Experience
An Internship with Shade For Children
An Internship in Uzhhorod, Ukraine
An Internship is not a mission trip. It's more than that. It's life.
Ideally you'll come to Ukraine for 6-8 weeks and you'll do life with our team and our friends. It has been said that one of the great values of an international "mission trip" isn't getting out of America but it's about getting "America" out of you. America is great but if it is your only reference point then you might miss the bigger picture.
6-8 weeks in Eastern Europe struggling with a foreign language and culture, walking and using public transportation instead of driving everywhere whenever you want to go, eating buckwheat every morning at camp, taking cold showers and sleeping in a tent, stumbling through a translated conversation with a kid that lost his or her father in the war, picking your way through a muddy trash littered path in a Roma community, traveling in a hot box-car of an overnight train that smells of sausage, beer, sweat and feet, cradling in your arms an abandoned baby, chasing and being chased by orphaned children, disconnecting from the internet (at least during camp), trying to hear God's voice on your own because there might not be anyone around (at least that speaks your language) to tell you what God is saying... all of that expands your frame of reference for what our global God is about.
This isn't a 1 week trip. You can exhaust yourself and give 110% during a 1 week trip. This is life where being is as important as doing. This is life where you have to hear God's voice and follow His ebb and flow; where you have to learn to seize the moment and leave margin for Sabbath.
An Internship in Ukraine is both highly experiential and reflective. We've drawn on the past 6 years of hosting Interns as well as relying on real-life advice from several veteran missionaries to create the following 6 week "curriculum". It's not just a mission trip; it's a guided discipleship journey.
Week 1- 6 Values of a Cross-Cultural Liver/Learner/Worker
Week 3- 4 ways to feed yourself spiritually when you're 5000 miles away from your home church
Week 5- 2 Investments in long term relatioships
Week 2- 5 Tips for surviving on another planet
Week 4- 3 Strategies for sharing the Gospel when you can't even order your own food
Week 6- 1 takeaway from your summer abroad
Details for Potential Interns
Interns must complete an application process that will include a background check, a pastoral recommendation and a skype interview with Clinton White.
Estimated costs is approximately $20 per person per day which includes food, lodging, local transportation, translator honorariums, and insurance but NOT including airfare.
NOTE: Interns typically live with Clinton and Lena White. Occasionally interns will live in a rented apartment or even with a Ukrainian family. We'll discuss this during the application process.