My Advent

Both work and my personal life have been crazy busy this week. Every night I planned to accomplish a bunch of items that I didn't manage to get to each night. Add on top of this, Diamante's younger sister and one of her friends came into town yesterday. Last night I found myself in a state of panic because one of my Christmas present ideas failed, I had no back-ups, and I wasn't spending time with Diamante's friend and sister because I was frantically trying to get last-minute things done before I leave Saturday. I felt like a horrible sister and host and pretty much just wanted to cry (I don't think the sleep deprivation of the week helped either).

As I was lying in bed that night, all of a sudden it struck me how ridiculous the whole situation was. It's Christmas time for heaven's sake! It's not even supposed to be about the gifts, but about celebrating that Jesus came to give his life for us so that we don't have to be perfect in ourselves and our relationships. So that I can have this loving relationship with my heavenly Daddy. When did I get so lost in the noise and the shopping and the running around without stopping to breathe? Jesus, even in this Advent season, I am reminded of how much I need your grace and new vision.

How can it already be December?

Sorry I haven't updated in a long time (thanks for the note, Steve :P). Now that I'm working fulltime, I've been finding it a little overwhelming to work, do Servant Partners, work with Northwest Neighbors, and cook, clean, sleep and all of those other necessarily life activities. I'm still figuring out how to fit everything into my day, and I can scarcely believe that it's already almost Christmas.
Work is going really well. I love my boss and the coworkers in my department, and it's a great work environment. I also carpool with my boss to work some of the time, and take the bus the rest of the time, so transportation isn't difficult. Even though I don't like folding and stuffing hundreds of letters, or making tons of photocopies, I'm enjoying learning how to use Raiser's Edge, a donor database program.
Last Friday night, I had a sleepover with the junior high girls from the Bible study I've been doing with the two other leaders. It was CRAZY, but lots of fun. :) Seven girls and three leaders, so not a bad ratio. There was lots of sugar consumption, games, hiphop and Latin dancing (the girls tried to teach me to dance merengue and I failed utterly!), sugar cookie baking, and movie watching. And of course, in the morning the girls woke us up by spraying whipped cream on us! ewww.
After pancakes and coffee (for the grownups), the Pasadena Servant Partners guys picked me up and we drove down to south L.A. for our "end of quarter" SP get-together with the second year interns and the internship staff. After eating lunch together, the second years displayed and explained the artwork that they had each made about their quarter, and the first years gave skits in teams about our experience in SP this quarter. I have to say, our Pasadena team had a wonderfully hilarious skit! :) There were some other things that took place too, including an excellent piece of spoken word, and all in all it was a good time, though I was pretty sleepy by the end.

A few firsts recently...
Accumulating eight paper cuts in two days of letter stuffing (sometimes I think this job will give me scars!)
Sitting in front of Tim Allen at one of the churches we visited and shaking his hand during the greeting time (I confess I did not know who this was when my roommate freaked out, and she had to whisper it to me)
Being the grown-up person who goes to bed "early" at a sleepover (aka 1 am)
Making a Christmas tree with my roommate by taping a bright gold streamer in the shape of a tree to a red cloth, and hanging it on our wall. :P
Decorating a homemade wreath together and putting it on our door (it looks much better than the Christmas tree!)

First paycheck!

My first paycheck came on Friday! :) It's a reassuring thing to know that I can pay rent for the next month! Before I received it, I had been thinking through my budget and asking Jesus how he wants me to use my income generously for his purposes and to provide healing and help and community for other people. Studying Jesus' words and actions in the book of Luke has been convicting me that if I have more resources than I need, it's unjust to hang onto them all for myself. And yet it's a funny thing that when I got my first paycheck and ran through my mind how to spend it, ME and my needs consumed pretty much all of it. Part of it is that I'm having to pay for everything I need now on a fairly slim budget, as my work is part-time and my savings are depleted, but I think that another part of it is that tendency to see our money and resources as ours for our benefit, not as resources that have been entrusted to us as part of a community and ultimately as belonging to God. It reminds me again that right living is much easier to conceive of theoretically and much harder for me to practice! Jesus, I need your grace!

Free lamp

I'm tired and have to wake up early tomorrow, but I wanted to let you all know that my first three days of work at the Red Cross have gone well. I really enjoy my coworkers and immediate boss so far, and the people really make it a pleasure to work there. I never really saw myself doing administrative work, but with my rapidly growing commitments to spending time with people through Servant Partners and Northwest Neighbors, I'm wondering if it might not be a bad thing to have a job right now that doesn't exhaust my people energy.

I also got to experience a different sort of first today--taking furniture that's been dumped on the street! My roommate and I saw a lamp in the pile, and we'd been thinking about getting another lamp because our living room has no central light and is pretty dark, so we thought, "hey, free lamp! Might as well at least plug it in and see what happens." This is all happening at 11 pm, as we get back to Pasadena from our Luke study in South L.A.. So we casually saunter over (my roomie was rather mortified), nab the lamp, and scurry back to our apartment. It leans a little bit, but it hasn't caught fire yet, and it's lovely and bright. :)

Employment :)

I finally have a job! It's a part-time administrative assistant position at the Red Cross. It doesn't have benefits, but it pays well, and in several months, a full-time position is supposed to open up that I can apply for if I like the job. It's not exactly what I was thinking when I started my job search at the beginning of October, but at this point I need SOME job! And I'm looking forward to getting experience inside a professional nonprofit. Wish me luck!

An economy of enough?

"When you think, 'How do I love my neighbor as myself?' it becomes just impossible to do that within the worldview of the American dream. But I think what's exciting is that Jesus has another dream, and Jesus is offering us [that] dream. Where it's not even just this ascetic simplicity--give up everything and be poor--but it's this idea that God created an economy of enough. God didn't create a world of scarcity. But we've created poverty and need by not living out this command to love our neighbors as ourselves." Shane Claiborne, in "Laying it Down: Learning to live with less in a culture of excess," in Relevant Magazine, May/June 07 issue.

I think sometimes in conversations about simplicity, at least early on in the learning process, which is where I'm at, poverty can become this exalted thing while wealth is condemned. So I want to clarify that I'm not trying to say that. From the tiny bit I know about poverty, it's not a wonderful and exciting state; it's marked by various issues such as hunger and food insecurity, job insecurity or unemployment, disease and lack of health insurance, lack of opportunity, etc. All of which is further complicated by abuse and oppression based on racism, sexism, and homophobia. No one should have to live in that kind of situation.

All too often, however, wealthy people (and Westerners often do this to people not from Europe or America) don't see beyond the physical needs to some of the other characteristics that can mark poverty-stricken communities. Poor followers of Jesus in other countries have immense things to teach the wealthy American church about what it means to follow God and actually trust Jesus with your life. The most generous people I have ever met, outside of family members, have largely been those with little economic wealth, but with large reservoirs of hospitality and generosity. We've got to work against our arrogance by putting ourselves into relationships with people in different economic situations and being willing to learn from them. I need help with my own arrogance and assumptions.

Moreover, if this world really was created with an economy of enough, than the fact that I have way more than I need to be provided for and even comfortable is in direct relation to the fact that fellow members of the human family do not. And that makes wealth very morally problematic to me. I must say I think the "trickle down" theory of wealth is enormously ineffective and brutal economically and morally as a solution. I'll be the first to admit I don't have the answers to exactly how to love my neighbor as myself or what to do with my wealth and education and opportunities. But I am compelled to keep asking the questions and muddling forward in a community of fellow muddlers after a different way of living.

Contradictions and Downward Mobility

Pasadena seems like a city of contradictions to me thus far. Driving through Old Town at night and seeing all of the dressed up folks out for a night on the town, and then crossing the freeway into my neighborhood, the differences in income status are clear to see. Yet even within Northwest Pasadena, I feel the contradictions. From my window I see a man poking through the bus stop trash can, looking for recyclables. If I walk west on Washington, one of the main streets running by my apartment, I'll pass by where one of the first shootings happened this summer. Two of the parks closest to my apartment are known hang-outs for gangs. Yet if I walk half a block north, I see huge wealthy houses with roses growing madly over the fences. Scott McKey, the director for Northwest Neighbors, came over to meet my roommate Diamante and I last night, as we will be tutoring and mentoring youth through their network, and he was explaining that in northwest Pasadena, there are pockets of poverty right next to wealthy streets and houses. I'm just beginning to realize that, and it's a bit disorienting.

I've been reading the Irresistible Revolution, and it's been giving me a lot to think about. Shane writes, "we bring folks like them [suburban evangelicals] here to learn the kingdom of God from the poor, and then send them out to tell the rich and powerful there is another way of life being born in the margins. For Jesus did not send out the rich and powerful in order to trickle down his kingdom. Rather, he joined those at the bottom, the outcasts and undesirables, and everyone was attracted to his love for people on the margins. (We know that we all are poor and lonely anyway, don't we?) Then he invited everyone into a journey of downward mobility to become the least."

The gospels back up his words (Jesus certainly talked to wealthy tax collectors and religious men, but when it came to who he spent the majority of his time with, it was not the well-to-do or socially important), and in theory I am drawn to these words, but when it comes to my life practically speaking, it becomes harder. Am I willing or wanting a journey of downward mobility to characterize my life? I don't mean making foolish decisions that pull me down into want and hardship, but a life that chooses to join in solidarity with the poor, to hoard little and give generously. What do I do with the fact that I would never have gone to such good schools, traveled to so many wonderful places, or graduated from Willamette U. if my immediate and extended family hadn't had a certain degree of wealth to give me those opportunities? Can I call myself a follower of Jesus if I hang onto my stuff instead of following his words to share with his body, the people of God? What does sharing in my context look like? Coming from a middle-class background, I feel like I have simplified some things in my life, but when I'm honest with myself to look at local and global economics, the disparity between what I still have and what fellow members of the human family have is so huge, it flattens me. So what role does grace play--and what role does repentance that leads to action play? I am not quite sure what all this really looks like to practice in my life, but Jesus certainly turns the American Dream upside down.

California Wildfires

Thanks to those of you who have expressed concerns about my safety during these wildfires that have been raging in Southern California. Pasadena has been completely safe so far, so no need to worry, although the sky has been a bit smoky. As I've been watching the news on the fires, I've noticed that quite a bit of attention has been given to the fires' effects on the homes of the rich and of celebrities, but I'd like to highlight a brief video clip passed on to me about another, more socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged group of people that the fires are affecting...illegal farmworkers.

Early Thanksgiving

As I was sitting here this morning working on job applications, since I am still unemployed, I just starting thinking about all of the things in my life recently that I have to be thankful for. I'm thankful that I hung onto my printer that jammed and frustrated me during college, because now I have the technology to print my job applications and resume myself. I'm thankful for the extravagance of a personal computer and home internet access, so that I can search for jobs and keep in touch with friends and family. I'm thankful for God's abundant provision in furnishing our apartment through all of the furniture that other people have given/loaned us for free, so that the only thing I had to purchase was a mattress. I'm thankful for family and college friends who call me and check up on me. In a similar way, the community of fellow Servant Partners interns has been one of the biggest blessings because I have peers who are passionate about similar values and issues to transition out of college with and to encourage and prod each other along the way. I could keep going, but perhaps I'll stop here and go finish my cup of coffee and work on applications. May your day be full of moments of thankfulness. :)

Our new home

My roommate Diamante (another Servant Partners intern) and I just moved into our apartment in Northwest Pasadena this last week, and we've been busy settling in. We are located right at the corner of two fairly main streets, so the traffic is a continual low hum outside--except for when people drive by blasting their radios, and then we have free music! We also hear sirens quite a bit because the fire station is located near by. Yet somehow, I don't think of my apartment as noisy. A bizarre tidbit--the apartment on one side of us, the house on the other side, and the complex across the street are all full of students at Fuller Theological Seminary. Not quite our expected neighbors! We were initially supposed to be living in an area a few blocks south, where Northwest Neighbors is located, as we will be working with that organization, but they couldn't find housing for us, so we are up here instead. It's still a low-income area, but with slightly different demographics. I'll hopefully be able to post more details after I've lived here a little longer.

At any rate, it's lovely to be settled in a place, and with all of our pictures and things unpacked, it's starting to feel homey. God is so good and provided abundantly for us: Dia had a little furniture but another person moved into a furnished apartment and so is lending us all of their furniture, and someone else lent us a bunk bed and mattress, and our apartment came with a fridge and stove. So now the only thing we still need is one more mattress! But it's ok, I'm using my sleeping bag for now. It's still strange to think about where I was three weeks ago and where I am now--my host Kulot's house in Manila is the size of the bathroom in my apartment. The disconnect in realities is so huge. Diamante and I are trying to figure out how to live more simply, for multiple reasons--as an act of solidarity with the poor, as a reminder to ourselves of the disparities in the world, and as a way of freeing more resources to put to better use--but they seem like such small actions. sigh.

Other than unpacking, we've been busy job-searching. Thankfully we finally got a phone line and internet today, which should help the job search. I used a laundromat for the first time the other day, and we've been running various random errands. It's also been fun to try our hands at cooking. Dia is from Texas, and her mom is white while her dad is culturally Cuban, so she's been making chalupas and southern sweet tea for me, and I'm cooking stir-fry and Thai curry for her. :) Yum!

Manila 3

Read my first and second posts on Manila before you read this one! :)

My emotional and spiritual journey...

My trip to India with InterVarsity’s Global Urban Trek last summer was really hard, and I was praying that God would have a different experience for me in Manila. And Manila was SO different! Not in the physical discomforts, like sweat, but the relationships I developed during my three weeks there were really what made all the difference. It’s hard to get to know people in such a brief amount of time, but that’s what we spent a lot of our time doing. Whenever we didn’t have a meeting or activity as a team or were taking our own quiet times, we would hang out on the tracks or in front of people’s houses and talk to them. It’s easy to meet people because so many people are unemployed or the mothers are home all day while the dad works, and many people hang out in front of their houses. Simply walking from my house to where we ate breakfast in the morning, I passed by at least three groups of people that I could later go back and sit down and chat with. Thankfully a lot of people spoke at least a little bit of English, so that helped in the bonding, but a big part of bonding was also making myself practice my tiny bit of Tagalog with everyone I met, and then asking them how to say more phrases and words as a way of making conversation and building relationships.

We also had the treat of home stays, where two-three of us were matched with a family or individual from the small Balic-Balic church. Twice a week we’d go hang out with them for a day, and then at night we’d return to where we were staying (there really isn’t extra room in the families’ houses for us to sleep there). My homestay was a 23 year old young woman named Kulot, who just graduated from college and is looking for a job. She lives in a tiny one room building just big enough for her bed, a chair, and a couple boxes of her things. The roof leaks when it rains, so she’s got her diploma, school papers, and documents for job applications in a plastic folder so they won’t get wet. It was so much fun to interact with another woman in the same stage of life as I am—only with very different family circumstances and choices in life. She has an awesome laugh and taught us praise songs in Tagalog. :)

I was also blessed to have my small group led by a Filipino Christian woman from Balic-Balic named Ate Cora (Aunt Cora). Right from the start, she told us that she felt like a mother to us, responsible for taking care of us, so our small group called her Ina Cora (mother Cora). Ina Cora taught us Tagalog, smashed cockroaches for the girls on our team who panicked at the sight of them, fixed the water in our house as it stopped working about every other day, shared her wisdom and spiritual insights with us (her favorite Bible verse: Proverbs 30:7-9), and continuously poured out an extraordinary amount of love, patience, compassion, and gentleness on us as we blundered around in her community. She is truly one of the clearest representations of Jesus and his love that I have ever encountered in a person.

Building relationships with actual people among the urban poor was foundational to my learning journey in Manila in several ways. First of all, these friendships gave me the emotional sustenance to keep pressing on when it began to get hard and tiring. Secondly, these relationships gave me access to discovering the actual problems facing my friends in this community, and the oppression that they were experiencing. If I didn’t know my friend Kulot, I would never have seen the list that she pulled out for me of the job requirements for one of the jobs that she was trying to apply for—an extensive list including many documents that each required a separate trip around town, a fee, and a waiting period. I wouldn’t have thought about the fact that she doesn’t even have money to eat right now, but she has to borrow money from her sister to pay for the public transportation and fees for these documents so that she can even apply for a job, much less know if she will be employed there. I wouldn’t have known that jobs there have height and weight requirements—that an employer can turn you down just because they think you are too short. I wouldn’t have heard stories of police officers that come into the community and arrest innocent people because they assume that everyone who lives here is a criminal—and then when their families can’t pay bail, the officers force those whom they’ve picked up to go steal an expensive cell phone for the officers in order to secure their release.

My experiences in Manila really grew my understanding of why it is valuable for anyone who wants to work for change in a community or in their society to develop relationships with the people experiencing oppression in that community or society, so that you really have a window into the injustices that are occurring. You aren’t sitting on the outside deciding what is wrong, but you are talking to people who are suffering and hearing their stories of what is happening. I wish that as middle-class American Christians, we would change our mindset about justice and righteousness to include not just chilling on the outside, but building these kinds of relationships, whether that means moving into a different community, or whether that simply means living where you already are but getting connected to a homeless or low-income individual or family and becoming friends with them and learning from them.. I don’t know what all this could look like, but it seems like us middle-class people would be way more effective and motivated in working for justice if we would develop these kinds of connections and relationships.

In addition to giving me emotional strength and teaching me about the oppression taking place in the community, the relationships I developed in Balic-Balic were a pivotal part of God’s convicting me about my own role in the oppression my new friends experience. Our intern class studied the book of Amos together and poured over the connections between the ways the people of Israel abandoned God and abused the poor and needy, and God’s just fury at their injustice, and the ways that we saw many of the same things in America. Amos really hit home when I was reflecting on how my choices on how and where to spend “my” money, my choice to advocate or remain uninformed on various issues, my political decisions, and all of these choices had direct implications for why my beautiful friend Kulot can be so hardworking and diligent and smart and loving—and yet be living in a squatter community in a tiny house the size of my bathroom in the States, where the roof leaks when it rains, there’s rats, she’s struggling to find employment, and all she has to eat most days is rice with maybe a little sauce or salt on top. It makes me sick. And I think that my budding friendship with her is one of the reasons that it’s so painful to seriously consider my role in this whole global picture—when I was sitting in her house in Balic-Balic, it was impossible to deny her reality, or to say that as a fellow follower of Jesus that her reality doesn’t need to make any difference in how I live my life. How can I say that she is my friend if I don’t care about her and her life? And is my pursuit of God actually glorifying to him when I am deeply implicated in oppressing other people? I know that none of us in America can completely break free of the oppressive effects of our actions and our country’s actions, no matter how hard we try, but I sure feel like I have a lot of growth to do in that area to get my lifestyle in sync with the justice that Jesus talked about.

Shopping with Ina Cora was also a moment of realization for me—she took us to the mall for our Sabbath day to give the foreigners a break in the air con, and although we each had some spending money with us, walking around with her by my side, it was as if I had a completely different set of glasses to see what I would spend my money on and whether I really actually needed or wanted that item. If she was keeping me company every time I went shopping in America, I think that my consumption patterns would definitely change, not out of condemnation from her, but because when I would look at her patiently walking around with us, even though she couldn’t never afford to buy anything there, and knowing that her beautiful family often can’t even eat three meals a day, where I care about putting my money really changed.

Even as I was convicted about my own oppressive role, God also used relationships there to demonstrate his crazy abundant love for me at the same time. What a contrast! The day when I was reflecting the most on how my lifestyle hurts people like Ina Cora, she insisted on giving me a pedicure. I don’t know about Americans, but having grown up in Thailand, feet are the lowest and dirtiest part of the body, and it’s very emotionally deep for me to have someone willingly touch my feet for something like that. As she was gently cleaning my toes and painting them, I was all choked up and speechless. It was a picture moment to me of how God loves me—that even though I don’t deserve it, God’s love is overwhelmingly abundant and overflowing and excessive, and that his love and forgiveness doesn’t depend on my deserving it or not.

Finally (yes, I promise this is the end! congrats for making it this far!), relationships brought up the question of hope. As I learned through relationships about the oppression taking place, and was convicted about my own brokenness, it was clear to me that neither the systems nor myself had what it would take to bring healing and wholeness. At times I felt overwhelmed by the immensity of brokenness in the community and in our world community (and this is just in three weeks!). The Christians in Balic-Balic put their hope in Jesus—let me tell you, it is profound to hear someone who doesn’t have enough to eat each day tell you with full conviction that God is good. I want to have faith like that; I want to be able to look back at my life and the ways in which God has come through in my desperation and be able to say that as well. When Ina Cora says that God is good and that he loves his children, she really means it. And she’s not saying it because it’s the comfortable thing to say. If we as people and the systems in this world are broken, Jesus has to be our hope, because only his power is big enough to change us and for us to draw upon to change the systems. But I don’t think I understand this at this point. I am still asking if there is hope. And if there is, where it comes from. I think that this will continue to be a significant question as I enter into these next two years in northwest Pasadena.

Manila 2

How do I describe Balic-Balic? A brief sensory portrayal...

Sights of garbage covering the tracks and choking the canal, the black and rotting teeth of these little kids hugging me, smiles on strangers’ faces as they say hi, little kids’ bare feet running over the train tracks and the trash and broken glass, watching the community come outside their houses in the evenings and chat on the railroad tracks while the little kids play, small rats running up the walls of my homestay’s tiny room

Sounds of train horn, thud thud thud as the trains thunder by our house, “magandang umaga”—learning to say good morning in Tagalog, my new friend Kulot laughing as I try to pronounce words she’s teaching me, the satisfying smack! of smashing a cockroach with my flipflop, the glorious music and singing of worship songs in Tagalog and English, clap clap of little kids playing hand games, soft sound of guitar as Scott (SP teammate) plays during our reflection times

Touch of cold water cooling me off during each bucket shower, hot fried bananas burning my fingers, sweat dripping down my back, little kids’ hugs, uncomfortable plastic chairs during our meetings, whispers of wind as the fan blows in the heat, sleeping on a mattress on the floor

Smell of rotting garbage, clean laundry, choking in the pollution as we sit in public transportation, delicious smells wafting at lunch time, the scent of rain

Taste of pan de sal—hot bread buns for breakfast every day, Ate Emma’s delicious Filipino cooking, sticky sweet mangos, banana chips, prawn chips (oh yes, Mom, they have them in Manila too!!), the treat of peanut butter on our pan de sal, the cheap rice and soy sauce we ate to understand what our new friends often only have to eat when there’s not enough money for food

Manila --background

It’s been hard to figure out what to post on Manila, so please forgive me for taking so long. I have so much I wish that I could tell you and show you, but hopefully this will give you at least a small taste of my three weeks in Balic-Balic. I’ll break it up into three sections, so you don’t have to read all my extroverting in one sitting if you don’t want to!

A little background...

So Balic-Balic is an informal squatter community located along the railroad tracks in Manila, Philippians. With so many people moving to Manila for work, and an extremely tight housing market (something like 70% of residents in Manila rent housing because there aren’t enough places to buy), many many informal communities have sprung up around the outskirts of Manila and in the cracks and free spaces in the city. Balic-Balic, for instance, is built on the strip of land on each side of the railway tracks that run through the city. Although the settlement is illegal, the people who move in are either buying their tiny “houses” or paying rent to someone to live there.

As the train company will be working on the tracks, the government is in the process of evicting all of the residents of Balic-Balic and demolishing their houses. The stretch of land where we stayed is the only community on the tracks that hasn’t been demolished yet. So folks that have grown up here their whole lives are about to lose their homes, their social community, and access to the schools their kids are going to. The government did build several sites of houses outside Manila and residents can sign up to move there and gradually over time pay off the price of the house so that they can legally own their residence, which is a good and just idea. Unfortunately, it isn’t working out so well—the settlements are too far outside Manila to be able to live there and work in Manila, so some folks are moving their families there and then the men will return to live and work in Manila during the week; the houses are not super high quality; and this program is only open to those residents of Balic-Balic which are on the census, which is only about 50%, so half of the people living in this community are not considered eligible for any government assistance whatsoever.

Our intern team stayed in a couple houses in the community right by where the Servant Partners missionary couple in the area is living, right at the intersection of the train tracks and a canal that runs through the community. The place I stayed with four other woman was right on the tracks; the trains whooshed by only feet from our doorway many times a day, blocking out all light in our house when they were speeding past. Thankfully all of the community pitched in to keep us safe, warning “Train! Train!” when one was approaching, and making sure that we got off the tracks.

Off to Manila

I leave for Manila, Philippines tonight with the rest of my team. We are going to spend three weeks in Balic-Balic, a squatter community in Manila. I'm really excited for the homestay, and looking forward to developing relationships with my host family. Servant Partners keeps reminding us to remember four roles as we enter into this new cultural/economic situation: learner, servant, friend, and intercessor (ie someone who prays for what's happening the community). Balic-Balic is also currently undergoing demolition by the Manila authorities, as it is located along a railroad track where the government wants to do more work or expand it or something. It's a sobering reminder that the families who will be welcoming us into their homes may well be homeless in a short period of time, and unlike our team, they don't have a plane to get on to take them to another home.
I don't know if I'll be able to update while I am in Manila or not, but I return on the 26th of Sept, so I'll try to post after that point.

Into the whirlwind

My first few days of Servant Partners have been a whirlwind--good, but I can hardly catch my breath. Friday night (the 31st) was our first get-together as a class at Kevin Blue's house (the director of the SP internship), so we had a barbeque, socialized for a while, and then gathered for more specific details about the internship, like safety requirements and things like that.

Saturday we did intensive manuscript study of the first part of Nehemiah all day. For those who don't know what that is, manuscript study usually involves studying a portion of the Bible printed out onto paper so that you can write all over it (repetitions, questions you have, observations, etc), and you usually suppliment your intensive study and discussion of the actual passage with other resources such as Bible dictionaries, concordances, atlases, and other texts which help you better understand the context, or word meanings, or whatever else you are trying to find out about the text. I have loved our study of Nehemiah so far! It's so interesting to consider the strategies with which he pioneered the project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, as well as looking at his relationship to God, and I'm struck by all of the possible parallels to our future in a neighborhood in northwest Pasadena. The one downer is that it has been HOT!!! We study in Kevin's garage (converted into a room) so it is quite hot plus the air is still (ick). This makes it hard to concentrate on more Nehemiah in the afternoon after lunch!

This evening we studied more Nehemiah, but thankfully the earlier part of the day was different--all the second year interns took us to the beach (yay!) and we enjoyed lots of sunshine, good food, games and ocean water to cool us off. I learned how to dive into a breaking wave to avoid being smushed! The ocean was so much fun to play in after four years of going to beautiful but very cold Oregon beaches. Today was also a good opportunity to bond more as an intern class as well as with the second years. My class has 16 people--8 men and 8 women. This is a beautiful thing! The last couple years each class had only had a couple men in it, and so the SP staff were praying a lot for men, and thank God men came! I think that it's really healthy and fun when there's a good balance between the genders and you can have both as friends.
I'm staying up in Pasadena with the second year interns here, so every night it's about a 40 minute drive from south L.A. up to their apartment. We end at Kevin's at about 10:30 pm, so it's late by the time I get here, and so far I've gotten to bed between midnight and 2 am each night. In the morning I carpool down with two of the Pasadena first year guys, leaving here about 8:20 am so we can get there by 9.

Last night we had our first adventure in Pasadena--Ben, Kevin and I were driving along Washington St (fairly main street for NW Pasadena) back home after our evening session and a back tire blew out. We tried driving on the rim, but this sounded so painful for the car that we just found the nearest place to pull over and park. Kevin still had half of the stuff that he moved down to Pasadena with in the car, so we had to unload all this onto the sidewalk so that we could get at the spare...and then it took a bit to figure out how this particular jack worked...and then to do the labor of changing it. Mind you, this is not a good street to be stranded on at midnight on a Saturday night! So we prayed for protection and changed the tire (well, Kevin did most of it and I watched and learned and held an open cell phone when we needed light), and thank God no one came along to bother us and we got it changed and all drove off safely.

Unfortunately, the guys had a second unpleasant surprise this morning when they were woken up by gunshots. In a house just a few houses down from the apartment they were sleeping in, one person died this morning and one was stabbed. They had to walk out of the street since it was all cordoned off with police tape. The guys are understandably experiencing a little bit of anxiety because of this event, but it's also heart-breaking to think about the victims and their families and friends. This particular incident is looking like domestic violence (http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_6789387), but it's in the midst of a spike in violence in this area. Apparently there have been a number of shootings in northwest Pasadena in recent months (for those of you who aren't familiar with the area, the northwest section has very different demographics and community dynamics than "Old Town" or the wealthier neighborhoods here) . I didn't know this before, but there is actually a "season" for this sort of thing; it's during the summer months when it's hot and more people are outside and wandering around at night. Isn't that tragic??!! How would you feel if your community had a season every year when people started dying? I was told that a lot of this current violence stems from conflict between Latino and African American gang members, particularly with the present nationwide debate about immigration, and perceptions (I have no idea if they are true or not) that African Americans are losing jobs to Latinos. It's sad not only that these gang youth are dying, but also that innocent people are being caught in crossfire as well. So anyways, we prayed for the guys and we also prayed for the victims and their families. If those of you who are praying folk could pray for those families as well, I'd really appreciate it. I confess that it still seems a bit distant to me, though the part that struck me the most was when we drove by the house tonight and there was a cross made out of candles that someone or multiple people had created on the sidewalk outside the house. I can still see the little lights flickering in the darkness.

I'm not posting this to scare anyone (Mom and Dad, I'm quite a number of streets away from where it happened, this neighborhood has apparently been much quieter on that front) and I hope no one now thinks I'm crazy for moving down here (or maybe you do and you love me anyway). For me, it's more of a sobering reminder that there are a massive number of people in L.A. and in the world who are living in settings with suffering like this, and that I have the choice to enter into this community here, a choice that not everyone has. And while I confess that part of me is a bit scared and intimidated, a larger part of me is wondering what it means to walk with people who are suffering, and who are oppressed--and also who have a lot of beauty and gifts and potential. I'm not very far along my own faith journey and I still have so much to learn, but from where I'm looking now, I can't seem to reconcile the way that Jesus lived and the way he taught his followers to live with a lifestyle that involves rejecting risk, or disengaging from hard realities, or choosing comfort in the times that means backing away from potentially uncomfortable but transformative relationships or situations. Jesus took his followers through places of risk, of discomfort, of crossing barriers that they had previously had between ethnic groups and economic classes--but he also demonstrated companionship in going into those risks as well as the power to bring real renewal and healing. The only reason that I have hope choosing to live and invest in northwest Pasadena is not because I think that I am going to save the city or stop the shootings in my own power, but because I have at least a smidgen of trust that God longs for restoration, and that he longs to work with people who follow him to bring restoration to people and places, and that in God, restoration is really, actually possible. I have no idea what this looks like, but I am choosing to go on the journey.

And the adventure begins...

I start driving down to Pasadena with my dad and sister in about six hours. Wow. The next few weeks are going to fly by. My dad and sister will drop my stuff in storage in Pasadena after we arrive there on the 30th, and I'll be staying in someone else's place since my roommate and I don't have an apartment yet. Orientation starts on the 31st of August, I'll be job hunting in any free time that I have in that period, and then we leave for our 20 day trip to Manila, Philippines on the 6th of September. Why are we going to Manila? Part of the goal of the trip is to give intern participants a first (or additional) look at what poverty looks like outside of America. We get to interact with a couple who work for Servant Partners and live within a slum community in Manila, which will help to develop our vision for possibilities of what living and working among the poor could look like. Personally, I'm excited about the trip for several reasons. First of all, I love traveling to new places, and the Philippians is especially special to me because one of my good friends grew up there (although not in Manila). I'm excited to experience a small piece of her past. Secondly, my experience in Calcutta, India with InterVarsity's Global Urban Trek was really challenging and hard, and I feel like at points I shut down into survival mode and didn't always respond to what was happening as I would have liked in retrospect. I'm hoping for another chance to respond differently to the people and situations I'll encounter in Manila. If you are a praying person, please pray that our team will have a safe trip and be open to learning, especially learning how to give and receive love within the community of urban poor we'll be interacting with in Manila. Please also pray that these next few weeks will be a solid time of relationship building and friendship development among our intern class. Thanks! I'm not sure how regularly I'll be able to post for the next few weeks, but I shall when I can.

Rest

This last week at home has been really stressful for me. With my family moving back into my grandparents' house from Thailand, the house (including the room my sister and I share) is so full of stuff that there's practically no place to unpack anything to. My boxes from Salem haven't yet been unpacked because there's no room to put anything except on my bed! So I haven't packed for Pasadena yet, I'm studying for the GRE and taking it this Tuesday, and I have been feeling a little lost and panicky about not having a job or even an inkling of a job for this fall. Add onto that the crunch of limited time to spend with my family and the general sense of loss and uncertainty that comes with most transitions, and I was feeling a little overwhelmed earlier this week.
And then I went backpacking overnight with my friend Cate. :) We hiked up into Jefferson Park and camped in an absolutely beautiful part of the woods with a view of Mt. Jefferson. I loved chatting with Cate, squishing my toes in the mud, splashing on the edge of what felt like our own private lake, and just sitting and listening to the silence. I think it was the first time in several weeks that I felt thoroughly and overwhelmingly happy. Thank God for good friends who take you adventuring, for mountain meadows and forests to quiet your soul, and for family to come home to. :)

Queen of the Spatula Killers

Poor spatulas. The last couple days have seen some tragic plastic cookware deaths at my hands. The first time it happened, I was cooking a hamburger on the gas stove in our apartment, using my roomie Amanda's hefty, solid spatula. The burger was cooking slowly, so I put the spatula down and went over to the other side of the room to do something else. I was jolted a few minutes later by the sound of the smoke alarm going off, and as I ran back to the stove through the clouds of smoke filling our apartment, the first thing I saw was that the plastic spatula was on fire! As I grabbed the flaming spatula and doused it under the sink, I saw that the top half of the plastic end was gone. Whirling back to the stove and turning the gas off, I suddenly noticed the other half of the spatula top beginning to solidify onto the edge of the pan. I managed to pry most of it off, but there's still a little bit of plastic stuck permanently onto the pan.
You would think that this would teach me to watch my spatulas at all times while cooking, but unfortunately that lesson didn't save me from maiming another spatula, this time at my grandparents' house. I was frying up falafel balls, and I needed something to turn them over with, so I was using a wooden spoon and a plastic spatula together to do the job. There was a small amount of white stuff floating at one end of the pan, which thoroughly confused me, so I poked at it with the spatula. More white stuff floated off, this time from the end of the spatula, and as I lifted the spatula up, I was horrified to find that the end of it was melting off into the oil in the pan! I ran it under water right away, but while this re-solidified the end, it also thoroughly embedded black bits of gunk into it. So...I'm beginning to think that I should never cook with plastic implements, lest my bad luck continue. I'm cooking dinner again tomorrow night, so we'll see what happens! :)

Even though I spent my summer at Willamette, such a familiar place, there have been so many things that happened, both good and bad, that I didn't expect coming into the summer. I didn't expect the amount of time that I'd spend working outside of regular work hours. I didn't expect to get through so few of the books on my to-read list. I didn't expect to go to a drive-in movie for the first time, or the changes that took places in friendships, or a surprise party, or the crazy fun festivals in Salem over the summer. I've got such mixed feelings as my time here in Salem is quickly coming to an end and I look back over this summer and these last four years. Mostly I think I'm in denial about the transition. How does one grieve well? not staying so wrapped up in the past that one can't engage with new people and places, but also allowing time to work through emotions of transition and not burying them to cause problems later. Despite all of the moving in my life, I still have not figured this one out.

Intro

Welcome to my blog! Some of you have journeyed with me on a different blog in the past, some of you are new to my blogging. As I just graduated from college in May and I'm preparing to head down to the L.A. region for two years for an internship with Servant Partners, I wanted to start a new blog for the journey. This blog is designed so that you can comment on what I post, so please feel free to do so!
Having grown up in Thailand and gone to school in Oregon, why on earth am I going down to L.A.? Well, over the last four years with my involvement with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, I have been learning more about what the God of the Bible says about poverty, and I've become increasingly convinced that I can't pretend to be a follower of Jesus if I'm not seriously willing to consider what he says about having compassion on and becoming advocates for the poor and oppressed. I definitely have not figured out what this means for me yet by a long shot; but I know that I am feeling compelled to learn more. I chose into this internship as the next step after college because I want to be in a community of people who are asking these same kinds of questions and who have been on this path a little bit longer than I have, and who therefore can help guide me. I also hope to develop genuine relationships with people in poverty who can invite me into their lives and teach me.
Details about the internship: well, I confess that right now a lot of it is unknown! I do know that orientation starts at the end of August. Throughout the next two years, I will be living with another intern (there are 16 of us new interns) in an apartment in a low income area; working fulltime at another job (to pay the rent and food bill!); getting to know my neighbors and the issues they face; getting together with the other interns to study issues of poverty as well as what the Bible has to say about poverty, oppression, and wealth; volunteering, carrying out projects, getting involved with a local church, and more. Basically, I don't know what all I'm going to be doing, but it's going to be busy! In the fall at the beginning of our internship, we are also going to be heading to an urban slum community in Manila, Philippines for two weeks.
Right now I'm still in Oregon, finishing up my job for the summer. I'm also fund-raising (since I have to raise $4000 for this internship) and looking for a full-time job with benefits down in L.A.. My family returns to the States from Thailand in a little more than a week, and I am so excited to see them. :) This summer has been a wonderful time of enjoying deep conversations and silly moments with friends, and I can hardly believe it's almost over.