I See

You see a cramped block.

I see a community.

You hear senseless rap, unnecessarily loud.

I hear self-expression.

You see a news story of a shooting.

I see a neighbor get shot.

You see wasteful spending.

I see a celebration.

You see black skin.

I see diversity: dark-skinned, light-skinned, and chocolate.

You see a drug dealer.

I see a man who built a business.

You see drug money.

I see the only capital investment in this neighborhood for decades.

You hear shouting and wailing, a disruption.

I hear worship.

You see a future athlete.

I see a black youth who loves to read, write, paint, and make bracelets.

You see a lazy black woman.

I see a tired but strong mother (and grandmother) with a degree and debilitating chronic pain.

You see another dangerous black man off the streets.
I see the latest victim of the prison industrial complex.

You see a culture of poverty.

I see an oppressive system.

I know what you see because I used to see the same things.

But I heard rumors of something different. So I moved to Southwest Philly.

Relationship--with a person, a place, an institution--changes things. It changed what I saw, heard, felt, thought. It confirmed the truth behind the rumors. There is something different.

Photo credit to Walter Levi Wawra.

Vignettes

As part of Mission Year, we have an hour each week devoted to "Curriculum," when we discuss a book that Mission Year asks all of us to read. We've read books about community development, race, theology of the oppressed, spiritual practices, even one of the gospels! The book we're reading now is called House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and it's a series of vignettes. To reflect on the book and our time in Mission Year, we wrote vignettes about our experiences. We're sharing them here for your enjoyment. Some resemble poetry more than a vignette and there's one song, but all reflect on our year.

Arrival

    It’s stuffy and sticky and sleepy in the back seat of the van. The darkness hides all but the whites of her eyes, surveying the new, unfamiliar landscape.

     There are tracks in the middle of the road and cars ride on top of the them with no trouble. What are the tracks for?

     I wonder how long our ride will be. Trips from the airport are always long--“Here we are!”--But not this one.

     “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m in the hood; I really can’t believe I’m doing this,” the eyes tell me out of the darkness. I don’t know if it’s an invitation to converse or just a statement. Actually I don’t know anyone or anything. I just get out of the van, into more darkness. Darkness.

Progressive Process

Pennies parting priceless places

Smiles on hurt hearts and broken faces

Who waged which war?

Opinions open onto oppression

Struggle is inevitable

Butter

     On a small street are tall skinny houses that looked as though they've been smashed together. In a house covered in crimson red bricks and a new cast iron gate is a tall fiery woman full of energy that fills her house.
     Her 4 children hold her firecracker personality, she with a heart of gold.
     She strives to offer them the best. After school they run, hide, squirm to get away but she manages to reign them in for more education.
     A small rectangular stick that brings life to any dish resembles her name, and is much like her personality.

The Trained Eye

To the naked, untrained eye

In and out, in and out

People come and go

Up the stairs, down the stairs

Through the door, out the door

In the house, out the house

Things get passed, side to side

In the car, out the car, under the car?

Black bags, rolled up newspapers

The trash pile near the corner of the stoop

Things unseen to the untrained eye

But I see, the smoke after the pick up

What Waits

And are you too blind to see
What waits on the other side

Stuck here held by chains
Like a voice without a name
You are waiting for change
As blame

Drowning in your shame
You turn it all to angst
Eating away your very soul
How you long to be whole

No matter to my words
You close your heart it hurts
I'm only here for a moment
Then I'm gone to the wind

My right hand offers hope
My left hand offers love
Quit drowning in this sea
Quit your dying null to peace

Chorus

Bridge
This my friend is what I see
You keep holding on to be
Let go of yourself my dear
A caged bird can't really sing

Chorus

Sharing Jesus

“Ice Cream!”

A shriek of joy pierces straight through the heavy humid air. The now familiar sound of tiny bells and chimes announcing the presence of the ice cream truck is quickly approaching. I scoop up a child sitting at the top of the stairs and gently place him on the sidewalk.

“You need anything Miss Bella? its gonna be fifty cents left when I get my sandwich.”

“nah, I’m good. Go on, before he leaves!”

I watch him run over and join all the other neighborhood kids at the ice cream truck. Its a weekend symphony that plays in the evening… over and over again the ice cream jingle accompanied by children laughing and shouting to get right up to the window.

My minds eye sees something different. I imagine that the man in the window is something similar to a modern day Jesus; welcoming the children with open arms, songs, and laughter. I imagine that each child that lifts up a dollar, or their spare change, is actually lifting up their hopes and dreams. Each one leaves with a beautiful blessing that suits them… even if its not what everyone else expected.

“Wait, is that a sandwhich?”

“kind of... its like a pretzel with cheese and stuff!

“You got that at the ice-cream truck?”

“yup!”

I laugh and shake my head in disbelief. Literally EVERYTHING comes from that truck! As the stoop of my home fills with kids enjoying their treats, my eyes wander to a child on the otherside of the street. He has no food in hand, no treat from the truck. His eyes catch mine… than he shakes his head and walks away. when he turns the corner, I find i'm not the only one observing him.

“You know him?”

“nah. i’ve seen him though”

“does he live here?”

“He doesn't belong here. He’s not a part of our community.”

I fall silent, mind turning.

I have what I need.
I’m good.

“shouldn't we all be apart of the community?”

“I guess some people don’t like to share.”

Smiles

I turn the corner

62^nd and Reedland

Headphones in my ears and tired after a long day at work

I slowly take them out and my ears fill with new sounds—laughter, conversation, friendship.

I look to my right

     Hello Ms. Liz, Hello Ms. Eva, Hello Ms. Dee

Their smiles and eyes meet mine.

Casual conversation, standing on the porch, leaning on the rails.

Falling into familiarity and comfort

I excuse myself

Hello Aizhe, Hello Nina, Hello Jylen

Another stop, more smiles

Some faces and smiles I know, some are strangers though

Others friends.

I turn and see the trees

Home

Thanks to Supporters!

Recently I reached an incredibly important milestone in my Mission Year journey: I met my fundraising goal of $12,000! There are many components to my experience this year, as I hope my blog reflects, and this is one that can be easy to forget about while I'm busy with all the others. So it's important to me that I take a moment to recognize this element of my journey that you are most directly involved with--financial support. 

Honestly, it has never been something that I have worried too much about. I have fundraised this way before, and I have seen God's faithfulness to provide in such situations. But I have never seen such a large outpouring of support so quickly. I met this goal much quicker than I expected, and each month people continue to make gifts after I've met my goal, fulfilling commitments to give all the way through the year. 

Fundraising has helped me to see even more that God desires to equip those he calls. And when he calls us to something longer-term (and therefore more expensive), he still equips us.

It is also encouraging each week when my fundraising totals go up a little bit. When I see it I know that I have people who trust me, who believe in me, and who love me. And more importantly, it excites me that God has given them a little bit of the same vision that he has given me: to to love God and love people. It's one thing for a friend to tell me that they are excited about what I'm doing in Mission Year. It's another for them to show me their excitement by supporting me financially. So thank you!

Meeting my fundraising goal does indeed demonstrate that God is faithful to those he calls. But I would be distorting reality if I didn't recognize that, in some ways, it also highlights my privilege. Several factors contribute to my ability to fundraise $12,000 this early in my year: how much time I've had (several months more than most), how much I could personally contribute, the timing of my graduation (and the cultural value of giving large financial gifts upon the completion of a degree), having a large network of people from several middle-class churches, attending a university that sent my friends straight into well-paying jobs...there are probably more, but you get the picture.

Imagine if someone from my neighborhood was called to Mission Year. S/he wouldn't have those privileges. Only one small church with few middle-class congregants. Fewer graduation gifts. No friends with well-paying jobs. 

...If they struggled to raise funds would that mean that God didn't want to equip them like he has equipped me? I don't think so. I think it reflects more the privilege that they don't have.

But I believe that God would still equip them, regardless of their privilege or networks or degrees. And I believe he would probably use people like me with those privileges and connections to help make it happen.

The truth is, there are people like that in Mission Year right now! Not all Mission Year team members have the same privileges at their disposal to reach their fundraising goal, but you can help to equip them to do what God has called them to do just as you did for me. I challenge you to keep giving to support not just me but also my team and everyone who is doing Mission Year. For a few ideas of who to give to, use these links:
Sophilia Hubbarb
Nicole Roberts
Walter-Levi Wawra
Bella Fout

In the meantime, there are some special folks to whom I would like to extend more thanks. The following people have made three or more donations to my Mission Year fund. These 11 supporters have given 61 times over the past year, some giving 12 times! Their contributions alone have accounted for 46% of the funds I've raised so far. Extra thanks go to:

John Carter
Sherry Cauthen
Valentin Lazar
Densie Kootin-Sanwu
Haji Nishikori
Karen Im
Peter Habib
Ashleigh and Jeffrey Watterworth
Chip and Rosemarie Green
Fred and Susan Worthy
Ote Beshears

And the top prizes for care packages and letters go to:

Marilyn and Dorrell Benefield

Carol and Marty Hogue

Lawrence Wilson

Thanks also to friends at First Baptist Church Ravenel for supplying my team with kids' books and art supplies!

Finally, I got so excited about reaching my goal that I made this nifty info graphic! 

Mission Year Meals: Thursday

Thursday is the last day of our grocery week! Sophie and I made taco pie. Although normally we take food to our weekly Thursday night citywide gathering, this weekend was actually “Come and See,” a time when family and friends were invited to visit our home and taste the Mission Year life. But this week we had Thursday night to welcome our guests arriving into town. The taco pie recipe is one shared with me by my sister, a source of many of my recipes. Here it is:

Taco Pie

1 lb. ground beef

1 ½ c. chopped onion

1 pkg taco seasoning

4 oz can chopped green chiles, drained

½ c. Bisquick mix

½ c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Brown the beef and onions together; drain. Stir in taco seasoning; place in sprayed 9” pie pan and top with chilies. Blend Bisquick, milk, and egg together and pour over beef slowly. Bake 25 min at 400, or until done. Sprinkle with cheese and continue baking until cheese is melted.

We are also serving it with salad and sour cream on the side. Those ingredients:

1 head of lettuce

A few tomatoes

Cucumber

Carrot shavings

Sour cream

We usually doctor meals a little bit to our liking. In this meal, we used more than one pound of beef (to feed more mouths) and increased the amount of bread topping and cheese. Although you can’t tell from this week’s menu, we don’t usually eat much cheese, so when we do eat cheese we indulge ourselves. So instead of just sprinkling cheese on top, I also sprinkled a layer between the beef and bisquick topping.

Ground beef is actually one of our staple meat ingredients. We usually buy the 5 lb. tube and use it for several meals. We don’t usually buy it for just one meal as we did this week, but it was on sale, so we snatched it up in anticipation of meals next week. We don’t always have room in the budget to plan ahead, but when we do, we take advantage of it!

COST:

Ground Beef $9.95 (An investment for next week too!)

Jalapenos (instead of chilles) $0.14

Baking Mix (off-brand bisquick) $2.49

Block of Sharp Cheddar Cheese $1.99

Sour Cream $1.49

Other Ingredients on hand: onion, taco seasoning, and veggies from the general/lunch/breakfast budget

TOTAL: $10.00

So there you have it! Six meals, all under $10.00! It can be done, and it is done every week in my house. 

Mission Year Meals: Wednesday

Denise cooked on Wednesday! It was a yummy black bean dish. Denise likes to cook with black beans. She also makes a tasty black bean burger that we have had a couple of times due to popular demand. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients: (Serving size 6-8)

• 1 lb. ground extra lean turkey 
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeds and ribs removed, diced
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground red pepper flakes
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 3 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1-2 chopped seeded tomatoes
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425F.
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground turkey and a handful of the onions to the pan, sauteing until meat is browned. Remove turkey and set aside.
3. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion, pepper, and jalapeno, sauteing for 4 minutes and stirring occasionally. Add salt, cumin, red pepper, and garlic. Saute for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
4. Stir in broth and black beans. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Mash beans to desired consistency.
5. Spoon mixture into an 9x13 (or to another extra pan if you do not want it thick) baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with turkey, bacon, tomato, and cheese. Bake at 425F for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Top with green onions and let cool for at least 10 minutes (otherwise it will be too runny).
6. Serve with sour cream, tortilla chips, on tacos, on a salad, or just eat it plain!

Cost Breakdown:

Ground Turkey (a luxury item that we get occasionally) $3.59

1 Jalapeno $0.28

1 Red Pepper $1.00

3 cans Black Beans $1.77

Roma Tomatoes $2.23 (but some of these were used for salad and sandwiches)

Mozzarella Cheese block (instead of Monterrey Jack) $1.99

Ingredients we had on hand: Onion, fresh garlic, spices, chicken broth

COST: $10.00

Sometimes it's nice to have a vegetarian meal (or at least the option for one), so Denise made one pan with ground turkey and one small pan without it. She served it with a fresh salad. Since we all keep salads as an option for our meals, that's a cost that comes out of our general/breakfast/lunch budget of about $50.00. 

Mission Year Meals: Saturday

Saturday is the night we host our community dinner. We invite neighbors, friends from church, co-workers, or some combination of those to come to our house and share a meal. It’s out biggest meal of the week, so we sometimes have to get creative about how to make our money go farther. This week, though, we hosted our next-door neighbors, an older couple that look out for us and chat with us on the porch regularly. They were the first people we met in the neighborhood, so we’ve been trying to have them over since then! Finally we had them over to enjoy a meal with us.

On the menu: White Cheese and Chicken Lasagna!

Head Chef: Priscillia.

Sous Chef: Walter Levi

Check out the recipe here!

Actually this week we were a little ahead of the game, buying some of the ingredients last week, including the lasagna noodles, chicken broth, some of the cheese, and spinach.

Here’s the cost break-down:

One block of mozzarella cheese $1.99

Boneless, Skinless Chicken $5.98

Italian Bread $1.99

We have on hand many of the ingredients necessary for the recipe: onions, garlic, flour, milk, and spices.

In addition, our neighbors brought over a salad and dessert to complement our lasagna.

TOTAL: $10.00

Saturday’s meal is the most difficult to keep in budget, but with generosity from our neighbors and a little bit of planning ahead, we enjoyed a tasty meal and delightful conversation about our neighborhood, encountering critters in the city, home remedies for sickness, and Catholic traditions, with plans penciled in to visit mass at our neighbors’ parish.

Mission Year Meals: The Grocery List

Many of my friends were intrigued (or should I say shocked?) that my daily food budget is a little more than $2.00 a day, which totals to $117 for my team for the week. Some of you don’t believe that we actually eat enough to survive. This is the first in a series of posts this week to prove to you that we are not only surviving but thriving with plenty to eat and actually hosting guests for dinner once a week!

Early on we established a system for feeding ourselves that has endured until now. For some context to this conversation, here’s our system:

• Everyone is on their own each day for breakfast and lunch.
• For dinner, we are divided into pairs that plan and cook two meals each week, with everyone taking point on one meal a week.
• Every month we switch pairs and switch nights of the week, so that we cook with different people on different days.
• For example, this month I cook with Sophie on Sundays and Thursdays. If we decide that she will take point on Sundays, then I take point on Thursdays, providing the recipe and leadership in the meal preparation.
• We eat together for dinner whenever we can, which is most days, but we always eat together on Family Dinner night, which right now is Mondays.
• On Saturdays, we host a Community Dinner, inviting neighbors and friends from work or church.
• On Fridays, our Sabbath days, no one cooks.
• The pair that cooked the night before does dishes. On Saturday, the Thursday cooking team does dishes.

Now here are some of our operational systems for buying groceries:

• Each week on Saturday morning we create a grocery list, naming items we need for breakfast, lunch, and for each dinner.
• We allot ten dollars for each dinner, leaving about $50 for lunch and breakfast for the week.
• A group of three or four of us goes shopping and the rest of us stay behind to clean the house.

 

The grocery store we frequent is Save-a-Lot, a discount store that carries few name-brand items and has a somewhat limited selection. It’s about five blocks away (depending on how you count blocks), and we usually walk, although there is a bus that goes straight from our block to the store.

We’ve pretty well mastered the layout of the store, and it doesn’t take long for us to fill our cart with the items we seek. We record the cost of each item as we pick it up, and at the end of our spree we add it up and make sure it’s within our budget of $117. Usually it is, but sometimes we have to make hard decisions about what to put back to stay within the budget. 

For example, this week we didn't buy much meat, but we had a lot of dairy products on our list. When we counted up the costs, we were initially at $121. We talked through what we could put back, and ended up getting blocks of cheese instead of bags of shredded cheese, and traded one pack of sliced American cheese for imitation. We also considered putting back the ground turkey in favor of ground beef, but our cheese compromises saved us enough to stay at $115.

Starting on Saturday, I will post our individual dinner meals, sharing recipes and cost-saving ingredients. Each day’s post will be about what we ate exactly one week earlier, so don’t get confused when I reference a Super Bowl party on Sunday! I hope you enjoy this series—it has been fun so far to make it. And hopefully the doubters will believe that we eat and eat well--with just $117!

Past 50th

Last night I was out late for our weekly gathering of all the Philly Mission Year teams. As usual, I was taking the trolley home, this time from Center City. At one of the stops a group of about 7 young people, who I profiled as college students, boarded the trolley and moved to the back. They were pretty much the only ones talking and were loud enough for everyone to hear.

For most of the time I didn’t pay them much mind. Actually I don’t really remember anything else they talked about except which stop would land them at their college. The University of Sciences is the last in a string of several major schools in West Philadelphia, on the border between the large neighborhoods of University City and Southwest Philly. Their stop was 42^nd street.

Part of their conversation was concern that they would miss the stop and go too far down Woodland Avenue, the road the trolley saunters down. Some of them had wandered down to 50^th Street one time on accident, in search of a party, and they didn’t want to do that again. They loudly proclaimed, “Anything past 50^th is bad. Like really bad.”

Those words hurt.

I live past 50^th. Not only that, I live past 60^th—on 62^nd! As I heard them talk about how incredibly bad my neighborhood was, I wondered what the other trolley passengers thought as they heard these college students talk about where they live, work, have fun, and raise their kids. Those considerations hurt even more.

I get where the students were coming from. I’ve said those things before about other communities. Southwest Philly is a place where “bad” things are readily apparent, especially to eyes that come in looking for them. But after living here for a while, I know about plenty of really good things all around places well past 50^th Street.

I know kids that love to play dictionary games they’ve created so they can learn new words.

I know neighbors that shovel each others’ snow.

I know women who are respected for the ways they look out for everyone on the block.

I know old white couples that love their almost all-black neighborhood, even though all of the other white people left at least a decade ago.

But the college students don’t know those things. They only see bad things that they probably just don’t understand. They certainly didn’t understand how hurtful their words were to me and the other residents of Southwest who were headed home like me.

This doesn’t happen in only my neighborhood. Places (and their inhabitants) all over the world are labeled as “bad.” But those negative labels don’t help to end whatever negative attributes we seem to identify. They only reinforce them. I challenge you to consider your words and your thoughts about such places. And I challenge you to challenge others, too, and maybe as we all recognize the good in the places “past 50^th,” the good will be more readily apparent the next time you visit. 

Thanksgiving

As we approach Thanksgiving, I offer some thanks for these experiences I (probably) would not have had were it not for Mission Year:

• I’ll start with the obvious: I moved to Philadelphia and took up residence in a row house with six other people I didn't know.
• Raised $10,000+! (If part of it came from you, then thanks!)
• Volunteered over 250 hours.
• Hand-washed laundry for the first time because I had waited a month and ran out of clean underwear.
• Became an urban biker, turning my 30-minute (one-way) trolley ride into a 30-minute workout!
• Fasted from technology for 8 weeks and simplified my use of technology thereafter. (Read more here.)
• Tried water ice, a Philadelphia frozen treat.
• Had the thought, “In this setting, I’m the only white man,” about once a day.
• Went without a shower for three days for lack of heat or hot water on a cold winter weekend.
• Wrote out a covenant with my teammates. (Read it here.)
• Got a library card at the Free Library of Philadelphia…and paid $3.00 in overdue fines. That’s 5% of my monthly stipend!
• Earned back one of those dollars by eating a whole onion, raw and covered in chocolate. (Don’t ask.)
• Saw seven of my neighbors join my church, Grace Christian Fellowship. (Read more here.)
• Developed enough cooking skills to look into the fridge and come up with a decently tasty dish with what I found there.
• Worked through conflict with a teammate derived from a game of Monopoly.
• Spent a day on the streets with new homeless friends. (Read more here.)
• Embraced regular solitude, silence, and new prayer practices. (Read more here.)
• Mastered SEPTA, or Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

I am thankful for all of these experiences, and they are just the tip of the iceberg. They don’t begin to explain the spiritual experiences for which I am so much more grateful. It’s only been a couple of months, but I already have much for which to be thankful.

I am also thankful for you, who follow my blog and support these experiences and others through prayer, letters, financial gifts, phone calls, and other encouragement. Keep it coming, and offer a prayer of Thanksgiving for what the Lord is doing in Southwest Philly this year.

A Halloween Tale

On Halloween we opened our house up to our neighbors for a party. We planned to have cookies and different colored icing and other edible festivities with which to decorate them. We also grabbed some hot chocolate and snacks so that our neighbors would linger and hang out with us if they wanted to, rather than collecting candy and moving on.

I was one of the first ones home on Halloween, and I started the process of baking the cookies, with just a couple of hours before we expected guests. I cranked up the oven and pulled out the cookie mixes to have them ready for my teammates who would be coming home soon.

As they filtered in, the kitchen was abuzz with activity, with some whipping icing, some mixing up cupcakes, and others scooping out cookies onto trays. In the midst of this, the oven was slowly heating up, readying itself for our goodies. As it became sufficiently heated, we began to hear some sounds emerging from the oven—scratching sounds. I’ll be honest: we have a mouse that likes to nibble on items left out in the open. So our first thought was—there’s a mouse in our oven! As the oven continued to heat, we heard more scratching that confirmed our suspicions—something was inside our oven and trying to get out!

I alerted our team to the predicament so that we could figure out what to do with the situation. Soon it began to smell very foul—the stench of burning mouse flesh in our oven! We debated letting it out, but decided that we really wanted the mouse terminated, even if it meant having to clean out our oven later.

So we cranked up the heat. And the scratching stopped. And the smell got worse.

With no time to fully process our destructive actions, we finally turned off the oven, farmed out our baking projects to our neighbors, and lit candles to hide the smell. All the while, trick-or-treaters streamed by our house, and one commented, “Mmmm! It smells like bacon!”

Finally we corralled the courage to open the oven and examine the remains of the mouse. We found not blood or guts or singed hair, but two piles of goo, one lime green, and one royal blue! What kind of mouse leaves such remains? At closer examination, we realized that we had not torched a mouse, but melted two bowls of pumpkin seeds we had baked the night before! They had been placed in the oven to protect them from the furry friend in question. Needless to say, we were confused, disappointed, relieved, and annoyed. If only we had peeked in to see that the scratching sounds were not the paws of a mouse but the pop of pumpkin seeds and plastic! We should have listed to our neighbors when they told us a mouse would stick around once the oven was turned on…

We had little time to deal with melted plastic, which had ruined our oven for the night. We pressed on with party preparation, welcoming guests and resolving to deal with the oven later. It was a great party, with several new neighbors coming to decorate cookies! We especially had a lot of new teenagers come over, a group that isn’t usually out on the block like many of our other neighbors. We also had to kick several kids out at the end of the party because they wanted to stay later, coloring and munching on snacks.

Despite melted plastic and the kitchen confusion that followed, we had a blast on Halloween, hanging out with our neighbors of all ages!

Grace to Grace, Part II

Last time I reflected on ways that the Lord has changed me to be more open to new ways of worshipping and new ways of conducting worship services. (Read it here!) When I first sat down to write, I didn’t intend to elaborate so much on that journey. My first thought was to rave about how awesome my new church is. That spurred me to consider how crazy it is that I think so highly of my church, considering my background. It represents in many ways how my values and comfort zones have shifted. But I return now to my original thought: how much I love Grace Christian Fellowship in Southwest Philly!

My new church, GCF, follows the same spirit of freedom and fluidity at Grace Midtown, so much so that a few Sundays ago Pastor James scrapped his sermon in the middle of service! The normal flow of service includes musical worship, scripture readings, greetings and announcements, selections from the choir, and the sermon. Although in that description it may seem formal, the atmosphere is not. It often feels more like a group of friends gathered for a weekly sports event than a service. They all know what’s going on, but they are all free to engage with it however and whenever they please. For instance, there are many services where we are never instructed to sit or stand. Folks just do what’s comfortable for them: sit, stand, clap, shout, dance, raise arms, shake fists, etc.

On this particular Sunday, we had spent ample time in musical worship, had heard from the choir the usual two times, and before Pastor James got up to speak, he invited one of the members to share her testimony. She shared that she was several years clean and sober, finished with her schooling (with straight As!), and completing her final training for a job in the medical field. She praised God for redeeming her, and the church celebrated her victories in song. As the music continued, she began to dance and march in place, overcome with triumphal joy at the victory.

Following the lead of the Spirit, the church continued to clap, dance, sing, and shout in celebration. If they were like me, they began to reflect on their own stories of redemption while celebrating with hers. As the praise rolled from song to impromptu song, I began to add up the time left in the remaining elements of the service—having not yet started the sermon, we probably had another hour left. And at that point we were an hour and a half into the service! Whereas a former Preston would have been annoyed at such a realization, the new Preston didn’t care and kept on clapping.

Pastor James, seeming to know my thoughts, soon reassured us that he wouldn’t be delivering his sermon. On that day, following the Lord’s leading meant celebrating a testimony. He later shared with our team that he started the church with a hope that people would be able to share deeply and honestly, and share difficult stories from their lives that that they had carried with shame and embarrassment. He said something like, “Most churches—my old church—would have shaken their heads at such a ‘shameful’ story, as if they didn’t have similar skeletons. But at Grace, we can celebrate prostitutes, addicts, and dealers being transformed.” Some—my former self included—may shake their heads at how our time was spent that Sunday. We didn’t even hear the sermon! Why would we go to church, except to learn from the Bible? Sure, it’s great to celebrate transformation…but for an hour?? Maybe these are valid concerns…maybe. But I think heaven is a little bit less like a Bible study and a little bit more like a rave, where for all of eternity we will celebrate transformation in Jesus’ name.

Praise God for helping me to appreciate a place with values different from those I grew up with! Praise God for transformation, both of the black, female drug addict from Southwest Philly and the white, male PK from North Charleston. 

Grace to Grace, Part I

This week I want to write a little bit about my church in Southwest Philly, Grace Christian Fellowship, mostly because last Sunday was such an exciting week! I didn’t know it, but the Lord has been preparing me for a long time to be so comfortable and energetic about our church.

Growing up, I went to a small, white church where we sang hymns in a reverent service full of instructions like “please rise” and “you may be seated.” In high school I upgraded from a service with an organ to one with an electric guitar, where some people raised their hands or bounced in place. I felt the Spirit while the music played, but for the most part if I wasn’t singing or praying I wasn’t really engaged with God. This was my comfort zone: a structured, ordered service and a reverent, calm environment with white people who spoke English, most of them with a slight (or thick…) Southern accent.

As with so many aspects of my life, four years in college challenged my church comfort zone. My involvement in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and my commitment to Grace Midtown Church gave me opportunities to explore new ways of interacting with God.

InterVarsity opened my perspective to the multi-ethnic beauty of Christ’s Bride, the Church. Before, I would have labeled a spiritual, a chant, a liturgy, a call-and-response sermon, or song in another language as something strange, weird, or perhaps inappropriate, but at least “not for me.” Studying passages of scripture like Revelation 7, Acts 10, and Ephesians 2 helped me to understand God’s design of a reconciled, multi-ethnic church. Engaging with God through other languages, cultures, and styles of teaching became a hobby of mine.

InterVarsity helped me theologically to appreciate and even celebrate difference, but I still wasn’t fully comfortable engaging with God outside of the way I first learned how. That process happened some in InterVarsity as well, but mostly at church.

In my shophomore year of college, I began attending Grace Midtown Church. I was drawn to it for several reasons, including the newness and freshness of the ministry model, its solid Bible teaching, its heart for the city of Atlanta, and—what I will discuss in detail here—the worship. If you’ve ever been there, then it’s obvious why, but for those who haven’t, it’s not so much the music style or selection that makes it so powerful. It isn’t the skill of the vocalists or musicians. While those elements are strong, it’s the heart of the worship that makes it so transformative. Worshippers are free to engage with the Lord however they see fit: standing, sitting, kneeling, prostrating, dancing, journaling, shouting, praying in the corner—and people do each of those things each week. There were many times when all plans and agendas were abandoned to follow the Spirit into 20 minutes of silence or spontaneous refrains or dance breaks. And if the worship leader reaches the end of the set list of songs and feels there’s still more praise to be given, then he or she will continue with a couple more songs.

This environment helped me a lot to be comfortable with others interacting with God in ways unfamiliar to me. Grace Midtown goes beyond the emotions of a song to a yearning to be with God through the Holy Spirit. And it’s not done just through music. I learned to worship through in posture, prayer, silence, writing, shouting, sharing with a friend, testifying, crying, laughing, chanting, liturgy, scripture, and even speaking in tongues, although I have yet to experience the latter myself. I was so grateful to have Grace Midtown as a playground for my worship so I could become comfortable in any context of worship, whether it be a solemn, structured, liturgical service or a comfortable, casual Jesus jam session on the floor of a living room. This adaptability has released me from judgement and condemnation of things unfamiliar to me. If the name of Jesus is being lifted up, then I can usually join in and engage with God.

With these transformations fresh in my past, I greatly anticipated the element of Mission Year that partnered me with a local church. I was eager to commit to a cross-cultural church experience that would be well outside of what used to be my comfort zone. As you can imagine, the adaptability I learned at Grace Midtown prepared me well for the transition!

My church in SW Philly is Grace Christian Fellowship. I thought it funny that I was going from one grace to another. Read again next week to learn more about how the Lord used my years in college to prepare me for my time at GCF!

Gunshots

This post is about gunshots I heard in my neighborhood one night this week. I hesitate to write about this experience, because I don’t want to reinforce assumptions about my neighborhood: that it’s violent and dangerous and unfriendly. But part of my intention is to analyze those assumptions and what implications they have for our spiritual lives. So for the sake of exploring my transformation through Jesus, I will risk reinforcing your assumptions about my neighborhood.

Here are some reflections paraphrased from my journal the morning after I heard the gunshots:

“Last night as I lay down to sleep, I heard about 15 gunshots. There was a series of several shots, a pause of a few seconds, and then another series of shots. My first reaction was heartbreak and tears. I sat up in bed and was immediately moved to pray for the situation that was probably just 2-3 blocks from my house. I prayed for the victim(s) and the one(s) firing the gun. With no details beyond the sound of shots themselves, I prayed for whatever I could think of.

“This, I thought later in the night, is not the reaction I would have had in the past. To be honest, I have heard gunshots from my home in North Charleston. When I heard gunshots there, my concern was at first for my safety; I was afraid at what could happen to me. I called the police to make sure whatever was happening ‘over there’ wouldn’t spill over to where I was. And, I thought, there was some criminal now on the loose that needed punishing!

“But last night in Southwest Philly, I mourned the situation. It hurt me to know that there was potentially loss of life, that someone had gotten to a point where s/he felt like violence was the only answer, that children lived on that street and were afraid, that my neighborhood would be looked down upon for the sins of a few. Later, when I once more tried to sleep, I was afraid. What if shots came through my window or wall? What if a police chase led the perpetrator to my back yard?

“After sensing my own fear, I was ashamed and returned to mourning: the situation of those directly affected deserved my prayer more than I did.”

Events like these are a part of the Mission Year experience. Something about living amongst the gunshots makes you care more about them. And not just for the victims. We often shun from our prayers those firing the guns, deeming them worthy of judgment and damnation (if not to hell, then at least the death penalty or maybe prison). But I was moved to pray even for the one(s) firing the gun(s).

Being among my neighbors and caring about them has opened my heart from selfish fear to grieving prayer. This is just one (rather extreme) example of how the Lord is using this relocation to transform me. I thank God for the opportunity to experience such transformation.

A Week in the Life of Mission Year

            I hope this blog entry will give you some more clarification about how my life functions while in Mission Year. Our time is rather structured, which at first was difficult for me to submit to, but after one week operating within the structure, I am beginning to see how each component is important to my experience this year. I’ll give you a brief rundown of my week and why each component is included in our schedule.

            Our week starts on Saturday. We spend the morning cleaning our house, which makes me happy. J My team isn’t particularly messy, but with seven people in the house it can get pretty messy in a week. After the house is clean, we go grocery shopping. That’s usually an ordeal. We have planned out all of our meals, so it’s a matter of collecting the necessary ingredients for each meal. We usually try to stay below $100 for all groceries for the week so that later in the week we have a cushion of $17 for anything else we need. The first week was difficult, but this week we actually have food left over, including a 10-pound bag of chicken. Saturday night we host a community dinner, inviting our neighbors to come over. This week we had three teenage girls over who we connected with right away. We had a lot of fun dining together and then played some card games afterward too.

            Sunday morning we go to church, and we have the afternoon free. People usually do laundry, read, hang out with neighbors on the porch, or write newsletters. Sunday evenings we have “points meetings,” which include several key elements: announcements from our team leader, planning groceries for the next week, and one person from our house shares their life story. I’m sharing mine this week. J Sundays we also go through our curriculum. We are all reading a set of books, and during curriculum we go through a set of questions and discuss what we’re reading.

            On Monday we start work at our service sites! I’ll probably post more about mine later, but I’m working at the Center for Digital Inclusion and Technology at an organization in West Philly. I work from 11-6, taking a trolley about 30 minutes north of my house. Even though I start work later, others in my house start at 8:30 and 9. For that reason, we have quiet hour every day at 6:00am. We rotate through sharing a brief devotion (5-15 minutes) and then we spend the rest of the hour in prayer, scripture study, and meditation. I usually take a nap between quiet hour and work. J After work on Mondays, we have a team dinner, all eating together.

            Tuesday is pretty much like Monday, but instead of team dinner we have family night, which looks different each week. Someone different plans it each week, and basically it’s meant to give us time to do something fun together that isn’t too serious. Wednesday we have Bible study at church, and on Thursday we swap between two different activities. Every other week we have training with the two other Philly MY teams, and on the other weeks we have “city-wide,” which has more of a spiritual formation emphasis, still with all MY teams in Philly.

            Friday is our Sabbath! We have nothing planned for Fridays, and we are encouraged to rest, relax, and spent time with the Lord. For your purposes, you probably know it as the day that I get on the internet. We break our technology fast every week on Fridays.

            That brings us back to Saturday! I hope this have given you a good understanding of the flow of my life. The cracks and crevices are filled with reading, journaling, silliness, deep conversations, time outside with kids and their parents, and all manner of other things. It’s a great lifestyle. I encourage you to pick one aspect of it, maybe one day or schedule item, and pray for me and my team. Thanks again for taking the time to read and follow my life!

Redeeming "Missionaries"

A few times I have taken issue with the name “Mission Year,” mostly the “mission” part of it. I’m usually a little uncomfortable being called a missionary. The term can mean different things to different people, but to most people it brings up images of white people in a tribal village in Africa trying to rack up conversion points. That association is painful for me, and it’s one I risk every time I tell someone that I’m in a program called Mission Year.

Although the Africa picture may be a little extreme, I know some of my friends imagine me going door to door in the streets of Philly telling people how they can get a ticket out of hell. No doubt, some of my new neighbors have experienced something like that in the past. One day this week as I was walking in my neighborhood with part of my team, we met a woman on her porch who immediately questioned our presence on her street. (We stick out, if you can imagine.) We were working on creating a map of our neighborhood, one of our orientation activities. As we explained more about what we are doing, including the use of the name of our program, she gave us a sincere and stern warning. Leaning forward in her chair, her eyes widening, she said, “Don’t sell God.” Her tone made it clear that she’d seen the salesmen type of missionaries around before. And they probably looked similar to my team.

Thanking her for the advice, we continued to explain that our intention was to learn how to better love God by loving people, specifically our new neighbors in southwest Philly. Her face brightened up and she sat back in her chair. Our clarification put her at ease and opened up a conversation that lasted about 20 minutes before we headed home for lunch.

Later in the week our pastor spoke at an orientation event. He hosted a MY team last year, too, and when he asked them how he could improve their time at his church, they expressed their discomfort at being referred to as missionaries, similar to my own discomfort. They wanted to dissociate themselves from centuries of colonialism and white ethnocentrism. Understanding their points, he told them that actually it was good for them to be called missionaries precisely because of the history and weight of the term. Especially in a church with many new believers, it was important for him to have “missionaries” that redefined the old term through a lifestyle of love. He sees the only way to rid society of the salesman-evangelist stereotype is to live an alternative “missionary” lifestyle: “If you are the only missionaries my church members encounter, then they have a great understanding of what it means to be a missionary!”

Christians in my generation like to shirk words that have been tainted with the abuse and sin of generations past. The glaring example is distaste for even the label “Christian.” But as my pastor wisely pointed out, rather than change the terminology, we need to redeem it. We have to own the sins of Christians past and live lives of love, which includes cultural sensitivity and ensuring the dignity of our neighbors. (Maybe later I’ll write more about what that looks like for us.)

The mission of Jesus was redemption, and I am excited to redeem the missionary life during my year in Philly. I’m sure my team and I will screw up somehow, but hopefully our neighbors will know our love for them and extend grace to the missionaries on their block this year.

Details!

So here it is! The full and complete answer to the question I’ve gotten so many times, “What will you be doing?”

Well, of course I can’t answer that question fully and completely, but I now have exciting details such as what neighborhood I’ll live in, what church I’ll attend, where I will be working during the week, and who is on my Mission Year team! Take notes so that you have specific people and places to pray for!

Where?

I’m going to live in Southwest Philadelphia (click here for a map)! My neighbors will mostly be African and African-American, mostly working class. Many of the homes there are in the style of “row houses,” where the long, narrow homes are lined up side by side down the block, with a very small front yard and a stoop leading straight to the sidewalk. I will live down the street from my…

…Church!

I will attend Grace Christian Fellowship (visit their website here), “a non-denominational Christian fellowship dedicated to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and His resurrection to all men, women, boys, and girls.” It has grown from a small Bible study of 22 in the home of Rev. Cean R. James in 2005 to a growing congregation of 250 with a permanent home on Grays Avenue in Southwest Philly. They are committed to reaching the people of their neighborhood with the gospel.

Service Site

I will be serving at the People’s Emergency Center (PEC) (check out their website), an organization that “nurtures families, strengthens neighborhood, and drives change. We are committed to increasing equity and opportunity throughout our entire community. We provide comprehensive supportive services to homeless women and their children, revitalize our West Philadelphia neighborhood, and advocate for social justice.” The services they offer range from emergency, transitional, and permanent housing to employment training, to childcare and healthcare. In addition, PEC is involved in developing and rehabilitating affordable housing and spurring the growth of business in West Philly. They also advocate for policies that protect the working poor and homeless. Although the details are not yet set in stone, I'll be working in the digital literacy programs designed to "bridge the digital divide." (visit the digital literacy website) I'm very excited to join alongside what PEC is doing to pursue change in West Philadelphia!

Finally…

Team Members!

These are the people I’ll be living with for the next year! I am excited to be able to experience so much with them in the next year. We will pray together, be discipled together, eat together, walk together, learn to love in so many new ways, and so much more! Learn their names and faces by visiting their personal donation pages:

Priscilla Bui

Walter Levi Wawra

Sophilia Hubbard

Denise Lee

Nicole Roberts

and my alum team leader, Isabella Fout

Start following their blogs now and over the course of the year get a different angle on my life in Philadelphia, through their eyes!

When?

Here’s my somewhat complicated schedule:

• Visit Atlanta friends August 30-Sept 6
• Mission Year national orientation in Houston Sept 6-Sept 11
• Mission Year Philly orientation Sept 11~Sept 18
• Start living the Mission Year life ~Sept 18!

Thanks so much for praying through these things and taking the time to walk with me along my MY journey.