Scraping, Painting, and Building...Oh My!

This past week through the Motown Mission Experience in Detroit, we had the opportunity to participate in a variety of urban renewal projects. This included activities such as cleaning up abandoned lots, caulking windows, scraping and painting houses, and building projects.

For the first two days I participated in an activity scraping and painting a woman’s porch and railings. By the middle of the second day I had become increasingly frustrated. No matter how much paint we scraped off, there was still more loose paint. Other groups had been speaking the previous night about how rewarding their work had been, and that they had already made a difference with numerous projects. I began to feel unsatisfied in the work that I was doing because I could not see any progress on the project.

Right as this envy was beginning to happen, a second thought came upon me. It is easy to do something for others when we know we are getting something in return. Whether this is something more material, or merely acclaim, getting something in return makes the work easier. However, that is not why we are called to service. Service is not meant to be easy, and it should not be motivated by outside desires, but by a genuine desire to help someone. As I began to look at scraping the porch from that lens, everything became clearer. Yes, it would be easier for me if I had been placed on a simpler project that could be done quickly, but I am here for a reason. Even though scraping the porch for hours may have originally seemed like a burden, now it was an opportunity. Even though the task may be longer, this simple action had the potential to brighten the homeowner’s day every time they saw their newly painted porch.

The next day, a group of painters from Missouri went back and finished the painting project. Not only did they do an amazing job painting, but they went above and beyond and bought the homeowner some new silk flowers for her pots on the porch. Their simple resolve to make the woman smile greatly motivated me throughout the week.

During this time, I was participating in a porch project down the street. The day before, a group had torn down the porch, and today we were resolved to build a new one. Through some hard work measuring and cutting boards, hammering nails, and addressing challenges as they arose, we finished the project.  Before, the porch had been almost entirely rotted through. The woman who lived there could not walk out on her porch without the possibility of falling through the floor. Something that really stuck with me that one of the participants stated was, “ To us, we built a porch, but to her, we repaired her home.” Something as simple as us building a porch, truly did have a potential to change someone’s life. Now she has a place where she can socialize with her neighbors, wave at the neighborhood children, or talk to her mailman. To me, a porch represents a renewed sense of community, and the potential to draw communities closer together. 

Below is a photo of the porch I helped build in conjunction with the Missouri Group from Jefferson City and Columbia. On the porch is the homeowner.

"God Shot" in Downtown Detroit

Today I had a moment that reminded me of God’s presence working in my life, or a “god shot” as my family calls them. While the rest of the group continued on to go visit a community garden, one of the adults and I turned back to get some coffee at Tim Hortons.

Upon walking back we were stopped by a middle-aged woman who pulled us aside and quietly asked for some bus money. I am often highly skeptical of giving anyone money, but I decided to go ahead and do it. I am in downtown Detroit to do mission work this week, and we have a call to serve others in need.

As a Peace Intern, last week I stressed the idea on “What if God was one of us?” 

“One of Us” by Joan Osborne speaks to this saying

“What if God was one of us?

Just a slob like one of us?

Just a stranger on the bus,

Trying to make his way home?

At last weeks camp in Missouri I asked them to listen to the song “The Twenty-First Time” which relays these lyrics.

She may be a stranger trying to get through the day,

But what if it’s Jesus and I walk away?

I say I am the body and I drink of the wine,

But I pretend not to see her for the twenty-first time.

As someone who speaks about making peace and justice a priority in everyone’s lives, I needed to walk the walk.

The women spoke about how she was headed to a battered woman shelter and needed the money to be able to take the bus there. Between the two of us we gave her money for the bus and she thanked us profusely. Just as we were about to leave she asked us why were in Detroit since she knew we weren’t from around here. When we simply answered that we were there to do mission work the woman almost broke down. She stated that she had been praying for someone to come along and that God had answered her prayers. What may have only been a few dollars to me had the power to change someone’s life.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to spend this week in Detroit doing important work. Little things that I take for granted in Orange County are not the case here. Today my group spent 6 hours scraping and porches, railings, and security doors at 4 houses. This simple work of revitalizing homes was humbling, and it was great to hear the stories of the homeowners. Hopefully through continuing to work this week it will allow each of us to truly be the change we wish to see in the world. 

A Dose of "Walking the Walk": Confronting my own stereotypes

During the travel from St. Louis to Detroit I was given an opportunity to face one of my own stereotypes. After spending a day talking about stereotypes to teenagers, fate decided that I needed a dose of walking the walk.  At the airport there were a group of young men in baggy clothing and stereotypical wife beater tank tops being highly rambunctious. Needless to say that without thinking about it, they were grouped into a mental stereotype and I didn’t think twice. However, upon boarding the plane the stewardess called for all active military personal and veterans to board the plane and they all stood up. My mind was blown to realize that these men did not neatly fit into a stereotype based on how they dressed. These are people that have risked their lives on a daily basis to protect a country they believe in.

Sometimes changing your daily patterns come naturally, sometimes you need something to slap you upside the head to see what is going on around you and challenge you to something new. That is what this experience was for me, and I look forward to how this summer will continue to challenge me to shift my perspectives and challenge myself.

Rickman in Missouri

I had the pleasure of spending this past week at the Rickman Conference Center near Jefferson City, Missouri as part of their CYF Camp. Through this camp, I met some of the most amazing youth I have ever encountered as the Peace Intern, a Camp Counselor, and one of the Pink Panthers family group leaders.

While the week started off with the challenge of a broken hot water heater (cold showers for all!), it truly put things into perspective for me. I am lucky enough to have a warm shower and running water every day from my home in Orange County. However, these are challenges that are a part of daily life all over the world. Also, after lugging my suitcase through 3 airports, I finally have discovered that I have too much “stuff.” While I considered one suitcase and a backpack as light packing for a summer of traveling, it is in fact too much. It has begun to put into perspective what I really need versus my mere wants. 

During the week I was given the opportunity to lead 4 interest groups:

On Tuesday: I started off Tuesday with a group of 5 campers for a discussion on Peace and playing some cooperative games.

On Wednesday: On Wednesday I was originally worried to only have 3 campers sign up for a poverty simulation, but it ended successfully. In this simulation you take the campers through the experience of what it would be like for them and their family to become homeless, a situation facing families across the country. This also led into a discussion on “Who is my neighbor?” and what we can do to be better neighbors and servants in our communities.

On Thursday: On Thursday I led a workshop on stereotypes to make sure campers could begin to see the social justice issues in their daily lives. This incorporated two main activities. The first included having campers place a card on their forehead facing out and go around and treat people according to their value. A second activity involved having campers divided into two groups. The first group is positioned in a circle facing in with their eyes closed. They have a stereotype on their back. The second group circles them and whispers behind their back about the stereotype, then the groups switch.  This was to give campers an experience both as the stereotyper and the stereotyped. Then we held a discussion about stereotypes in our schools and towns.

One Friday: I was shocked when I had 14 campers sign up for my interest group on Interfaith Dialogue on Friday. I started the discussion off by asking what exposure the campers had had to various other religions. While many had experienced the Catholic tradition, their experiences beyond the Christian tradition was limited. I lead the group through a Buddhist Tonglin Meditation on compassion, and left the last 45 minutes of the group for an open dialogue regarding other religions, misconceptions, and allowing the campers to ask questions in a nonjudgmental environment.

Overall my experience in Missouri was phenomenal. From glow stick capture the flag, to tons of new camp songs, to Mess night (mud volleyball, water balloon battleship, and shaving crème wiffle ball) to Night of Silence, I never ceased to be stunned by the insight of the campers. While they may have come from different cities and not have known anyone, or if they have known people their entire lives, everyone was a family by the end of camp.  Missouri was a great way to jump-start my summer as a Disciples Peace Intern. 

This is a blog dedicated to my summer as a Disciples Peace Intern. This blog will follow my travels in Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, California, Florida, Virginia, Nova Scotia, and Oregon as I visit church camps and conferences to educate high school students on peace and justice issues.

While the contents of this blog are no where near complete, I wanted to begin to put information online for everyone to read. I have not included the information for my week in Indianapolis and there may be some grammatical errors. The final versions for the blog will be posted on the Disciples Peace Fellowship Website (http://dpfweb.org/) later in the month.

Peace,
Cambria