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! 

A Helpful Analogy for Understanding Privilege

It started with a simple question of one of my new friends: “May I try on your glasses?” This is sometimes a fun exercise—see how blind your friend is and see how you look with their frames on your face. We got a good laugh out of both of those things, but it also served as a reminder of something I had realized before but had forgotten—I have really good vision! That was brought (back) to light for me when, within our conversation, one of my other friends mentioned that she wears contacts.

Apparently a lot of people wear contacts. This is something that usually catches me by surprise. As someone with really good vision, I assume that anyone who isn’t wearing glasses also has really good vision. Who knew that I am pretty much the only person that doesn’t require the constant assistance of vision correction? Certainly not me! Had it not been for this conversation, one that I now remember I’ve had before in other contexts, I would have gone on believing that every non-glasses-wearing person had vision as good as mine.

This conversation becomes a helpful analogy for understanding privilege. Just so we’re on the same page, Google defines privilege as, “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” In the conversation recounted above, I realized that good vision is a privilege I enjoy. Not everyone shares it. It’s advantageous. And I didn’t ask for it; it was granted to me by genes and probably diet or lifestyle at some level too.

But I didn’t realize that I enjoyed it until I engaged with someone who did not. In the context of my friendship, I tried on a pair of glasses and saw what my vision-impaired friend sees every day without them: an indecipherable, fuzzy, blurry mess. Without knowing him, and without a trusting relationship, I never would have been able to learn what it’s like to see without the privilege of vision.

Vision, or able-bodiedness in general, is just one category of privilege that I enjoy. Some of my other privileges:

• I’m white.
• I’m male (anatomically), identify as a man, and am heterosexual. All three of these together is a bonus privilege.
• I’m of average size and stature (for a white man).
• I’m Christian. (Although it’s debatable as to whether or not our society still values this, it affords me a certain cultural foundation that is still beneficial.)
• English is my first language—Standard American English, at that.
• I’m a U.S. citizen by birth. And I live in the country where I have citizenship.
• I come from a comfortably middle class family.
• I have a college education from a school with at least a little bit of name recognition.

I don’t pretend to have a comprehensive list here, but I think you get the picture. If not, then let me say this: I haven’t yet encountered a form of privilege that I don’t enjoy.

Allow me to ride this vision analogy a little bit further. When I took off the glasses, I had a headache for a moment. My system was confused, in shock from the new perspective I gained by peering through my friend’s lenses. It’s disorienting and frustrating and often hurtful to realize that you have privilege, especially when you learn that it’s at the expense of others who don’t share that privilege.

But I’ve also learned that it’s okay to enter into that pain, learn from it, and become more aware. Although my vision may indeed get worse with time, most of my privilege will be with me forever. Like the glasses, I won’t ever be able to take it off. And that means it can be easy to forget or overlook in the future. Remember, I’ve had the realization that I have great vision before! But my privilege acts as a blinder (excuse the pun) to the fact that others don’t go through life in the same way that I do.

One last thing to note—I made jokes about my friend’s need for glasses as I learned about his different experience: “Wow! You’re really blind!” Although jokes can sometimes help to alleviate pain, they usually end up causing pain, too. I say this addressing two crowds: those with privilege and those without.

To those with privilege, know that you are always walking on eggshells as you take this journey of growing awareness. Remember, your privilege blinds you to all kinds of stuff you never imagined, like the fact that people wear contacts! Be ready to hear these things, and don’t make excuses. (e.g. “He’s just playing the race card.”) In that vein, I’m aware that I’ve probably offended someone as they’ve read this blog post. But I’m ready to receive that, and in the context of a trusting relationship, have a conversation that will bring understanding and deeper awareness.

To those without as much privilege, please have grace with us who do. We need a lot of it to figure all this stuff out. Please, please keep raising our awareness whenever you can, but always take the time and space you need when we do things that are offensive.

Although I walked into Mission Year aware of a lot of my privilege, I’m still encountering it in new ways all the time. But it’s not just about awareness. The next step is learning to leverage my privilege for those who don’t share it, in a way that’s dignifying to them. That’s what a lot of my Mission Year is, so this won’t be the last discussion of privilege. Watch for more on privilege, especially racial privilege, in future blog posts.