The Call to Serve
February 16, 2011|People
One cold night in November, Shannon O’Connell went to sleep in a cardboard box.
O’Connell, a senior religion and service major from Alsip, is used to spending the night in considerably more comfort, in her room in West Hall. But if she learned anything from that that night in the cold, it’s that there is something to be said for going beyond your comfort zone.
O’Connell is an intern at First Church of Lombard, where she works with homeless people and others in need. To get a small taste of life on the street, she and a few dozen other volunteers spent that November night outside the church, in whatever shelter they could scavenge. For O’Connell, that meant a few scraps of cardboard bound together with duct tape.
“It felt like a little coffin,” she said of her handmade shelter. O’Connell said she understands that one night of voluntarily roughing it doesn’t make her an expert on life on the street. Still, the experience made her think about homelessness in a new way. “You start to think about what it must be like to not know where you’re going to sleep, or how you’re going to find something to eat.”
Working at the church’s Outreach House, which provides basic assistance for people in need, O’Connell has had the chance to learn directly from the people she is serving.
“Some of the stories you encounter are heartbreaking,” she told an audience in the Frick Center last week that had gathered to hear about the internship experiences of students from the College’s Niebuhr Center. The center is a resource for faith-motivated students interested in service, ministry and social justice. “When you sit down to eat with people in the soup kitchen, you recognize that these are real people with real needs.”
The Niebuhr Center places about two dozen students like O’Connell in internships each year. Depending on their interests, the center’s director, the Rev. Dr. Ron Beauchamp, and his staff help find work for them in churches or community organizations or social-service agencies. O’Connell approached Beauchamp looking for an internship last fall. He connected her with the First Church of Lombard for what was supposed to be a one-semester position. But O’Connell’s supervisors at the church were so pleased with her work that they asked her to stay on for the spring term.
“Shannon was really motivated to challenge herself,” Beauchamp said. “These experiences help people define more clearly where they can go with their vocational calling.”
For O’Connell, the internship was a chance to explore a calling she has felt for years. “I remember telling my mom when I was seven years old that I wanted to be like [the apostle] Paul when I grew up,” she told her audience at the Frick Center, laughing at the memory. “My friends wanted to be nurses or teachers. I remember getting some funny reactions. But I’ve always felt a calling to serve others.”
At First Church of Lombard, O’Connell worked on the First Things First program, which provides food, clothing and other basic needs for infants, and pitched in with the church’s youth ministry. She was asked to deliver a sermon one Sunday. She told the congregation about her experiences at the church’s Outreach House, and what it has taught her about service.
“I was more nervous about that than anything,” she said. “But I think it went well.”
O’Connell would like to work overseas, perhaps with the Peace Corps, after graduation. But her work in Lombard is proof that help is needed close to home, too.
“You realize that need isn’t just something that happens somewhere around the world,” she said. “It’s right here, all around us.”
