On Work

Crystal Clusiau: How did you decide on your current job?

Sarah DeCamps: I have been involved with an organization in Honduras for a long time, and while I was in college I went down there for three of the four j-terms and I went each summer after each year for four years in a row - I was there about three months at a time.  While I was working down there I was doing a lot of community development and I taught in a bilingual school a couple summers.  They have groups that come down over the course of the summer – one week is one group, one week is another group, and Christ Church, which is where I work now, went down there every summer.  They have been going there since about 1990.  And so I got to know some of the people because I was always there.  So when I graduated from Hollins, I didn’t know what I was going to do; I was just kind of looking for jobs with a bunch of different non-profits, but I just went home for the summer, and just kind of took a month or so off and I was in Honduras for about a month and half, and Christ Church came down there, and said they had a job opening as director of outreach.  So… here I am.

CC: What does your job entail? 

SD: I have to manage seven international organizations that we sort of coordinate, or, partner with.  One of them is the one in Honduras and we also work with, an organization called the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf, in Salt, Jordan.  We work with an AIDS hospital and dental clinic in Campala, Uganda.  We work to bring about sixty children from the Belarus here each summer, for about six weeks.  We also work with part of southern Sudan; we’ve built a cathedral and a medical clinic, and we help fund a school there.  We work with a Native American reservation in Utah area, and a community center in Jamaica and also international students here in this area. And then we have a residence program where clergy that are coming out of seminary can apply for a grant, and they work here for two years and they rotate through all different aspects of the church.  Then locally, I have to manage a bunch of different service-related, community-related organizations.  We have an in house ministry, called the Lazarus Ministry, and an ESL program Monday through Friday.  And then we work with a homeless shelter.  We do a big Christmas project where we have members of the church buy gifts and then we open up our auditorium as a store and have people that can’t afford Christmas come in, pay a minimal price, and they can go shopping for their kids.  We work with a transitional housing program called community lodgings, we work with a medical clinic, and also with a children’s day care center for low-income residents.  And, a bunch of others…

CC: Do you find your work here satisfying?

SD: I do.  I’ve learned a lot.  I was lucky enough to get a job where they gave me a lot of responsibility at the beginning, so I learned skills of diplomacy and things I didn’t learn at Hollins, like how to deal with a budget and put together proposals and things like that.  I’m probably at the end of my learning curve, but that’s good because I’m thinking about graduate school and other things.

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