weekend so far

Well, this is my foot - all bandaged up in pretty blue. I'm mending, but its rough just laying here all day. I have gotten out a little bit, though. Earlier today Jeni (a fellow volunteer) and I went to Astoria Park for some relaxing reading under the shade of a nice tree. Good times - it was really nice to get out of the house for a little bit. I've hardly had the worst of it, though. Poor Shearl, a fellow volunteer has been very ill and spent the last day or so in the hospital. We have been taking shifts staying with her, my first will be later tonight. Her doctor will hopefuly be releasing her tomorrow morning.

To lighten the mood a bit, I will finish this post with a prayer that we used during one of the reflection times a couple weeks ago. I related to this prayer so well, and it is really sticking with me. At the commitment service on Wednesday we each got a chance to share something that inspired us, or helped describe our purpose...this is what i shared (it is known as the prayer of Thomas Merton) :

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.

I love the lines in the middle that say (sorry for the repitition) the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope that i have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. Thats good stuff.

Peace.

job placement

This morning I found out where I will be working. I will be splitting time between the recreation department and pastoral ministry. It's a really weird placement, because most volunteers are placed on the actualy resident floors, but I'm excited about it. Hopefully I'll be able to interact with the kids a lot as well as give them some guidance with the ministry. I don't really know what I'll be doing yet, but I'll find all that out on Monday.
As for my toe...I ended up getting 6 stitches, but because of the continued bleeding I went to another doctor today who rebandaged it and gave me some antibiotics. Outside of the doctor's offices, though, my fellow community members have been so helpful. They have basically waited on me hand n foot (and scolded me everytime my foot wasn't properly elevated). I really appreciate thier help. What a great group of people :)
I had ideas for things to do this weekend, but now it looks as though i'll be spending some time on this couch. Hopefully tomorrow ill get to a park or something for a while. Things are good though - this won't get me down. Peace.

last couple days

Its been a couple days since my last post. To be honest, they are all a blurr. More training, community building and planning for our commitment service. The commitment service is an evening where faith community alumni and agency people come to the house and we put on a banquet-ish thing. It is our official induction into the program. After living in this house with 15 or so people, we had a lot of cleaning to do and cooking and decorating and all kinds of fun stuff - but it went really well.
Today, people at the different sites will be traveling there (Ft. Lauderdale and Atlantic City). Its sad to see them go, but I know they are excited to get started. The people who are staying in New York will be going to the agency later today to get our job placements and get started!
So now the bad news :( Last night I was getting into a storage cupboard when the door to the cupboard fell of its track and landed on one of my toes (and these are no small doors). It instantly began bleeding and, upon further inspection, it broke my toenail off right at the base. Luckily we have two nursing majors in the house right now, so they took good care of me. Right now its all bandaged up and I will be going to some sort of foot doctor later today to see what needs to happen. So that's no fun, especially with the amount of walking we have to do - but I'm tough, right? Haha. Well that's all for now - I will know what my job will be by tonight. Peace!

the day of rest

(The photo is last night's sunset from our roof) Today is a good day - it is Sunday, our day off. But before I get to Sunday, I better cover Saturday. We woke up for prayer/reflection at 6:15 and then some of us went to Time Square for a city-wide yoga event. The first 500 people got free stuff, so thats always good when you're doing volunteer work! Last night I went to an Off-Broadway show with Sue. Sue is a current volunteer in NYC who will be done in about 2 weeks. Off-Broadway shows are basically 2nd rate shows that aren't necessarily in the theatre district. So we saw a show called "The Castle" which was not a typical show. It was basically 4 people who sat on stools and told their life story. Combined they had served 70 years in prison - They had also each lived in a transitional home once they got out called "The Castle". It was a very emotional performance, as these people were not actors, they were people who were telling their story in hopes of creating change. Their stories all had a similar story line - each of them had a horrible childhood which led to them getting into drugs and eventually some type of crime. The one man stated that everything in his childhood prepared him for prison - another told us about the 67 times in 20 years that he had been in jail. They each talked about how much the decisions they made when they were young affected their lives. All I could think about was the kids that I'll be working with this summer, and how much of an impact I could have on their lives. It was an awesome show.
So now its Sunday. I went to the New Life Fellowship church this morning. It was a very diverse group of people with a very worshipful service. The sermon was on the armor of God, specifically the sword of the spirit - or God's word. It was a great service. After we got back and had lunch a few of us decided to just relax for the afternoon and watch Disney's Robin Hood. Tonight we're going to go out to the Chinatown area, which is probably where we'll eat, then who knows for the night. Peace!

just before bed

What a week. Tuesday we spend most of the day learning about what is called an Enneagram. For a simple explanation, this is a type of personality test. We learned a lot about different personality types and why certain people react in certain ways depending on a certain situation. This really helped us define who we were as people (which was kinda cool) and help us to understand the variety of kids we will be working with. It may seem a little frivolous, but it really was a great exercise. We also spent some time Tuesday learning more from the book "Community and Growth" about living in community. On Wednesday we spent 5 hours in a workshop on "Substance Abuse and Mental Health". It was basically an informative session about types of drugs our kids use and mental health issues they could be dealing with. We also talked about how to recognize each of these and what to do in certain situations pertaining to them. Later on Wednesday we learned more about the Covenant House's governing structures (rules, policies, etc). Every Wednesday night is community night, so we went out for a picnic with everybody in our group along with the current New York volunteers that we are living with. We had a picnic in Central Park, but it rained so we moved it under some really cool bridge in the park - it was a fun. Upon returning to the house, we spent about an hour in prayer/reflection with the group. Thursday was another intense day. We met a couple higher-ups in the organization in the morning then had a three hour session on "Gender 101, Working with LGBTQ Youth (thats Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer). This session pertained to understanding anything from the meanings of the categories above to the basics of sex change and everything in between. Its really important to understand these things so we can relate to the kids. After this we returned to the house to do a whole lot of paperwork an have dinner. We then had an evening session to help us understand the basics of "Franciscan Spirituality" (the priest who founded Covenant House was in the Franciscan order). So we learned about the life and beliefs of Saint Francis of Assisi and did a really cool activity where we wrote the Lord's Prayer in our own words - very cool. Ok, I know this is getting long, but we still have today to cover. This morning we had a session on the Covenant House mission statement where we basically dissected the mission statement that I blogged earlier. After this we had a 3 hour session on "Suicide" where we spent a lot of time talking about how to respond in situations where the kids tell us that they are contemplating suicide and did role plays to that effect - it was very heavy, but very important as well. Other than that we had dinner and some of us watched Shawshank Redemption while those with more energy left went out for a while. Ok, thats it for now - Peace.

reflection

In the blog I just finished I forgot about today's reflection. I was the leader of today's reflection time, and I want to share just the final part. I read a prayer from a book about Mother Teresa called No Greater Love. It is the Daily Prayer of the Co-workers of Mother Teresa, and it is adapted from the Prayer of Saint Francis:
Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them, through our hands, this day their daily bread, and by our understanding Love, give Peace and Joy. Lord, make me a channel of Thy Peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring Love, that where there is wrong, I may bring the Spirit of Forgiveness, that where there is discord, I may bring Harmony, that where there is error, I may bring Truth, that where there is doubt, I may bring Faith, that where there is despair, I may bring Hope, that where there are shadows, I may bring Light, that where there is sadness, I may bring Joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted, to understand, than to be understood, to love, than to be loved, for it is by forgetting self that one finds, it is by forgiving that one is forgiven, it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.

lunch break

We are taking a lunch break, so I decided to get on here real quick. Yesterday was good, as we had the day off until dinner. After being so focused on "community" for a week, it was time for me to have a little alone time - so I went exploring on my own. First I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge - great experience. Then I started at the southern tip of Manhatten and worked my way north. I visited Battery Park, from which you can see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Then I took a gander in a Native American museum which had all kinds of cool artifacts and stuff like that. I stopped by the New York Stock Exchange for a minute, but to my dismay it was just a building. I visited the Trinity Church and St. Pauls Cathedral, both very old churches with intricate architecture. After these I took the subway up to Grand Central Station where I got off and went to the New York Public Library. It was an absolutely huge building with lots of art and books - it also holds the original dolls that inspired the story of Winnie the Pooh, which I thought was pretty cool. After this I was tired of walking so I took a break at Bryant Park, a nice little park where many people were taking their lunch break - actually, too many people were taking their lunch break because there were no open tables. So I joined a man named Bennet at his table and we spent the next 45 minutes getting to know each other. Bennet was about 50 and had lived in New York his whole life, so he had a lot of interesting perspective to offer on the city. After this I walked to the times square area where I visited a bunch of shops (including a Hershey's Chocolate shop and a 3-story M&M shop, both of which offered samples which I was excited about). After a while I was ready to get off my feet and out of the sun, and found shelter in an ESPN shop where I watched Tiger win the U.S. Open in sudden death - probably the most fun I've ever had watching golf. At 5 we all met up and had pizza at John's Pizza place which was probably some of the best pizza I've had in a while. After this some of us were going back to watch a movie on the lawn at Bryant Park, unfortunatly it rained again so I came back to the house and went grocery shopping. Theres the day in a nutshell. Peace.

fun stuff

If its hard to tell, the people in this picture are soaked. Absolutely soaked to the core. After a long day yesterday, the six of us went to the Little Italy area for dinner. We found a place called La Nonna which was absolutely delicious, a great way to finish off the week. The plan was to have dinner then go to the seaport, where there would be a symphony and fireworks taking place - but as we were eating it started raining, then pouring. We tried to wait it out, but the longer we waited the harder it rained, so we just went for it. We ran about 10 blocks in the middle of a downpoor - and it was awesome. Then we gathered at the subway station and took this picture. As we assumed the fireworks weren't taking place, we went back to the house and had hot cocoa and hung out.

As for some other things we've done in the past couple of days.....wednesday night we had a "community night" where we ended up watching a documentary called Paperclips about students that completed a project to honor those jews (among others) who lost their lives during WWII. Thursday morning we spent a morning session with Jesse Selengut, a past volunteer who is urrently a musician. He brought all kinds of hand drums and shakers and we held a drum session. It was a very interesting experience and I really liked it because it involved music. Each day we also spend at least a half hour in community prayer/reflection time which is a great time for us to get to know each other and form bonds and connections. We've also had little snipits of time here and there to explore the city and hang out. At the end of this two weeks, our group of 11 will be divided to the New York, Atlantic City and Fort Lauderdale sites so we are doing our best to take advantage of our time together.

This morning I went to a church called The River which is associated with the Vineyard community of churches. Its worship was contemporary and participatory. The message was on self deceit - the preacher went through the life of Jacob (meaning deceiver) and how he began his life as a deceiver and was trying to be successful by his own means. He deceived his brother out of his birthright and deceived his father to get his brother's blessing. Later in his life, though, God gave him and new identity - He renamed him Isreal (meaning the Lord fights for you) and his whole life, desires, and attitudes changed. This applied to us relying on God to fight for us instead of doing what we can to get ahead and allowing him to form our identity. It was a very understandable and applicable. The people were welcoming and personable.

Churches in the city are interesting because theres nowhere to build churches and the number of actual church buildings that are in place are limited. Therefore people meet for church whereever they can rent the space. Its definitely new to me, but it really puts the focus of the church on the people rather than on the building that they meet in, which I find very important. Good stuff. Peace.

busy, busy, busy

Its been a mix of fun and work. I have a picture or two on someone else's camera that I want to show when I explain the fun stuff, so for now I'll just give an overview of the types of training we've been receiveing. I always hae to keep in mind that we will be working side by side with people who have degrees in social work, so we are trying to get as much training as possible in two weeks to help us prepare for and know how to respond in a variety of situations.
One part of the seminars that we have been attending are about living in community. There are many factors that go into participating in community life, where all resources and responsibilities are shared between up to 10 people that need to be understood. So we've spent some time exploring those. We've also spent time discussing various schedules, responsibilities, filling out paperwork, and experiencing God through a variety of means.
As for actual training: Thursday we had a 3 hour workshop on "Balance and Crisis". We learned how to respond to a person in crisis, whether they are very aggressive or very passive. We studied and practiced a variety of techniques to use in those situations. On Friday we had a two hour session on "Business Management" where we discussed how to maintain the finances of the house we are living in. We also spent an hour studying the governing structures of the Covenant House, as its important to know and understand the policies and structure of the organization we are serving with. Saturday was a busy day. In the morning we had a 3 hour workshop on "Gang Awareness" with a very charismatic and passionate police officer from Rochester, NY. We learned about the origin and culture of gangs, how to recognize gang hand signs, tattoos or graffiti, and how to interact with a member. In the afternoon we had a 4 and a half hour workshop on "Active Listening". Part of our responsibilities will be to develope a resource file for kids that arrive, so we need to be able to converse with them in a non-threatening, productive way. We also need to be aware of physical and verbal cues to help us understand and diagnose issues that the child may have.
This just highlights some of the things we've been learning about over the past few days. As you can see, we've been busy. Today and tomorrow are free days for us. I'm waiting for a few friends to get ready to go with me to church. Since I'm only here for two months I don't plan to attempt to settle into a church, rather I will be exploring many different types of churches around the city. Hopefully I will have some good reflections on those.
The next reflection will describe some of the fun we've been having. Till then, peace!

reunion

Its weird. All of the volunteers arrived today by noon - and it was like a reunion. Usually reunions consist of people gathering because they used to spend a lot of time together and "reunite" to catch up (for instance: high school reunions or family reunions). But these people I just saw a couple weeks ago.....and we only spent 3 days together....so I have to admit that I think its weird that I got excited when they walked in the door. What could explain this? I can only think of one thing - Psalms 133:1 says "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" These people, despite hardly knowing them, are my family and we are here for a common purpose. This strange connection we feel could only come from the Giver himself. I must say that its good to know that when I can't be around my natural family, that I will still be surrounded by family - can't beat that.

Switching gears, last night was awesome in a few ways. Little did I know that when I wrote last nights entry, the night was only just beginning. I decided to go play my guitar for a little while. I started in the living room by myself, but before I knew it there were about 10 people there with me. I played guitar, my friend Clint busted out his African drum, and others joined by patting on their legs or singing (or trying out the sweet drum). It turns out that our group has a number of musicians of one type or another, which is very exciting to me. Music is a huge part of my personal and spiritual life, and to know that I will have people here to share that with is awesome.

After a while of hanging out and worshiping, we realized that there was a pretty intense thunder storm going on outside, so we decided to hang out on the roof as God displayed his power - very cool.

This morning I woke up early and took the subway into town to take a nice run in Central Park - It was a great chance to relax and enjoy the city. Then orientation/training started a little later. We will spend the next couple of weeks being acclamated to all the things we will be dealing with in the field so it should be pretty intense. For now, its dinner time!

Peace

arrival

Well, I am currently sitting on the couch in NYC. The flight went well, despite sitting beside two fellows who didn't speak english. With my first evening here I've had a few observations:

1.) It is hot. Yesterday, NY reached triple digits. Today it only reached 97 degrees, but there is no air movement at all and with the humidity the heat index was well over 100.

2.) They told us that Astoria was really diverse, but..... tonight we went to a small chinese restaurant. It was really tiny, there were only seven little tables to sit at. While we were there eating, there were 5 different languages that were being spoken. This place is seriously diverse.

Orientation and training will begin tomorrow. The next two weeks will be really intense acclamation into the program. I'm pumped and ready to get going!

Peace

mission statement

Just for kicks, here is the Covenant House Mission Statement:We who recognize God's providence and fidelity to His people are dedicated to living out His covenant among ourselves and those children we serve, with absolute respect and undconditional love.That commitment calls us to serve suffering children of the street, and to protect and safeguard all children.Just as Christ in his humanity is the visible sign of God's presence among His people, so our efforts together in the covenant comunity are a visible sign that effects the presence of God, working through the Holy Spirit among ourselves and our kids.

confirmation

Today I was notified that I will, indeed, be serving at the New York City Covenant House site. That was my preference out of the three possible locations, so I am really happy with that decision.Here is a little background info of how things work in New York. I will live in community with somewhere between 6 and 10 other volunteers. We will be living in Queens (northeast of Manhattan Island). As a group we will share all of the responsibilities that our home requires and will spend a half hour every day together in a time of prayer/reflection.I will travel into Manhattan each day (not every day, but generally 40 hours a week) to work at the Covenant House Crisis Center. This center (along with all other Covenant House locations) operates on an open door policy: this means that any kid who walks in for the first time will have a place to stay that night - no exceptions. Covenant House provides the kids with their most immediate needs (food, clothes, shower, bed) as well as a medical/psychological evaluation. The goal is that within 30 days they will have found a job and moved on to a more permanant living situation (which Covenant House will help assist them in finding). The kids must also make a commitment while staying at Covenant House. They commit to following the rules house rules, and they commit to job searching or working towards some educational goal.While at work I will have a few responsibilities. Some of these include evaluating kids on an individual basis (determining what types of support they need), documenting work done and services provided, conducting workshops on various life-skills issues and other support services. I will know more about what, exactly, I will be doing once I begin training on June 11th. Until then, this is all I really know.As a final disclaimer I must add that, although I keep referring to these people as kids, they are 18-21 year olds who are, in some ways, more mature than myself due to living on the street.

answering the call

God has been after me for a long time, constantly nudging - but I was scared. He has been pointing me towards service, but that doesn't exactly fit into my plans of becoming a teacher and coach. So I asked, "God - I feel you, but I need you to point me in the right direction". Its amazing how God answers prayer. I began looking into overseas missions, because I love to travel and I felt that traveling and doing God's work seemed like a pretty good combo to me - but as usual, he had different plans.
There was a day on campus at Bluffton when many different service organizations came to recruit for both short and long term missions and service opportunities - and I was there to gather as much info as I could and decide which organization was the best for me. While I was there, I ran into some representatives from an organization called Covenant House. They talked to me about the mission of their organization - a commitment to serve children of the street and to safeguard all children. Now this seemed like an honorable mission, but it obviously wasn't for me because I wanted to go overseas - the program they were recruiting for only exists in the states. So I gladly accepted their brochures, and went on my way to more interesting and exciting organizations.
For the next month I could not get covenant house off of my mind. The nudging from God seemed to turn into a deliberate shove. I began looking into Covenant House more and more, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is what God wanted me to do - But for how long? A full year of service, perhaps? At about this same time, I began interviewing for teaching jobs. Again, I asked God to lead me - after my very first interview, I was offered a job at Ontario Middle School to teach exactly the subject areas that I had hoped for - God answers prayer.
So I will serve with Covenant House for the rest of my summer - they offer 3 month volunteer opportunities, and accepted me into the program even though I can only serve for 2 months before my job at Ontario begins. I will find where I will actually be serving soon - I could be in New York City, Atlantic City New Jersey, or Fort Lauderdale Florida.
If anyone wants to know more about Covenant House, their website is http://www.covenanthouse.org/ and the website for the actual volunteer program I am involved with is http://www.covenanthouse.org/inv_faithcommunity.html