Hades' Melody. JD Belcher

a large part of my work involved calling the younger brothers and their mothers and talking to them about any issues they may be having at home or in school, this couldn’t be done until five o’clock. Sure, there were a few facility issues that could have been taken care of during the day, like making sure the rooms were ready and set up for the Wednesday evening meetings at the Wood Street location or for activity night at Hosanna House. But other than that, I had been left with an enormous amount of daytime hours where I had nothing to do.

      I was given a salary with no overtime pay, so no matter how many hours I worked, my income remained the same. Because of my own ignorance about this matter, I blindly accepted the task of also managing an after-school tutorial program with AmeriCorps volunteers from Pitt in the Wilkinsburg Middle School next door to Hosanna House. Three days out of the week, I tutored math, English, and social studies without pay. And unlike working in Technical Services at Pitt, I had no direct supervision to prevent the mistake of this overlap in duties. Most of my supervision came from Brother Gil, who would call in the mornings to give me daily BK

      tasks to accomplish. He checked up on what families I had talked to the day before, suggested topics of discussion for the upcoming meetings, and made sure things were prepared for activity night. But most of all, he did what pastors did best—encouraged me.

      While working at Hosanna House, I found myself in a totally different work environment than the one I had come from in Technical Services. Since both BK and the majority of the programs at Hosanna House were church affiliated organizations, I started to become overly aware of my behavior. Not only because my mother worked on the third floor in the day-care center, but also due to the fact that so many people from church frequented the community center. When I worked with the guys at Pitt, I sometimes cursed more than a witch on Halloween, but at Hosanna House I had to watch my language—there were so many children around. I had to deal with being a role model, and when I found myself not living up to par, I was forced to deal with a guilty conscious.

      Once a month, there were staff meetings held in a second floor conference room at Hosanna House, where all the directors and program coordinators who operated in the building met to give a brief overview of what happened during the past month and forecasted plans for the month ahead.

      The meetings always began with very intense prayer.

      Praying at work in a group setting was something totally foreign to me. It had always been my personal, secret time with God. But at Hosanna House, not only was there prayer time in the staff meetings, but also in the youth department where I worked. Because of this prayerful atmosphere, I felt forced to conduct myself as if I were in church.

      Up until that point, I had set clear boundaries amongst the different areas of my life and always tried my best to keep them separate. There was church life, my life with friends, my life at work, and my life at home. Each of them had their own distinct personality, but as of late, it seemed as if my church life had begun to expand. It was growing and morphing and invading all the other areas. While at home, at work, with friends—and even at church—I began to sense the pervading presence of a pressure that not only desired to change who I was, but also wanted to turn me into someone I did not want to be.