person to work for, in that she is both very sweet and extremely
knowledgeable about the Anglican Communion, a subject in which I have
great
interest," said Korienek. Her duties included mostly administrative
tasks...
"Hopefully I made Margaret's job a little easier," she said, "and
allowed
her to be slightly more prepared for her meetings so that she could be
the
best voice of the Episcopal Church that she could be." Summing up her
experience she remarked, "In the end, I learned far more than I could
have
predicted."

Other interns included Emma Budwig in Ethnic Congregational Development,
Elsa Cumming in Administration, David Fleenor in the  Office of the
Bishop
Suffragan for Chaplaincies, Morgan O'Neill in Management Information
Systems, Mary Poyet in the Anglican Consultative Council United Nations
Office, and Katherine Wesley in Episcopal Relief and Development.

After hearing from each intern, the Griswolds entertained questions
ranging
from, "What is the most rewarding and challenging aspect of being the
Presiding Bishop?" to "What was it like to be in the One Campaign
commercial
with Brad Pitt and George Clooney?"

Concluding the luncheon, the Griswolds thanked the interns for their
hard
work and commended them for their service to the church.  Griswold
commented
that the energy the interns bring to the building is refreshing.

-- David W. Fleenor is a S.T.M. student at the General Theological
Seminary
and a candidate for holy orders from the Diocese of Alabama. He is also
an
intern at the Episcopal Church Center in the Office of the Bishop
Suffragan
for Chaplaincies.