Learning With Faith

by Quentin Jones

“And faithful we’ll be V-C until our Lord appears. That’s the end of the alma mater I sang when I

graduated from Village Christian School. The bible verse I chose at the time was Jeremiah

29:11. I knew God had many plans for my future. But, I never thought I’d be giving back to the

community at Village Church as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) Trainee, at the Village

Community Counseling Center (VC3), led by Kim Dodd, through partnership with Fuller

Theological Seminary.

While at VC3, Kim has challenged me to relate better with clients, listen attentively, show

empathy, remember clients’ spouses, children, parents, coworkers and friends; string stories

and timelines together, and make use of therapeutic theories and tools in the process. Kim not

only challenged all three of us MFT trainees to grow as therapists, but also to grow as people. I

looked for ways to meet the challenge.

In the book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy, the boy is on a

journey to find home. He makes friends with a mole, a fox, and a horse. The mole seeks to

enjoy life and eat cake. The fox has been through rough times and shows up wary and a bit

tired. The horse is kind and wise. The horse normally hides his ability to fly, but takes the others

past the dark scary clouds, to show them that “the blue sky above never leaves.” We all have

these parts in us: parts that are kind, wise, shy from past hurts, hesitant to use talents, looking

for fun, and a part that searches for home. It was this narrative that inspired how I integrated

psychological theory into my own life, and deepened the kindness and empathy I learned to

show to my clients. And now it inspires how I seek to understand people in everyday life.

Transitions are powerful. I will graduate from the program at Fuller in June. In therapy, this is

like the client’s termination process where we look at where the client started, the progress

made, and look towards the future with hope as they transition out of therapy. As my MFT

trainee cohort wraps up at VC3, we know we will transition well. Kim has pointed the way

forward for the past year. We won’t let her down. We’ve changed and grown, smarter, deeper,

kinder, and more open to our humanity. We remind people that beyond the dark clouds, “the

blue sky above never leaves.” And in doing so, we live out the verse that chose me: “He has

shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to

love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8