Gwangju International Center

Goodbye, Joey!

Written by Joey Nunez

▲ When he has just started working at GIC in 2014 (on the right)

1. How did you start to work at GIC?
I heard from multiple people about the GIC’s credibility and services upon my arrival to Gwangju in August 2012. I visited the GIC, during a time when also the Gwangju Performance Project (GPP) was holding auditions for their next play in December 2012. All in one day, I auditioned first (and got my first part later), then received information about the GIC, and immediately afterwards, I became a GIC Member.
Then, I started volunteering with the GIC in September 2012, all the way until February 2014, for a total of 17 amazing months. I stopped volunteering, because I started working at the GIC in March 2014, all they way until January 2016, for a total of 22 incredible months.

2. What kind of work did you do in GIC?

 
As a GIC Volunteer, I helped with rewriting GIC Library Labels and reorganizing the GIC Library Genres, as well as I later helped as a Proofreader, Writer, Copy Editor, and Print Editor of Gwangju News. Most of my time of volunteering was being involved with both the GIC Library and Gwangju News. I also helped with proofreading a few documents for the GIC and gave a GIC Talk about my year’s experience in Thailand.
As a GIC Coordinator, I provided programming structuring: for GIC Library, GIC International Membership, English Proofreading, GIC International Volunteering, GIC Junior Talk, the World Human Rights Cities Forum Discussion Groups, GIC Talk, and First Floor Space Management, Maintenance, and Records. I did more as a Coordinator than I thought possible, and I loved every program, project, and opportunity I was blessed to have been given.

3. What was your favorite job when you work at GIC?
My favorite aspects of my job were serving this incredible community of Gwangju. Most times when I was volunteering, I constantly thought: “I wonder what it would be like if I worked at the GIC …,” but, I always dismissed that consideration, thinking my helping of other people would need to be utilized elsewhere. I am so blessed and grateful that a wish I had repeatedly dreamed of acquiring, now is presently a beautiful memory as my third and best international position.

4. When is the best moment for you in GIC?

 
Every time that someone entered the GIC: Staff Member, Staff Intern, Staff Volunteer, GIC Member, GIC non-Member, and Visitor, are my best memories at the GIC. Choosing one best memory is too difficult and selective, so I hope this answer is sufficient: every moment was my favorite, because I learned from every moment.

5. What were the lessons did you received from working at GIC?
Time is the best gift I can give another person. Money, sacrifices and traditions are nothing, compared to the gracious gift of giving someone else “my clock,” ranging from a few minutes to several hours, and learning NOT to keep track of time, but instead, investing in the moment and here-and-now of what needs can be achieved.
Also, while I volunteered and worked at the GIC, I better defined my strengths, acknowledged my weaknesses and appreciated every moment where I have become a better person with a better-developed purpose, a better-emphasized calling and a better-enhanced vision.

6. What is the meaning of GIC to you at the moment that you finished working at GIC?
GIC is my second home, so leaving home to go elsewhere is difficult. Yet, I know I have been called and created for something that is no longer at my second home.
Still, I will always cherish my time at the GIC, and I am excited to continue my support of the GIC as a Lifetime Member with financial support, providing assistance for Gwangju News with continual editing, and providing another set of eyes on any proofreading projects that the GIC produces.

7. What are you going to miss about the GIC and Korea after you are back home?
I will miss the incredible people at the GIC, again those who are: Staff Members, Staff Interns, Staff Volunteers, GIC Members, GIC non-Members, and Visitors. Within Korea, I will miss my church family at Wolgwang English Ministry, my theatre friends with the Gwangju Performance Project, and the multiple other people I met and connected with in various ways and at different moments.
The beautiful sights that Korea so easily displays, the incredible main dishes that Gwangju so easily creates, and the incredibly deep conversations that both Korea and Gwangju so easily provides finalizes my top misses upon returning home.

8. What are your future plans?
I have the blessing to travel to Japan, Mexico, and Honduras, before returning to the United States in April 2016. I will be returning to work in a summer position, helping summer camp participants feel at home.
Then afterwards, I am hoping to drive solo on a road trip throughout the United States and Canada, visiting both family and friends along the way, some I have not seen in as short as a few months and as long as 10 years.
By 2017, my goal is to be in a new country, advancing the name of Jesus Christ in a journalism and service-oriented capacity.

9. Is there anything you want to say to the people of GIC as your final thoughts?
Always remember whom you are helping (staff) and who is helping you (members and visitors). We are all people first, not “to-do” lists or genies.
If we daily remind and transform ourselves to match what Dr. Shin first envisioned and created back in 1999, with the GIC being a place where Korean and International residents can gather, meet, fellowship, learn from, and grow together as one, we will always be satisfied with how we help and how we receive help. Without this goal, why are we at the GIC in the first place, honestly? The difference in this life will ultimately come when we find the Truth that sets us free and the Peace that passes earthly understanding.