Reminders of Manila

For those who were tracking my journey back when my internship kicked off with several weeks in Manila, here's a recent blog post on The Margins from a conversation with Aaron Smith. Aaron and his Filipino wife Ema are the infinitely patient Servant Partners staff who guided our team during our stay in the Balic Balic squatter community. They were recently in the States for a couple weeks and we had the privilege of seeing Aaron again over at Kevin Blue's house, even if it was but briefly.

Depression and Inner City Youth

One of my fellow interns living in South L.A. sent out this article about depression rates among South L.A. high school students. One of the reasons I found this article really interesting was hearing the voices of students saying that they felt discouraged and set up to fail by low expections within the school system. I also was struck by how many students, when asked why they skipped school, cited answers that hinted at clinical depression. Perhaps before those of us who are outside the situation criticize inner city youth for not caring or their families for failing to infuse them with "proper" work ethic, we should consider our own part in contributing to or fighting the status quo of a society in which students in certain areas are struggling to push through every day dealing with abnormally high rates of (likely) clinical depression.

**Ooops. Click on this link and it should download a Word document with the LA Times article to your computer.***

Fire Season's Started

When my roommate and I found an injured bird in our backyard yesterday and called the Humane Society, they said that it might take a little while for them to send someone out because they were dealing with the fires in Arcadia. But I didn't really realize what was happening until I arrived at work at the Red Cross on Monday and discovered that my boss had flown back early from her weekend visit with her sister in Colorado in order to manage P.R. and work the shelters the Red Cross had set up. My other coworker is busy working the phones this morning. Yes, So. Cal fire season has officially started in our area. It's going to be a busy week here at the Red Cross, considering it was already going to be hectic before any fires broke out! For more information on the Arcadia and Sierra Madre fires, click here.

California ESL test

This is a useful site where you can check out how California students learning English as a Second Language are scoring on the state English proficiency test for ESL learners. You can look at results all the way down to the individual schools in your district; for example, I found it really interesting to check out the schools to which the Northwest Neighbors girls go.

Beautiful moments, disappointing moments

Last night was one of the best and worst times with the junior high girls I've had yet. If you want to hear about the crazy things that God did at the end of our study, email me or call me and I'd love to share! I'm in awe of the way God answers our prayers, but I don't want to freak anyone out, so yes, let me know separately if you want to hear about it. Suffice to say, it was cool!

On the worst side, as I was driving a couple of the girls home after they'd spent an extra 1 1/2 hours after Bible study at their friend's house, they told me that they had lied to me about having called their parents for permission and that they felt terrible about not being honest with me. This was distressing, particularly because I felt like now I'd broken trust with their parents because they thought I was the one keeping the girls out so late. I said: "thank you for telling me the truth. I really appreciate it. But I'm really disappointed that you would do that." Then I explained that if they did that, then their parents wouldn't trust me and then we couldn't hang out any more or go places like the overnight retreat we have coming up. I asked if they'd tell their parents the truth about what happened and they said no. To which I didn't really know what to do. I finally said, "well I can't make you tell the truth, but honesty is always the best way to go." Lame, I know. It was a rather silent car ride. As I dropped them off, I told them to at least apologize to their parents for me for getting home so late, and that I don't mind driving them home in the future but that their parents absolutely have to know where they are. I thought afterwards that perhaps I should have walked them into their houses and made them explain the truth to their parents in Spanish, but I didn't think of it at the time.

The whole drive home I agonized over how strict I should have been and how I'd responded to the situation. I didn't want to freak out on the girls because I appreciated that they'd confessed the lie on their own. But I also know it's important for their own growth and development to have boundaries and consequences to bump up against. And I think sometimes I err too much on grace and not enough on consequences. I'd appreciate any wise thoughts on pre-teens, lying, or consequences from any of you who work with youth or have raised kids of your own!

A Strange Phone Conversation

The funniest thing happened to me this evening. I was washing the dishes when the phone rang with someone asking me if I had a few minutes to take a survey. Normally I say no to this sort of thing, but he was so soft-spoken and nice about it that I consented. The survey mostly proceeded as normal, with him asking questions about my use of the yellow pages and me answering. However, his computer was really slow, so to fill the time while it was thinking, he'd ask me random other questions. Some of them were ordinary, like "so, what do you do for fun?" But then some of them were a little weird to be asking a complete stranger over the phone, like "when you are out, say at a bar, what are the first three things you notice about a guy who approaches you?", or "so if someone played a song for you, what song would it be?" Truth be told, it made me a little uncomfortable, as if I was indirectly being hit on over the phone. I started thinking over the survey questions I'd answered, trying to figure out if there was any way I had given out my exact location or identity (there wasn't and he was obviously not from California). I don't think he was trying to be awkward; I think he just doesn't have a good sense of what questions you should ask strange women when you are killing time during a professional survey!! Anyways, I had to laugh about it after I hung up, so I thought I'd share the sillyness.

Homeless legal resource

If anyone regularly interacts with homeless folks, or is personally interested in learning about various legal issues as related to the homeless, here's a resource I just found out about.
This is what the blog owner says:
"I'm a full-time law librarian and a part-time lawyer representing the homeless. I've started a blog at http://www.homelesslaw.info/ to provide basic legal research leads for independent homeless legal researchers (i.e. homeless people who have to do their own legal research in libraries because they might not otherwise know their rights). The blog is formatted as a series of questions and answers that might arise in a day in the life of a homeless person."
Check it out!

Food for Thought Catering

One of the second year Servant Partners interns has co-created this really cool justice and youth development centered catering company: Food for Thought Catering.

Check it out, and if you know anyone who orders catering in the L.A. area, particularly in Pasadena and the East side, pass this on! :)

More links

A couple of interesting articles I ran across, both originally from the Los Angeles Times.

One is on intergenerational care centers.

The other is a doctor's thoughts on homelessness and its social and medical costs to both homeless individuals and to the wider society. This is the quote that struck me the most:

"If a disease emerged that struck hundreds of thousands of people and killed its victims at an average age of 48, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would jump to attention and commit enormous resources to curing it. The National Institutes of Health would grant millions of dollars for research. Scientists who developed effective treatments would rightly be celebrated.

A disease like this does exist: homelessness. Its cure is widely available and even cost-saving. Studies show that one homeless person can cost a community hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in medical and legal expenses."

Reflections on the Job Search

It was hard to get out of bed today. Not because of sleep deprivation, but the thought of facing another day of job hunting and being without a permanent job felt so discouraging that I wanted to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep for a month or so until I could wake up with a job. I lay there and tried to think about things to motivate me to face the day. Pecan granola cereal. Dinner with the Pasadena guys tonight. Jesus, please be my joy, I kept thinking. Please be my joy.

Friday a week ago I was really discouraged by the job hunt. I'd been complaining about it a lot that week, and it wasn't a helpful external processing, but rather a general bitter complaining that left me feeling like somehow I was dishonoring God in the way I was talking about it, but I continued anyway. After I got off work at 1:30 pm on Friday, I got off the bus in Old Town and stopped in at a church I'd seen that had a sign outside saying that it was open for prayer. The old building was quiet inside, and I slipped into one of the pews and put my head on my hands.

I was angry and frustrated. Angry at God that he was supposed to be my provider and that I still didn't have a job. Frustrated and feeling guilty with myself for not putting enough effort and time into applying or pursuing leads--feeling like if I'd just achieve a certain level of diligence in the job search, I'd get a job, and that since I didn't have a job yet, clearly I wasn't working hard enough. I was confused whether to blame God, blame myself or both. And I felt guilty for blaming God when I knew I had abundant signs of his faithfulness and provision--like the temp job I have now where my boss and coworkers are amazing and are willing to keep me on while I search and also let me have all the time off I need for interviews and the like. All I could do was sit there in that pew and cry out to God all of my frustration and fear and hurt.

I didn't see any shining lights come down from heaven, but as I was sitting there, a couple passages in the book of Luke that we had recently studied together as an intern class came to mind, so I pulled my Bible out and found them. The first was Luke 11:9-13, where Jesus talks about how if you ask, you will receive, and how if human parents know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more so does God the Father. The second passage was Luke 12: 22-34. "Then Jesus said to his disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!...your Father knows that you need [these things]. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.'"

As I read, what stood out to me more than anything else was how I have trouble trusting God. Trouble believing that I will experience God's gifts to me as good. Trouble believing that God will provide to me what I perceive I need. Trouble trusting, I suppose, in the the goodness and faithfulness of God. I read those promises of Jesus wondering if I really believed in them, if I could claim them in faith in my prayers. I left the church knowing that God had heard me and revealed those things in my heart to me, but still wrestling with all of the emotional baggage I'd brought in.

The next morning, I opened the Bible to the book of Psalms, which I've been reading over breakfast, and my eyes fell on Psalm 16 (italics mine):

Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing."
I say of the godly who are in the land, "They are the noble people in whom is all my delight."
Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour our their sacrifices of blood or take up their names on my lips.
Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundaries lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Do I believe that the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places? That apart from God I have no good thing, but with God he makes known to me the path of life?

Faith. Hope. Joy. Come, Lord Jesus come, I am desperate for you.