A Note of Appreciation for the Norbertine Volunteer Community
Note: NVC member, Mike Brennan, volunteered at Golden House, a domestic violence program and shelter in Green Bay. His supervisor sent the following note of gratitude for his assistance.
Hi Ellen,
Let me start off with, again, a big THANK YOU, for Mike. With his help, I was able to reach many more students this year. Once I have the final numbers, I will let you know what an impact his dedication had.
As the year winds down, I am sorry to see him go. Mike was a valuable asset to Golden House, not just as a speaker but a positive male role model to our youth in shelter and our community. He will be greatly missed by all, especially our staff.
Thanks, again, Ellen.
Stacy Lewis
Prevention Specialist
Golden House
My Life in Community
By Angie Knutson
 Living in Community is very similar to living with your family. Some days you cannot imagine your life without them, and sometimes you wish they would leave you alone. Our tight family circle of five young adults trying to figure out where they are going next in life faces many times of challenges and of great joy in the Community house. Many of our weekly habits are steady: we each cook one day a week, we rotate whose turn it is to go grocery shopping, we take turns leading morning and evening prayer, and we have a group meeting Sunday nights to discuss who needs the car when, and who may be coming over to join us for dinner.
What makes our essentially simple Community life extraordinary are the moments in between the second we wake up to the second we go to bed. We break off to our different worksites in the morning and return home in time for dinner in the evening. Sometimes we are all together in the living room playing a game or watching our favorite television shows, and sometimes we break off into our individual rooms for some privacy for a chance to wind down. We laugh, cry, and argue over some of the most trivial parts of living together; yet we never fail to offer each other unyielding support or help solve a problem we may have with our worksites. I would be lying if I told you that life in Community is perfect, and I would also be lying if I told you that it was the easiest living situation in which I was a part. However, I cannot imagine what else I would be doing, and how much I would be missing out on if I had not chosen to live with such amazing individuals.
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go
As many of you know, I work at Nicolet Elementary School, located about one block from the Community house. The responsibilities I hold are two-fold. In the mornings I work in a 1st and 2nd grade combination classroom helping out the teacher during their morning of literacy. I help with everything from fetching books and other supplies from the library to copying worksheets, to working with a few of the students on an activity. The afternoon requires most of my energy, and is consequently the most challenging part of my work at the school. I coordinate an after school program that helps students who struggle with dyslexia. Freshmen and a couple sophomores from St. Norbert College come over and are paired up with a student and work with them one-on-one. The goal is to help improve the students' reading skills by following a specific step-by-step manual and script each college student uses. Because I am the first person to manage this kind of program, there have been many mistakes I had to learn from and other skills I needed to fine tune in order to make the program successful and hopefully pass this responsibility onto future Norbertine Volunteers and college students.
My worksite is the one place I find the most joy, and constantly experience God's presence. I know that service work is not always as gratifying as I initially expect, and that the change you are making is not apparent at first glance, but over the past several months, I see where teachers find the most rewarding part of their job. A couple of weeks ago, a student ran right up to me and exclaimed, "Ms. Knutson, I just spelled the word ‘difficult'! That was the word she read on the card, and I just spelled it just like that, like it was nothing!" He was so proud of himself that I couldn't help mirroring his excitement. Although some days are rough, especially when the students try my patience, walking into the classroom each morning by such greetings as "Good morning, Ms. Knutson!" or when one second grader told me right when I walked in that I could be Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Suess because I was skinny like them, it makes it all worth it. It amazes me that even kids who come from poverty and diverse backgrounds all know how to love, play, laugh, and find happiness that most adults who have everything do not always appreciate or know what it is to simply live every moment of every day as it is.
Finding Contentment in the Love of God
By Kyle Cothern
 My name is Kyle Cothern, and I am from Kokomo, Indiana. I am grateful for the time I have enjoyed so far in my six-month commitment with the Norbertine Volunteer Community. One of the major lessons I have been learning in my service experiences is the practice of reflective listening. As a chaplain intern at the Brown County Jail, I visit one-on-one with inmates in need of support and encouragement as they work to make positive changes in their lives. After my first week, I was surprised to discover just how much energy I had spent in active listening, an attentive and non-judgmental approach to receiving communication from others. As a result, I have paid a little more attention to my own personal needs for rest and contemplative prayer in order to sustain the public ministry of my volunteer work.
The vibrant atmosphere of intentional community is a true blessing, but it does have its challenges. I was intrigued recently by an idea presented in Matthew Kelly's Rediscover Catholicism, a book our volunteer community is reading together, about problems in Christian communities. Even if all of one's current problems are solved today, it is inevitable that more problems will come along the next day, just as Jesus says to his disciples, "tomorrow will bring worries of its own" (Mt 6:34). Kelly asserts that the responsibility of the Christian is to deal with these problems while trying to connect them to one's essential purpose: to learn to find contentment in the love of God. Such trust in Divine Providence is part of a lifelong journey of faith, and I am happy to be walking this road right now in such good company.
 Opportunities
By Lindsay Koeppel
Throughout the past two years I have learned so my about myself from serving with the Norbertine Volunteer Community. Through working at the Wildlife Sanctuary I learned not only how to take care of animals and how to identify birds and mammals among many other fun nature facts I also learned how much I LOVE working outdoors and sharing that love with others. An opportunity I would not have had without this program. This realization has completely changed what I want to be when I grow up. My love of nature has changed my prayer life as well. I find it really prayerful being outside- running, skiing or just being.
Living in community has showed me how I deal with different situations. It has made me face emotions that at the time I would have rather not dealt with but I had to deal with them because I knew that they were hurting not only me but the community as a whole. It has shown me places in my life that I am doing ok in and it has shown me places that I can grow.
A Lesson in Humility
By Mike Brennan
 My name is Mike Brennan, I am a 1999 graduate of St. Norbert College and this August I will begin my novitiate with the Norbertines. As I reflect on my last several months with the Norbertine Volunteer Community the word that best summarizes my experience is humility. I have been humbled by the vast needs of the community; I have been humbled by the situations I have witnessed; I have been humbled by my inability to "fix" the situation; I have been humbled by an awareness that God is present in all situations, even those that seem to indicate that He is furthest away.
A few examples of what I have witnessed include a five year old boy trying to comfort his grieving mother at the Golden House. This child, who should not have a care in the world, was forced into a situation of care taker. I have listened to a man who was recently released from prison describe the court battle he is having to maintain custody of his children. Another man described his struggles with his recently diagnosed Aspergers Syndrome. I have played cards with homeless men and women at St. John's while 40 other men and women fall asleep on the floor just as they do every night. I have assisted at Paul's Pantry where one to two hundred people come for food each day. Each of these experiences reminds me what a simple, yet complex people we truly are. We are all hungry; we are physically hungry and we are spiritually hungry for the love of God and the love of neighbor. We are hungry to be recognized as important individuals and as worthwhile members of society.
Although I cannot "fix" most of the challenges that face our worldwide community, I can be present and offer a smile, offer a reassuring word, or simply just be present and let others know that I care and that they are not alone. Sometimes this feels appropriate and is quite fulfilling, however there are times that it feels severely inadequate. At these moments, I try to step back and ask God to extend his love and support to those who seem to hunger so desperately for his enduring love.
Seeing Christ in Everyone
By Stephanie Birmingham
 My name is Stephanie Birmingham and I am a 2009 graduate of St. Norbert College. Joining in January, I have been a member of the Norbertine Volunteer Community for approximately three months. During this short time I have a better idea of what it means to know and serve God, and I have witnessed the transformative power of God's constant love.
In meeting one-on-one with inmates at the Brown County Jail I have realized what it truly means to be present to another human being and what it means to listen with an open heart and mind. Whether it is the woman who is struggling with drug addiction and having to be separated from her children, or the young man who shares his challenging childhood, I am reminded that at our core we are fundamentally the same. It is in listening to an inmate's story of heartache, alcohol and drug abuse, loneliness, poverty, emptiness and pain and hearing their desire to turn their lives over to God that I better understand God's continual call for us to seek his love and mercy.
While there is little I can do to change the particular circumstances or situation of the men and women I meet, I can do my best to see Christ in them and meet them wherever they are on their spiritual journey. I can attempt to embrace the spiritual and emotional needs of those I encounter by remembering that we are all yearning for acceptance, compassion, someone to hear our small yet important voice. I am reminded of the human desire to be loved and above all, to have a connection with something greater than ourselves. |
