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.