Camden, NJ (aka "The Most Dangerous City in the US")

I live in a row house. In "the thick" of it. I paint buildings. I fall asleep to screeching tires, pounding bass, shouting voices and barking dogs. I pick dirty needles, syringes, and empty drug bags off the streets and out of the parks. I am told by the cops that we're wasting our time; that park we cleaned up on the corner? It will be trashed by next week.

"You're in a warzone."

Yes. Yes I am.

But I'm planting flowers in this warzone. I'm playing in open fire-hydrants with kids and painting buildings bright colors in this warzone. I'm sitting on my third story roof talking to my neighbor across the ally about this city, the one he has grown up and lived in for 30 years, about respect, about purpose and hope.

We're a bunch of white, middle-class kids naive enough to look Camden in the eyes and say "You know what? Say what you like, we're going to believe in this city. Whether you want help or not, we're here to help."

As for what's happening within me right now..

I feel what I felt in Ghana. At home.

I am shaken but at peace.

I am dumbfounded, shocked, but resting in this place of certainty. For the first time in months I know I'm where I need to be. I need to be in Camden, NJ. I need to live here. To live in a suburb and drive in to "fix" this place would be hypocritical. What I've learned of Camden and what I've fallen in love with here is from what I've experienced by living here. It's the things I see from the roof, the eyes I make contact with on the streets, the bodies I see wrapped on benches as I run the streets early in the morning. Once again I am having one of the richest experiences of my life amongst the poorest people in the most oppressed places I've ever been. This is what I want to do - to live amongst the poor and the needy.. to devote myself to making small differences in places no one else cares(or dares) to go.

I have yet to feel "in danger".

There's so much more I could/should write, but my Internet time is coming to a close and really, it would take a long time to write out everything I'm experiencing here. Every day I'm learning and realizing something new, from the state of my heart to the state of the world... and even some about how this heart fits into this world.

recent read:

"The Irrisistable Revolution" by Shane Claiborne. Read it.

Waiting For the Rain

I'm going to cheat a bit and copy parts out of an email I sent a dear friend...

Round II:

Sometimes I really can't believe this thing called life. There are days when the external, the tangible, the natural seem so real, so alive, so pressing. And then there are the times when this all seems but a dream, a dream directed by or in spite of all that exists within me.

My insides have melted into this AmeriLife, finally. I love it here in Louisiana. I love the hot air. I love the way the rains come so suddenly out of the blue sky, flooding the streets without anywhere to flow. I love falling onto my mattress at night in a cluttered one room trailer filled to its max with bunks. I love tying chicken necks to strings, tossing them into the water, and catching big blue crabs crabs crabs. I love driving the government van up and down 210.

I love building houses.

I haven't been able to run (something funky is going on with one of my knees) and in a way I think that's been really good for me. It's made me slow down, breathe, chill out. I don't need to run away from anything. It's okay to be in something you can't get out of. I don't have to feel stuck. Finally easing into this understanding has so significantly changed my experience here. I'm okay.

I really love my team. I really, really love them. This is the first time I've really been able to say that. They're rediculous, extreme, insane (truly) at times. But they're wonderful, and these ten months of my life would not be what they are without every single one of them. I've never lived SO closely with this many people before. I never imagined I would like it as much as I do.

"Plan"

Get my loans paid off by June 2011. Drive out to California to Bethel's School of Worship. I cannot shake the need to be in the presence of God... deep in the heart of the Spirit. There's a lot that frustrates me about the "christian world", but I cannot shake my affection for Jesus Christ... hah! I cannot shake him! And I don't want to. I want to love him more and more and more.. the real Jesus.. the one I know... the one I love..

I'm tired of stuff. It's been building in me for a couple years now, this weariness with all the stuff. Stuff everywhere. All kinds of stuff. Churches full of stuff. Land full of stuff. Closets, barns and buildings full of stuff.

Sometimes I feel beautiful in men's pants and sweat-soaked t-shirts.

Imagine that.

Lake Charles, LA

It's at least 90Degrees and HUMID HUMID HUMID every day here in Lake Charles but after the initial shock of ceaseless sweating, I've grown to like the heat. It reminds me of Ghana. Especially in the morning.

Building houses for hurricane victims is something I never had on my "dreams" list, but I really love it. I enjoy construction far more than the seemingly destructive tasks of parts of our last project. The men we work with are truly incredible- patient, kind, hard-working, loving, skilled.

How to delve into all that's been happening with me..

I've settled into being here (THE PROGRAM.. if I write the name of THE PROGRAM the higher-ups will find my blog, and we don't want that now do we!) and have found myself really enjoying the daily regimen of life this (Second) round. We live within a barbed-wire topped fence surrounded by a trailer park in our own double-wide with 6 sets of bunk beds, a sink/toilet room, and a tiny kitchen. And even this, this crazy, extreme closeness, I am finding enjoyable.

Last night I sat out on the picnic table with one of my teammates and shared half of a small, old cigar. The goal was to ask each other 20 questions. We only got through 2 in the hour we sat in the thick air: we talked about sex and we talked about Jesus. And my heart burned. And I felt alive.

I've been spending more time letting the LIFE flow into me... be it through the Word, through music, through sitting and waiting, going to any and every church I can find.. I'm so hungry for life.... life.... life.

He has me. I know He does. Even this, this crazy Ameri-Stint. He's building within me a sometimes desperate hunger and appreciation for His presence.

I'm not nearly as impressed by excellence as I am by anointing.. by the Spirit. I'm not so impressed by people anymore. I don't care so much about great music or great words. I just want Jesus. Give me Jesus. Just give me Jesus. Give me a room full of the presence of God, and please, please don't make me leave. I just want to be there.. for a very, very long time.

And this too is all a part of what He's building within me.

I have this assurance that one day very soon God is going to release all of this... all of these experiences.. all of the accumulation of His Spirit in my life. For right now this is it for me. For right now I work and serve my country, giving daily to people I didn't have any idea existed a few short months ago. For right now it's good.

(and for whatever comes next I am oooo excited!)

Wandering the Woods of West Virginia

I'm writing this from "the woods" of West Virginia, somewhere near Harpers Ferry/Charlestown; For Love of Children Outdoor Education Center, to be exact. The internet is slow and I have no cell reception so to those who may be reading whom I haven't contacted in ages: I'm sorry! I love you all dearly and will be in contact asap! (really, I will!)

Friends, Family, whoever is reading,
I LOVE IT HERE! I love the forest. I love the work. I love the air. I love the trails. I love the mountains and hills. I love my team. I love how God speaks little tid-bits here and there that bring me such a zest and fervor for LIFE!
Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings start out with PT at 6am in the "Miller House", a cold, dirty garage-type building with just enough space for the eleven of us. I'd say 8 out of 11 of us aren't at all happy to be there (and make it quite clear, I might add), but being lean machines comes with the "A" territory, so we push through the gazillion push-ups, throw our fists in the air, shout the word of the day, and amble back up the hill to The Lodge where we inhale gobs of cereal and coffee before starting the work day...
8am we meet our sponsors outside.. and ooo how do I begin to describe them! Picture a 100 lb 50 year old man with missing teeth and A.D.D. accompanied by a younger, sturdier looking version of himself, both complete with hyenna laughs and never-ending UN-PC comments. HOWEVER on their behalf, they love nature, love life, and really do care about people. They seem to think we're a bunch of creepers, which actually has become our team thing. Yeah, we're the Raven 5 Creepers. Team Creep. A couple hours with us and you'd know exactly what I mean. "Every color crayon in the crayola box" is how our Team Leader likes to describe us. Which means there's never an end to the laughs, the random comments, the unnanounced bulldozing (yes, that's right. bulldozing. If you're laying down, you're fair game to be rolled over. and over. and over. by however many people find you.), the spontaneous bursts of energy, and the need to modify the Team Charter. Silence is rare and sacred.
We've done tons of team-builders (good ones, not the silly ice-breaker crap that drives me nuts) since we've been here and have realized some pretty siginificant things, one of which is that we have a lot of work to do in the area of communication.

45 minute hike in at 8am to where we left off on the trail the previous day. Cut, clear, rake, nip and BLAZE trails!! My back aches, my legs are tired, my face is wind-burnt, and I'm in the woods. For me, there is no better job. I love this. I just love this!

We spent last weekend in a massive tree house. I hadn't slept so good since starting Americorps. Something about the air, the birds, the campfire, the open space. I still have this need to feel free. It's not as intense as it was prior to Callin' It Life, but it's still there. Sometimes all it takes now is an incredible long run or a morning sitting alone on a grassy hill, or, as I've now discovered, hiking out to spend a weekend in a tree house a mile from an outlet or running water.

My team loves my granola. So I should probably go make some :)

The Nitty Gritty

(warning: this post has to be short so it leaves out a lot... i'll try my best to post more soon but no guarantees!)

I'm so tired right now I sort of feel like I could faint. Sometimes I feel like the only one here who has a thousand things on my mind. My teammate heather keeps saying, "live for today, you just gotta live for today"...

I'm not entirely sure I believe in that. Maybe I do, but perhaps I don't..

Because my today is not all there is in the world. What I experience today isn't going to have anything to do with what the people I love who are sprinkled all over the world are experiencing today. And it's those people sprinkled across the globe that are on my heart and mind all day every day. It's the fact that there's an entire world out there.

It's the fact that the Holy Spirit will not let me go, and I don't want Him to.

Life is not flat for me. It's not dull. It's not mundane. It's not the day-to-day. It's not on one level. I see a homeless man and my heart aches, my spirit groans, my hands reach for my peanut butter sandwich, I see the globe as it spins and turns and frustrates itself into believing this is all okay. I wring my hands, I hand him my sandwich, I see myself in his eyes, and as I walk away I wrestle with the desire to do something, anything; I believe for a second that if I could feed this one man I might be able to feed them all. And if I could feed them all I could bring them hope, life.. I could change their worlds and then they could change more worlds and pretty soon the entire world would be singing this song of deliverance and hope, assured that love is more than a word and life more than an experience.

There are days when I would give anything to be in the Spirit and days when I know I won't be satisfied until I'm sitting in red dirt with an African child stroking my soft brown hair. There are days when the thought of 9 months here literally makes me panic. Fear rises in my throat and I can't swallow much less allow myself to engage in any conversation, lecture, project. Though I've always been a wanderer, a dreamer, I find myself zoning into other worlds more than ever before. I can't settle with all this stuff inside me. I wonder why I'm here sometimes. I know where I want to be, I know what I want to be doing. But I can't do it right now. And so I'm here, hoping to be proactive while getting out of debt.

There are moments when I know I need to be here. Part of me knows the structure is good for me. I'm going to be able to interact with and work for tons and tons of non-profits throught the next 1700 hours of service and really, who knows what might come of some of that..

for now I am tired. and my spirit groans as it waits for all these things to come together. one day they will. right now i have to believe this is preparing me. someway, somehow.
I just wasn't expecting it to be such a challenge.

oh, deep spirit...

*a year ago now ghana was wrecking me in that beautiful, profound way..*

35 to go!

5:30am

An obnoxious sound rings in my ear. I swear I open my eyes, but I see nothing. A few seconds later I feel the pain in my lower back as my mattress sags towards the ground and I remember, oh yes! I am in a psych ward! There are bars on my windows! My bedroom door does not lock! If I walk down the hall I will be met by 86 other unique individuals who have no idea what to do with their lives! Together we will walk to the VA gymnasium where we'll yell loud noises as we get into military formation to do side-straddle-hops and more push-ups than I've ever done. to date.
7:00

PT over, I grab my hoodie and hit the pavement for a sunrise run around "the point". I'll be the only one there - just me, the sun, the chesapeake bay, the birds, and the stray cats. It's still. It's quiet. And I'm alone. *sigh*
8:30
Team meeting to discuss the day's projects, goals, etc.
9:00
Work work work! Could be a project briefing. Or perhaps service in Baltimore with, for example, The Moveable Feast, a non-profit providing meals and human-interaction for hundreds of AIDS victims throughout Maryland who can't leave there homes as well as a number of homeless individuals. OR perhaps we'll clean the Brandywine Zoo in Delaware! Or drag brush and clear trails in any number of state parks throughout the area. Or maybe today we'll have random drug tests! Or learn how to use power tools! Or how to set up and tear down a disaster shelter? Why not?
5:00pm
Return to the psych ward to cook dinner in our team kitchen with the $200 of food we have for the eleven of us for the week. If I'm not on to cook, this is more run time!
6:00
DINNER! Depending on who cooked this can be a wonderful time or a learning experience. ;)
7:00
Clean the ward.
8:00
Team Meeting in the laundry room.

It's the life, people. It's the life.
haha okay really, it's not so bad. pretty cool, actually. I have a team of 11 people (including me). For the next 9 months these people are my family. I'm not ready to explain them yet except to say that we're special. Really, really special. *ahem* but really, we just might be the most diverse, unique group of all the 21 teams that make up Class 16. From California to NY, downtown chicago to boonies ohio, black to white, musicians to jocks, gay to straight, christian to atheist, 18 to 24... we're diverse. all entirely different. but whether we liked each other on the first day or not, we're in this together. our mission for the next 9 months is to "get things done for America", which means the differences can't matter. They can't be anything. As much as we're going to gain and grow in the coming months, they're not for us.

Tomorrow we leave for our first of four major projects for the year. We'll be in Harpers Ferry, WV working with a group called For Love of Children that aims to take kids out of inner-city DC that they might be able to experience nature and discover themselves outside city life. We're going to build composting toilets, clear 12 miles of trails, paint buildings, build benches, and a bunch of "behind the scenes" conservation/environmental work...

Let's see, what else that might be of interest.
I passed my drug test! ;)
One of our four major projects will most likely be in New Orleans, or somewhere along the gulf doing relief work.
I did my first presentation since college last week. Before every major project we have to do extensive research and present to a board, including the Director of the NCCC Atlantic Region. Never imagined I'd spend countless hours doing research in a library for a deadline ever again but, alas, it has happened and will be happening again.


I will be writing a more emotional entry to follow this one. don't worry, i haven't changed that much. :D

Some Painting

Once again, it's been awhile.. and once again, there is so much to be said! Where to begin, where to begin...

Well, it's been two months since we left Lewis County (the first time).. two months of driving from state to state with gaping face in awe of the changing terrain, curling my knees up into my chest in an attempt to get a good nights sleep in the car, entertaining strangers and relatives and being entertained by... well, just about anything and anyone, wearing the same clothes day after day until they become just another layer of skin, shaving my armpits in walmart restrooms entirely unaware that anyone else is there until I hear a toilet flush, running miles and miles through towns I don't know and don't care to know the names of. It's been two months of granola for breakfast, granola for lunch, granola for dinner, three large jars of peanut butter, fresh bananas on a semi-daily basis, filling my SIGG bottles every chance I get and then slowly, critically evaluating its taste before guzzling the rest regardless of how great or terrible it is.. ah, it's been two months, two months.

Today I no longer want to travel. Today I want to lay in bed all morning before being escorted to a sporting goods store where I will buy brand new expensive Brooks running shoes, which I will charge to my credit card. Then I will come back to this room with this big comfortable bed and I will put on my cute little running shorts and my cute little running top and my beautiful new running shoes, toss my long clean hair and pull it into a cute little ponytail, strap on the brand new garmin watch that I don't have, and run for at least 90 minutes. 90 minutes and I just might begin to feel like I could attempt to be normal again.

There's something brand new associated with freedom for me these days. Friends, this is freedom: waking up everyday with no place to be, no thing to do, no one to respond to (other than my beyond incredible Traveling Companion). It is being drawn into the ocean at midnight on the coast of Florida, twirling into the salty water and crashing into the moonlit waves. It is driving hundreds of miles on a deserted road in Texas and jumping out before the car has fully stopped in order that I might prance around on the dotted yellow line while waiting for the evening haze to set in and the sun to become one with the ground. It is picking tangerines off a tree in the hills surrounding LA and wandering aimlessly through an Asian community entirely unaware of the time. It is walking into a church in California and asking, through unpreventable tears, to play the piano.. because I just need to. It is longing for an entire day to sit and drink warm beverages and read and write and contemplate life, and getting it. It is paying $4 for unlimitted multi-grain pancakes and staying all night to eat pancakes and convince ourselves of the possibilities this life might hold. It is, It is..

I could go on and on..

But today I am tired of traveling. Yesterday I saw a grove of trees that were 25ft around and as tall as a 19 story building. That's enough to change my entire life. How does one touch, love and experience a tree so regal and lovely without missing something or shortchanging it somehow? Oh beautiful Giant Sequoia, you have changed me. I could have sat with you all day and still I would not have known how to leave you.

I fear I am going just a little bit crazy. All this freedom, the farewell to caring what I look like, sound like, appear to be. All this experiencing, loving, living, becoming. All this attention to all these places and all these people joined with all the places inside of me and all the parts that have made this person...

In one month I have to be in Perry Point, MD. Finally, I have been accepted to Americorps. My chance to change the world.. or at least a few people's lives. I am both excited and disappointed. It's strange to have the next year of my life all planned out for me. What's even crazier, tho, is that I still need to make it to Seattle and home in the next four weeks. And I'm tired of traveling.

This beautiful, beautiful trip..
I'm sorting out these things inside. I am more me than I've allowed myself to be in a long time. I am beautiful after 7 days without showering. I am scattered over thousands of miles across this incredible country. I am happy, contented, peaceful, alive. I am, I am.

that's it for now.

Beautiful Life*

It's been awhile since I've updated this here lovely little place for my thoughts and life-happenings, so here I am sitting in an absolutely beautiful loaned house in Ave Maria, Florida thinking I just might take a few minutes here to fill those faithful followers in on how I am and where I am on this multidimensional journey...

The trip has been incredible, it really has.. I am constantly amazed at the seemingly endless generosity continually bestowed upon us, sometimes from total strangers. I've seen and experienced an element of trust between people that I wasn't expecting to recognize so clearly. People who don't have any idea who we really are have let us into their home to spend a night, leaving in the morning before we even wake up. That's some serious trust..
We've met all kinds of people.. people, people, people.. they intrigue me so! I could sit and listen to a person all day long, slowly sorting through what they're saying as I figure out what they actually mean.. the words in between the actual words.. I love watching the way their eyes move, the way their bodies speak, the way they interact with the people they know and love and the ones they don't. Last night I went to a pub with a woman in Ave I just met the other day. She's in her 60s, started her own business 25 years ago and went from having close to nothing to this place of excess in the span of those years. Such insight and understanding she has! We sat for two hours over dinner and she talked and talked and when she appologized at the end of the night for talking my ear off I could honestly say "Oh my goodness, no! I enjoyed it so much!" For me, this is life.. sharing time with total strangers until they're no longer strangers; giving parts of me away and taking parts of other people with me when I throw my clothes in the back of my car, pull out my atlas, and choose a direction..

Since we left I've had moments when I feel I'm gasping for air, wondering how I can be in this when there's so much "unknown" in my life. This trip no longer has a 3 month limit, which is incredibly exciting, wonderfully overwhelming, and.. scary. The days are so beautiful right now. I feel I could wander like this for a very long time, which scares me a little as well. But then there are the times when I sink into this and I know that this is for right now and for right now, it's not only okay, it's good. I've felt guilty knowing that just about everyone else I know is either working or in school while I'm out here doing this "crazy" (although it's really not so crazy now that I'm in it..) thing that everyone wishes they could do but "can't". There are times when I miss being a part of a solid group, be it in church or coaching or family or a cluster of close friends. But all these moments are fleeting.. I'm so content being in this right now. There's nothing else I could imagine doing right now. As much as I want to do this, I also need to do this. I'm experiencing my country, and oh my, it's beauty is unspeakable.. I'm only in Florida and already I sense myself falling in love *!!* with this country.. could it be that this is happening already? I wasn't sure it would happen at all, much less 4 weeks in.. but it is. The people, the places, the way it accepts me and what it's offering me.. it's more wonderful than I could have expected.

The mountains pull me in, healing me, rejuvinating me, threatening to never let me out- something I think I might one day be okay with. [Kendra the Mountain Girl..]

The ocean catches, holds, and releases a part of me the rivers and streams never have. Every time I see it is as though I'm seeing it for the first time.. but the water tastes so sweet and familiar every time.

But one thing I miss that I wasn't expecting at all:
I miss leading worship. I can't even believe it myself. The more I explore this the more convinced I am that it's something I'm supposed to be doing at this point in my life. God's whispering some things to me regarding this which I will reveal as they formulate a bit more..
I wish I could load a piano on top of the suburu.. there are times my desire feels strong enough to call a need.

Oh, beautiful life..*

Sometimes life just makes me laugh, HAH!

Sometimes it's all you can do. :)

After an ever-so-minor mishap we will be back on the road tomorrow.
We WILL
I repeat:
WE WILL!!!!
make it to california.

:D

Dear Grace-Mobile,
I really don't think I'll ever stop loving you.. which makes absolutely no sense to me.
xo

Light*

There's nothing else I can imagine doing right now. After three nights being unable to snag more than a few hours of solid rest, I've finally settled into this. The excitement was almost unbearable at first. I feared this might never become normal, that I would be a constant case of restless excitement jitters. Eight days later, it's normal. :)

Things have gone wrong, the journey hasn't been flawless, but this is life! This journey was never meant to be an escape from the day-to-day or a time-out from myself and the world but rather an intentional pursuit of all of these things that make up life, just in different places and around different people. My heart is consistent, but my eyes are seeing: the places, the people. It's been 8 days, but I'm being faithfully filled.

We attended a Hindu celebration of Light's triumph over Darkness. It was absolutely beautiful and for the first time in my life I saw something I've been wondering about and hoping to discover for many years now. When I think about my relationship with God, the thing that holds me to Him is the LIFE I've found in Him, the honest, deep, intimate connection I have with Him that reminds me every single day just how present He is and how committed He is to me. I've often looked at other religions and wondered what it is that holds them together.. what it is that keeps them so committed. I've believed there must be something real in them... at least a little bit of truth hidden somewhere within them. And I've always wanted to find someone from another religion as passionate about their faith as I am about mine. I saw something Saturday night that brought me so much joy. At this Hindu celebration I saw for the first time a people who were connecting intimately with something Divine. This isn't to say that their religion is right, but it's not difficult at all for me to believe now that there's something in this Hindu faith is holy and good. Do they have the whole Truth? No, I don't believe they do. But even now I can picture this one man's face, the way he swayed, the way he disconnected from what was happening around him in order to connect with something ethereal.. I recognized in him something very similar to what I experience when I allow Jesus to sweep me away. This recognition doesn't alter, challenge, or change my faith in Jesus one bit, but rather gives me hope that perhaps parts of the world aren't as far from Him as I once believed they were. Perhaps they're closer than we think, they're just calling it something else right now. That's a huge thing for me to realize. As a Christian, I don't need to look at these other religions and see evil. It's like Keturah said, how can something that believes in and produces so much good in people be altogether evil? Just because it's not THE truth doesn't make it altogether bad. Am I promoting the Hindu faith? No, I'm not.. I hope this can be read and understand as I've experienced it.. simply as a bit of hope that people of other faith's do have a part of something real.. and that one day when they taste of the fullness of Christ, they might be able to recognize the beauty of the culmination of the many elements of Truth in this one man.