Interview with Collin (Extension Project B)

     For my literacy sponsorship interview, I made a phone call to one of my best friends that lives about 5 hours away in Eastern Washington. His name is Collin. When I asked him about how someone has been a sponsor in his literacy journey, he had to think about it for a couple of minutes. After going back and forth between events for a little, he finally thought of a specific scenario that not only influenced his literacy, but his life in general. The setting in which this event took place is his childhood bedroom in his house located in Chelan, Washington. It was a small room, conjoined with his parent’s, since he was at a very young age in this instance. His walls were painted in Seahawks colors and covered in football decor, he loved football. In this case, his mother was his literacy sponsor. While I was asking him questions about this specific event he was attempting to remember clearly, he began to describe his mother sitting on the bed with him and opening the bible. This moment where she first opened this book was the first time he experienced the power of the words of God in his life. “This was the first time I had read from the bible,” he explained, “from there it progressed and turned into a personal activity without her guidance.” He describes this event by saying how he was getting ready for bed at about 8:30 p.m., as that was his bedtime, and yelled out to his mother to come to his room. “She came in and began to read a devotional to me”, he exclaimed. He then explains how he began to try and read to her and they talked about the passage they read and related it to their lives. “It doesn’t matter what you say as long as you’re talking to God,” he remembers his mom telling him in this moment. He remembers this event as a pivotal point in his personal and spiritual life. His mom had taught him how to read scripture as well as decipher it. He then continued to tell me about how this moment was so influential to him because one side of his family is Mormon, and they merely forced scripture upon him unnaturally. “My Mormon grandparents pray very formally, and my mom in this moment told me just to have a conversation with God,” he explained. The relationship between Collin and his mother during this event impacted his life in a way that nobody else has. After his mother read him scripture that night, he understood how to read to himself and understand what he was reading. He still reads the bible to this day and not only knows how to apply the words to his life, but knows how to pray. “That’s when I learned to pray.” Needless to say, this memory that is still engraved in Collin’s mind was an influential one, thanks to his amazing mother.