Every summer internship has its boring moments. You are the lowest on the pecking order, so they always give you the most menial tasks. Locked in the mailroom, answering phone calls, and holding the front desk—it was monotonous most of the time. But these chores did have their moments, especially the latter.
I interned at Roof Above’s Day Services Center in Charlotte, where we served people experiencing homelessness and those living in shelters. We provided meals, laundry, showers, and even acted as a mailing address. Through the Champlain office’s Stapleton Davidson Internship, I was placed at the nonprofit and connected with a host family through Covenant Presbyterian Church.
One day, while I was holding the front desk, a father walked in with his son. The little boy was barely a toddler–old enough to walk by himself, but young enough to be carried anyways.
Still holding his son in his arms, the father asked me for a package. It sort of sounded more like a command. Direct and concise, with no fluff in his words, he clearly was in a hurry.
I searched through the back, rummaging through all the boxes. Double-checked, triple-checked, went through half of them even a fourth time. Nothing came up under his name.
Every intern has experienced this moment. Where something goes completely wrong and you feel humiliated for it. It doesn’t matter whether it was your fault, you had a responsibility to bring results. Maybe I lost the package when it came in, maybe it was another intern or even the director. Regardless, I now had to shoulder the blame. I was the person who had to tell him it was missing.
Beyond shame, I felt a little fearful. Would he shout at me, call me stupid? Would he try to get me fired? I experienced some of that before, but my imagination could always think of worse things. The ambiguity was always more concerning than the consequences.
Quickly, I apologized to him. It was a bit like a dam breaking. Words just streamed out of my mouth. Anything that came to mind was uttered immediately without thought. Several apologies and several more promises to do better—it was a sorry mess of syllables.
Somehow, my mind trailed from trying to defuse the situation to something else. That boy cradled within his arms–he was adorable. So, again my mouth moved faster than my brain.
“Your child is so adorable.”
There was a certain kind of clarity in the way I said it then. Different from the practiced way I greeted him upon entering, and definitely different from the many platitudes I offered him a moment ago. It was just a matter of fact. The boy was very adorable. He was so full of life, still having that pudgy fat in his cheeks and eyes that grow wide at every new sight. He could be mistaken for one of those children in those chocolate commercials.
The entire situation changed. The anger that was clear in him left immediately. The father’s shoulders sagged into ease, as if a weight was taken off him. His eyebrows raised upwards, softening his face. Even a slight chuckle came out of him.
“Ah, you don’t know how much trouble he gives me.”
His eyes told another story. Bright and almost twinkling, they were full of affection.
With a softened voice, he said he’d try waiting a little longer for the package, then left, still carrying his son on the way out and the son looking up at him.
That look stayed with me. It made me realize that love is everywhere. Even infrustration, even in hardship, even in the small corners of exhaustion.
Here at Roof Above, people show up as they are: tired, desperate, hurting. There’s no time for pretense for them; yet there is laughter, and there is love. What struck me most was how raw honesty can be more beautiful than a polished presentation. The people I met here, in their vulnerability, carried a kind of grace I can only hope to mirror. Their kindness isn’t always neat, but it’s real. Their love isn’t always eloquent, but it’s sincere. And their honesty humbles me.
Often, throughout the internship, I met with other interns, fellow Davidson students. We would read parts of the Bible and books on homelessness, and discuss how it applies to people we meet. Our faith gave language to what I was seeing every day. It’s everywhere. Suffering is everywhere, but so is love.
As Roof Above’s CEO Liz Clasen-Kelly ’00 said,
“Working in Roof Above isn't a service to solve any problem and change some people's lives. It is a meeting of people where they are, with patience, respect, and a willingness to see them beyond their circumstances, by simply being present with them in the same space.”
This internship wasn’t just a summer job; it was a formative season of growth. It taught me to listen to everyone more deeply, to approach people without assumptions, and to see God’s image reflected in faces I might once have overlooked.