This Sunday is the last Sunday for our Ministerial Intern–Brigitta Vieyra–with us. What a year it has been having Brigitta with us, ministering to us, and learning from us.
I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts on Sunday with you as well, but I wanted to tell you what an absolute privilege it has been for me to have Brigitta as my first Ministerial Intern. Being an Intern supervisor was one of the things I hoped I could do as a minister, but didn’t know if I’d get the privilege to do. I have had so many great mentors in my life and I don’t know where I would have gotten as a professional, as a minister, or as a human without them, and I love mentoring myself–whether that is seminarians or ministers in formation or interns (I have now had all three). Like working with youth or others who are learning, I find that exploring their questions with them helps me to be more aware of the different aspects of this call, think about why I do what I do, and ultimately, be more intentional with my own ministry. My hope is that being a mentor to others helps me to be a better minister to you.
What I do know is that it has made my work exponentially more rewarding and joyful. Ministry can be a lonely job that few understand what the call really means or both the joys and tolls that come with it. Being able to share that with Brigitta has been so enriching for me.
In the next few weeks, we are going to be in a critical time to decide if we will have another intern next year. Personally, I hope we can, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of other parts of our community. If you are able or interested in making it happen for this upcoming year, please consider giving at phoenixuu.org/intern, and thank you to everyone who made it possible for us to have such a rich experience with Brigitta this year.