OSI at Wycliffe

Bob has been involved with a special project at work over the last 2 months. Here is what he has been up to:

One of the recent things we've been involved with has been the summer internship program at Wycliffe USA. I was asked a couple weeks ago to be the men's director for the 5 guys who are involved in the internship. The men's director is to handle any conflicts that arise and make sure that the male students are getting along together smoothly. The students are working all around the building; a few are in the Integrated Marketing Communications department, one is in IT, and there are others in most of the departments. There are 12 students total.

OSI (Orlando Summer Internship) is a pretty structured program, as internships go. I lived with the interns in the summer of '05 when I worked at JAARS in Waxhaw, NC, but there wasn't anything organized for us. The students for this program have to raise support to come, and have scheduled activities most weeknights. They also have weekly meetings with a staff member assigned as a mentor, much like the discipleship program Cynthia and I were familiar with during college. We as staff help run a lot of the activities, although not everything. I usually have to go to things two nights a week, and Cynthia and Lydia join me when they can.

It began in early June, and after around July 4 we will turn responsibility of running the activities and such over to the interns themselves. We've identified specific roles for each of the 12 interns, and the rest of the summer will be up to them to organize and coordinate for themselves. It's designed to give them experience and confidence taking responsibility outside of work, in these other areas as well. What it also means practically for me is that most of my job will be done after this coming weekend, which will be nice. Both Cynthia and I are feeling that we've been very busy the last two months or so, and are looking forward to somewhat of a break.

Fortunately, I have a terrific group of interns that I'm working with, so there have been no problems. My job has really been pretty easy. The 5 guys are Ross Petrov, who is from Greenville, IL (actually born in Bulgaria); Dan Sweeney from nearby Mimms, FL; Ian Busko and Shane Burridge, both from Pennsylvania and Kurt Hanby from Michigan. They've been terrific. I've also enjoyed working with all the other OSI staff. It's been a good experience for me.