A Week in Photos

After not really having many of my own photos to show for YAV program orientation in Stony Point, New York, I wanted to make a point of sharing with you all a little bit of what site orientation for our first week in Tucson looked like. On Tuesday, September 27, I woke up ridiculously early in our new time zone in our brand-new house with brand-new housemates to begin our year together!

A few hours later, here's Arial up and alive! She got in from her flight saga after the rest of us went to bed, and as we milled about figuring out how to use our first few hours, we sunk into our living room furniture to watch some TV and work up the energy to start cleaning our house to make it our own.

In the process of cleaning, we also discovered an uninvited housemate left by the previous tenants under a dresser. At certain times, it has felt like a lot of things were out to get us: moths, cockroaches, a mouse, other strange insects we had never seen before, a mug that decided to become two pieces in my hands as I literally was just washing it gently in the sink, the sink itself, mosquitoes (which we absolutely did not sign up for, coming to Tucson's reputed dry heat), dust bunnies (two of my housemates are allergic), and other allergies. But we are living simply and simply living!

Here's a fun addition to our house: Arial's and my new bikes! Tucson is emphasized as a bike-friendly city, and so our dedication to simple living includes commuting and transporting ourselves on bikes. Our program gave us a bike allowance, and before we even got to Tucson, Brandon had found a couple of bike deals, so Arial and I chose to take him up on the offer of finding us these sweet and sturdy hybrids.

Those bikes were camped in our long hallway from which branches off all the other rooms (the house used to be a boarding house so the setup is pretty unique), and here begins the tour of our new abode. Once I discovered the ping-pong table on the screened-in porch, that was when I knew that this house was a keeper.

Here is the porch door out to the backyard.

 

Our beautiful, zero-scaped backyard, complete with laundry drying in the sun and plenty of new vegetation to explore. While I may miss the lush green grass of Minnesota lawns, lawn grass tends to not be sustainable anywhere, much less in the desert. And it is a different feeling completely to wriggle your toes into warm sand. 

Palm trees, no big deal.

Birdfeeders.

This vegetation is really fascinating to me. I love the angles and shapes in how this cactus takes form.

Beautiful Heather doing laundry in the beautiful sunshine.

The back of our new house!

Oh, and we have chickens! The YAVs from last year invested in two chicken coops and ten hens that we will take care of in exchange for free fresh eggs every day!

To have and to hold...

Heather, after a year of working in a vet clinic, had the most primed instincts about animals (I really almost wrote animal instincts but realized that sounds funny...) of all of us, so her expertise was quite helpful in orienting ourselves to taking care of our flock.

The crazy chicken we needed to quarantine for her own safety, except chasing her around the yard and then out from under the smaller coop to put her in was a process in itself. And she earned the name Loquita.... (which means Little Crazy One)

Poor girl is either picked on by the other chickens or simply excluded from the communal food at feeding time, so we felt it was best to give her some individual attention in her own coop.

Hey!

"Do you mind? I'm trying to lay here!"

Amy Beth and her excitement about our new yard!

Another important way of settling into our new home was of course finding our way around the kitchen, so we tried our hand at maneuvering a few bodies around the tight space and turned out a pretty decent lunch, featuring guac made by Amy Beth.

Arial and Amy Beth preparing ingredients.

And Heather just looking adorable! And also preparing ingredients. Heather is adorable all of the time, but what really made me choose this picture over others is of course our coordinator Brandon's face in the background.

At the tail-end of monsoon season, the skies change at the drop of a hat.

We did a lot of cleaning this week, but we had to make sure we broke in the ping-pong table too.

Our first home-cooked dinner! The first night we were treated to pizza by Steve, one of the Tucson YAV board members after he helped us clean our house for half the day! We have some amazing support here, and I look forward to many more dinners with these folks.

Here's our first spin out on our bikes: Brandon rode with us to our bike safety class put on by the City of Tucson that is so invested in creating a bike-safe city that they made it free for everyone and set up a deal with a local bike shop so you can choose two out of three items for free as well: helmet, bike lock, and lights. All we had to do was devote a few hours of our time to our instructor Jorge, and we would be provided with knowledge and free equipment to hopefully keep us alive and well for the year.

Heather backpacking-up for the ride. 

Here's us on another necessary errand: our first trip grocery shopping. Our intention was to go visit all of our work placements so we would get to see where everyone worked and we would feel comfortable with our commutes, but we ended up only having time for my placement at BorderLinks and Amy Beth's at Southside. We did have time to swing through Food City though (one of the plethora of grocery shopping options in this city!), and literally half of our cart (and then over half of our fridge) was fresh produce.  

    

So excited about healthy food!

 

While we started fending for ourselves in terms of preparing food, we would never turn away a free meal. Friday night, Brandon invited us over to his home in an intentional community about ten minutes away by bike. I am not exactly sure how many people live there, but they make a point of sharing meals as well as chores as a community. Brandon and his wife, as well as their two daughters, have lived here for the past few years, and it was so sweet of them to invite us into their home as well as into their community over the common feast. Before the meal was ready though, he brought us up to his roof to orient us in the city of Tucson, because apparently you can do so by knowing which mountain range you are looking at: Catalinas to the north, Tucsons to the west, Santa Ritas to the south, and Tortolitas (also known as tortellinis to us who cannot remember their rightful name) to the northwest.

I hope I never lose the sense of amazement at these skies.

The whole crew on the roof (photo credit: Ali Wood, Tucson YAVA and now board chair): Brandon,  me, Heather, Arial, Amy Beth, and Tyler.

Saturday morning was a bit of a long day because we had part two of our bike class. After almost six hours in the sun, we had passed our group bike ride, parking lot drills, test, and graduated with a sunburn. Heather was also the guinea pig to learn how to change a flat tire, shown here with our awesome instructor, Jorge.

Another thing that brightened my weekend other than an awesome house with incredible company with whom to share it for the next year was an unexpected visitor: this guy came to visit me! My novio Mauricio took on a 15-hour round-trip drive from visiting his family in Southern California to hang out with me and my new housemates for less than 24 hours - what a sweetheart!

Our final housemate, Steph, actually also arrived on Saturday, so our crew was finaly in full force. She is a fiesty personality from Puerto Rico with a huge heart and incredible passion for justice issues who felt she had unfinished business following her YAV year, so she decided to stick around for another year in Tucson to live with us and work with the Florence Project: "a nonprofit organization providing free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Arizona." I so look forward to learning more about her work and her experience so far in Tucson!

There you have it, a few days in photos of new life in Tucson. More photos, stories, and reflections to come!

Traveling to Tucson

Travel day was both physically and emotionally exhausting, but never fear, my whole house made it to our new home in Tucson, Arizona safe and sound. The first reason why it was exhausting was entirely within my control, but it was so rewarding to choose lack of sleep in order to stay up with, hug, and bid bon voyage to each of the YAV travel groups leaving Stony Point before my 6:15 van with nine others. After the night's official activities wound down, the unofficial ones began - packing and then spending as much silly time with these amazing young people as possible. Guitaring, singing, conversing, hugging, trying (and semi-failing) to not fall asleep... And finally wishing people well on their way at 2:30am, 3:30am, 5:15am, and then finally it was my round to shove a lot of bags and bodies and sleep on our way to the airport. 

Out of the ten, four of us were on a Southwest flight to Austin, so it was nice to travel with that pack, until we touched down in Austin and had to say goodbye to half of that crew. We realized shortly before touching down in Austin that this plane was slated to awkwardly continue on to Las Vegas, so Austin YAVs Lauren and Catherine waved bye from their row, and YAVA Luke and I stayed on as travel buddies. We were to journey together from Stony Point to the Newark airport, Newark to Austin, Austin to Las Vegas, and from there, part ways - me for Tucson and him for eastern Oregon. He served in Tucson two years before, so it was so fun to 1) have him as a travel buddy because he's an awesome person that I didn't get to know until travel day, 2) hear stories and thoughts about his Tucson experiences, and 3) bond over playing Division III college tennis!

Here's Las Vegas from under the clouds.

Because we had some time to kill, and I had never gambled before, my dear mentor YAVA Luke convinced me that we should play penny slots. Way to set a good example.

 We only allowed ourselves to put in $1 each, and we stopped when we felt good about our luck. Luke managed to double his money, but with my semi-unfortunate luck, I walked away with $1.07.

Pleased with himself.

I'm an adult!

After a wonderful day with my new travel buddy and so many stories and pieces of advice tucked into my Tucson toolkit, Luke and I parted ways, only allowable under the premise that he would come visit all of us and play tennis with me.

And a little while later... I'm down in Tucson!

After another long travel day, I was met at the airport by a voice who knew my name, accompanied by a tall, wiry, bearded man who would be my site coordinator for the upcoming year - Brandon! Since all four of us were on different flights, he got stuck with airport pickup and house drop-off duty, which unfortunately only got longer as everything that could have gone wrong for Arial's flights did. The poor girl got on the bus at 10am from Stony Point and did not arrive at our house in Tucson until just after the rest of us were no longer capable of making rooming decisions and fell asleep camped on our sink-into living room furniture. It took some of us longer than others, but thankfully we all made it to our new home city safely! We were also welcomed to the house by our other new housemate, Tyler, who is not a YAV but is also doing a service year program, and it will be good to get to know him more as well!

Tyler, me, Amy Beth, and Heather brain-tired and silly on our first night together.

Camping out in the living room (on our ridiculously comfortable furniture!) to save choosing rooms for when we had decision-making capabilities.

Day one in Tucson:
- Woke up way too early. Body is still on Eastern, not Pacific time.
- Realized I was in the living room of new house I'll be in for the next year with some amazing housemates. Awesome.
- Ate a little breakfast with the other girls, conscientious of each others' health and nutritional needs.
- Reunited with our fourth YAV who got in after the rest of us crashed last night.
- Saw our zero-scaped backyard in the daylight and met our chickens!
- Built up the soles of my feet by walking around barefoot, learning that black ants bite, stepping on a tiny cactus spine, and toasting them on our sun-baked wooden porch floor. 
- Discovered what a huge difference the swamp cooler makes (for those of you who don't know what the heck a swamp cooler is (like I didn't), instead of producing cooler air like an A/C, it adds moisture to the air when it pumps it into the house, thereby cooling and circulating the air.
- Finally chose rooms after much thinking and taking each others' thoughts into account.
- Found three Allen wrenches, a dead insect about four inches long, random silver rings, and oodles of dust left over by the previous tenants as we cleaned our house from top to bottom. 
- Treated to gluten-free pizza and wine in our own home by the lay pastor from a nearby congregation who had just spent the previous five hours helping us clean.
- Went over the week's schedule for orienting us to our new city with our coordinator.
- Said "thank you" in my head for every minute of this experience.

Check and mate.

Moving Into the World

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were as much of a blur as the first few days, but we shifted gears one last time to preparing our hearts and minds to go out into the world and be critically culturally competent, thoughtful, respectful, open-minded, and willing to learn from and work alongside our new communities. Thankfully there is pictorial documentation for your pleasure as well!

Welcome to sunrise canoeing! This is how a few of us started our Friday morning.

I have no idea what lake this was, but it was somehow three pools linked by culverts (see off in the distance the bridge with the arch underneath for canoers and kayakers.

This is a photo taken by one of the other canoers - I'm actually just cut off on the canoe to the right, but the girl in the front of my boat is Amy Beth - one of my Tucson housemates-to-be! This was good bonding and a jump start on learning to work as a team.

 

Remember those culverts? Our group took the last one on as a collective challenge, and after linking three canoes abreast, we discovered that many could indeed fit through the culvert together! And we managed to fit half the kayak with us as well, and Mark, the YAV with the most wilderness and canoeing experience had gotten stuck without a partner so he graciously took our picture.   

Another sunlit view.

A bench on which to enjoy life.

  

Lovely new friend Tara with a water lily she brought back from the journey.

The lily again thriving in the collective bowl upon our return. The simplicity of this beauty was refreshing as we continued to learn more about how the Presbyterian Church's goals for international work and its office in the United Nations are advocating for social justice for all God's children in whatever iterations they can. The world is made up of moral guidelines, individual cases, gray areas, and gradients in my book, and figuring out how to love others to the best of our abilities all of the time is complicated. In order to resist the temptation to oversimplify complex matters and human interactions, sometimes it helps to take a step back and just appreciate the beauty in a small thing.

Each night, the setup for vespers was a little different, but there were always candles "To remember who we are and whose we are."

Two things were different about Friday's vespers: first, it was to be followed by a surprise ice cream party put on by the program, and second, once people started finding out I am a Zumba instructor, they asked me to offer a session so I made an announcement at vespers and a number of us burnt off our ice cream with a Zumba class! Both activities were so wonderfully therapeutic, in very different ways of course, but small things that helped us practiced self-care and rack up some endorphins before rest time.

Saturday morning we got some nourishment into our systems and we were off to the races... intellectually at least. From our seats in the auditorium we did our final bible study with Rick and then moved into one of the most helpful pieces contextualizing our social justice work within the forces of globalization. Rick Ufford-Chase first clued us into some of the amazing work he has done, other than serving as the General Assembly's (the highest governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA)) youngest moderator and founding this interfaith intentional community and retreat center. What I was not aware of previously, while he had mentioned involvement with U.S.-Mexico border work, was that he got into the field through a Witness for Peace (an organization I've been involved with for three years now) delegation to Nicaragua as the organization was just beginning and was focused on peaceful presence by U.S. citizens to witness the U.S.' role in supporting oppressive regimes and armed conflicts in Central America, he then ended up working on the ground on the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the Sanctuary Movement's underground railroad for undocumented refugees fleeing those wars, and then he was one of the founders of BorderLinks, the organization I will now be working for! There are so many amazing ties to the work I have done and will do, and I hope I get the chance to talk with him about it sometime.

Anyways, through a very helpful visual skit he walked us through how the forces of globalization, interconnected economies, and free trade policies have resulted in a Catch-22 for many Latin American countries as our policies have trended towards undercutting their economies and especially traditional food production methods, thereby destroying farmers' livelihoods and still closing our borders when people's last resort is to migrate for better possibilities of feeding their families. As many times as I have gone over these push and pull factors in studying International Relations and Latin American Studies, this overview was still helpful for me too, and I am thankful the whole YAV crew will walk into their year with more insight into how a whole host of well-intentioned people (because let's be real, economic theorists, banks who are responsible to their shareholders, family-owned businesses, small farmers, etc. are largely all well-intentioned people who are responsible for the needs of others) fit into a system that perpetuates and exacerbates oppression and lack of opportunities for many involved.

The communities we will be working with will have experienced these forces of globalization, either directly or indirectly, at a more visceral level than many of us have, and especially as I walk into border work, understanding the reasons people are fleeing their homeland in droves and facing such hardship to come to this country is so fundamental to even begin the discussion on working in solidarity with border communities, but I'm glad others will have a deeper understanding of this more specific context as well.

Sorry for all the heaviness there! During the afternoon we moved into rotations of advice sessions with alums on topics such as culture shock, relationships, and conflict (a much-discussed topic in relation to intentional community), all good things to keep in mind for the upcoming year. 

Speaking of intentional community, here is me on the right with the three lovely ladies with whom I will be living in intentional community: meet Heather, Arial, and Amy Beth. You'll hear more about them in the future for sure!

 

The night's silliness included a talent show, for which Amy Beth convinced me to sing and play guitar with her, and we also looped in Kalyn who has a gorgeous voice and had joined us for some of our guitaring-for-fun sessions the past few nights. It was such a hard time choosing a song that we all knew and would be the perfect one for these circumstances, but Amy Beth was inspired by the intentional reflection on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington that she suggested "We Shall Overcome," so away we went with our hour of free time to choose harmony and melody parts and perhaps practice a couple of times. And then, funny story, our music leader for worship also chose "We Shall Overcome" for a very moving part of vespers that night! Other talent show acts included some amazing music and poetry, as well as some pure entertainment. With our addition YAV just got a double dose of this incredibly powerful spiritual. Though I will probably be forever uncomfortable getting in the spotlight to sing and play, I'm so thankful Amy Beth convinced me to do it for the experience of blending our three voices and to share that song in particular in this supportive crowd all working for justice.

Photo from a YAV in the audience of Kalyn, Amy Beth, and me.

Following the talent show, someone had the brilliant idea of throwing on some music and doing a silly dance party, which was a hilarious way to cap off the night with this crowd of Christian kids who had basically been bonding non-stop for six days. More good rest was had.

Sunday morning we were all split into groups of four or five and went to over fifteen different congregations to share about our program and be commissioned into service. My group went with Pastor Abbie, who basically organized all of these church connections, to her congregation, Greenbush Presbyterian. It was an adorable, 200-year-old church with a tiny congregation of about twenty, mostly 80-year-old women but including an adorable, inspiring couple who have been together for 67 years. It was so nice that they all invited us to their church home, to participate in the service, to bless us for our YAV year, and to invite us to stay for coffee hour so they could ask us more about our work (or in the case of one woman, tell her everything we had said during the service because she's hard of hearing and didn't want to miss what we said!).

Pastor Abbie then took us out to show us a little around Nyack, an adorable town with a number of unique stores and streets that lead straight down to the Hudson River, and treated us to lunch. Here's Tara, Pastor Abbie, Jackson, and Rachel with our New York-style pizza that we obviously had to get while in NY!

I even got to have New York-style pizza myself because they had a gluten-free crust option!

Well-fed, we walked down a hill and through a park and - boom - there's the Hudson River! Here's the bay.

Putting my feet in the Hudson to say I have.

 

The crew doing the same.

Groups arrived back at the Stony Point center at different times, so we just got to hang out for the afternoon with the time we did have. Since we had literally all been sharing the same orientation experiences and activities for the past week, it was fun to talk with others about their different church services, and I also got time to just be with new friends like Sarah (my roommate!) and Mark (who I now consider to be a brother!) (photo by Maegen, my small-group leader).

Stealing Mark's hammock to call my parentals.

Free time transitioned into our final small group reflection. We have been meeting with this crew every day at least once to process, emote, and bond at least once daily, and I'm amazed how close I feel to some of these new friends! I'm so thankful for them, their thoughtfulness, and their openness, and especially those qualities in our leader Maegen as she shared openly with us about her struggles and joys with the program in addition to facilitating our processing. All while she was supposedly studying for upcoming ordination exams next week! Here's our silly self-taken group pic.

 

A blessed sky over our reflection walk.


We got back to the main building with time to spare, so I made sure I finished writing on the Prayer Wall - one of our projects throughout the week has been to write messages to all our fellow YAVs and YAVAs (YAV alums) to take with them for their year, which means we were challenged to meet every single person in this group of about 70! This is a program photo, but here's my small group leader Maegen again!


I snuck this picture prior to our final worship service, with all of our name sheets from the prayer wall now adorning the communal table.

I cannot believe how quickly this week has flown and how quickly we all leaped into caring for one another. In our final vespers service, we did all songs we had been learning and singing throughout the week, some joyous, some more reflective. There was much dancing, and hugging, and swaying with the music. And with our hearts hopefully primed for the experiences to come,  the YAVAs and program directors sent us out with words of blessings and encouragement, especially guiding us through the words of Ephesians 5, to go out and be children of light to others - a positive spirit, a boundless energy, and a huge heart for others. I just love this program photo as we all extended ourselves to our new brothers and sisters for worship one last time.

2013-2014 YAVs, it has been such a pleasure to get to know you and now call you my brothers and sisters! Now "live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth" (Ephesians 5: 8-9). May you find your way in this world to best put your gifts and talents to work for justice for all God's children, and know you are never alone on your walk!

Caring for the World and Caring for Oneself

After an intense first couple of days, we shifted focus and mentality to the concept of self-care in the midst of taking on a world of poverty and injustice. Though our remaining days are still packed, there is now some actual free time built into the schedule to reflect, process, bond, and play as needed.

Before program activities even began, a few of us took advantage of a good self-care option offered by this interfaith community: a Quaker meeting. Some had been to this kind of worship before; I was among the many who had not. While the typical Quaker meeting lasts 45 minutes to an hour, our leader Kitty made this special service a half hour to ease us into the Quaker tradition of sharing that time in communal silence and reflection. I was probably among the majority in worrying how in the world we could sit through a half hour in dead silence, and especially focusing our thoughts and reflections for that long, but somehow the time went by much quicker than expected. It was beautiful to experience another way to connect with spirituality and feel so close to God as we sat in a circle in a circular room with an array of large glass panes to the greenery outside, all the while a gentle thunderstorm surrounding us. My thoughts may have wandered, but they had not really had the space or freedom to wander much in the last few days, so this experience really was calming.

A few things on my mind the last few days:
- I have learned so much more about the Presbyterian denomination than I ever had before! I adore my home church community and so respect its progressive, inclusive, justice-driven mission, but I was unaware that other church communities existed like that around the country and that our denomination (at least the PC(USA), I can't speak for all Presbyterian churches, obviously), seems to embrace those characteristics as well. There are some traditions, however, that many of those in the room who have grown up Presbyterians are accustomed to that are foreign to me, such as "passing the peace" and some phrases said back to the worship leader during the service. I'm also thankful for having been exposed to more Presbyterian stereotypes through a YouTube video my small group leader had us watch, taking youth retreats and inclusive language to a parodied extreme - quite entertaining!

- "Did you leave a special someone back in Minnesota?"
Now, normally when I guy I just met asks me this question in such a forward manner, I would take it at exactly that, forward. But I could indeed answer, "Yes, I unfortunately had to leave my boyfriend back in Minnesota. You?" It turns out his intention behind asking that question was completely innocuous as he answered, "Yes, I also had to leave my boyfriend." I am so thankful that he could share that so matter-of-fact with me and we could share that moment of missing the special men in our lives. And I'm so thankful that he feels he can be himself with his Presbyterian community and his new housemates, and that in this day and age, he can be accepted and not judged by Christians for loving who he loves.

- This week I am surrounded by Southern accents, and I think I am legitimately worried "ya'll" will slip into my vocabulary. But it's okay, I have my "Minnesota Nice" tshirt that I couldn't bear leaving my home state without. Exchanging cultural quirks between different regions of our crazy country and also hearing stories of why these fellow young adults were drawn to serve where they will for the next year has been fascinating and my favorite source of connection with my fellow YAVS. "Where are you from, where are you going, and why?" is a connected interrogation technique when meeting a huge group of people in a similar circumstance but who have come from perhaps different experiences, and even though I at times got overwhelmed by the idea of trying to meet each one of these people in such a short time span, I'm thankful we're all in this together and that the YAV program itself emphasized heavily the acknowledgment that we are now all family!

With Thursday's emphasis on self-care, we focused our energies on how to best invest and maintain our energies this year. The most powerful piece was presented by a YAV alum (or YAVA) who served one domestic year and then one international year. Through her joys and her struggles, she shared some of what she learned in her talk titled "Have Self, Will Give," a mixture of anecdotes and inspiring quotes. Here are a few highlights:
- "Your heart will break wide open, and it's going to hurt, but your heart will get bigger and God will do amazing things with that space."
- "We cannot do everything, and that is liberating. It allows us to do something."
- "You actually matter, and you have to take care of yourself so that you actually have love to give to others."
- Reflecting on general gender trends in service work, "Women, we do this. Men, it is so important for you to do this kind of work so people know there are good men in the world."
- "You must remain attentive, calm, and obedient to your best intuitions" - Henri Nouwen.
- "Self-care is worthy work. I am worth it. I am worth the time."

YAVs are a pretty self-selecting group of human beings usually with huge hearts for others, a passion for justice, perhaps a superhero complex, and many times a refusal to acknowledge we too have basic needs like food and sleep. We need to remember we cannot do it alone, that we cannot expect our lowly selves to take on entrenched systems of oppression, that we need to do justice to ourselves by making time to reflect and also goof off so we have enough energy to do the work we are called to do well and love others with our whole hearts. We have to be as whole as we can so we can give as much of ourselves as we can.

Part of self-care is practicing good boundaries as well - when you want to give more and more of yourself and there are still needs that can be met by you and are asked of you... sometimes it is necessary to assess what is already on your plate so you can take on those works to the best of your abilities. And sometimes, even if you have FOMO (an acronym I heard for the first time at this orientation), the Fear Of Missing Out, you may need a little "you time." I struggle with this as a natural introvert who never feels like she needs to be alone though and who always defaults to spending time with people she cares about rather than doing the other optional projects like artsy things... or reflective writing. So on self-care night, while many YAVs went out on the optional bowling field trip, I set a limit and chose to write instead! I am sure bowling was a blast, but I'm thankful for that writing time as well. And here we are.

Breaking Down Barriers

Welcome to orientation in an interfaith center at Stony Point, New York! I did not get to see the beautiful grounds until my second day because I did not get in the first night until everyone was just wrapping up activities at 10:30pm, but already a couple of my Tucson sitemates had sought me out and welcomed me, as well as my adorable roommate Sarah, who was preparing to head to Northern Ireland, one of the international YAV sites. While the travel day was a long one to be sure, the upcoming days would also be brimming with new faces, amazing fresh vegetables, engaging but intensely draining sessions, small group discussions and reflection, worship and prayer, and possibly some shuteye.

Meet our group for the week! A collection of current YAVs, YAVAs (YAV Alums), and other PC(USA) and Stony Point Center leaders. (Photo credit: YAV program)

 

Here at orientation, Bible study is part of our morning routine, as we set the tone for our days with physical and then spiritual nourishment. Unlike many of my YAV brothers and sisters, formal Bible study is still a pretty foreign concept to me, and I was interested to see how this spectrum of Presbyterians would approach it. What I found jived with what I had been taught in my own academic career as well as in my family socialization and home church congregation: we must be critical thinkers! We set the tone with the circle of praxis created by Brazilian sociologist Paulo Freire: ver (to see), pensar (to think/reflect), actuar (to act), evaluar/celebrar (to evaluate/celebrate), representing an intentionality about studying the Bible that no matter how many times we read it or study the same passages, we can interpret it differently or take something different away each time, and that is okay! We are called to not only read but delve deeper, connect to the passage, research and understand the historical/social/economic context in which it was written, and connect it to our own contexts and lives, however it speaks to us. Living out the lessons you learn, the third step of "actuar," is perhaps the most important to not just me personally, but to all of us YAVs as we seek to act out our faith by working for justice. A quote our Bible study leader Rick shared was from a woman he met in Central America during his work there in the 1980's: "You have not heard the word of God until you have taken action because of it" - that we are called to not just ingest words and think of them in an academic or philosophic manner, but embody them in all we do - truly live out Jesus' teachings to love all our neighbors and to work for the kindom of God on earth.

To be in a room with so many others grappling with where they fit in the social justice world is so inspiring, and I'm thankful to be part of this! Sometimes I do feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, internalize the pain and plight of others, and get overwhelmed. And it has always been my home church that has grounded me, reminding me that there are other bleeding hearts out there, and we need to recruit more to the ranks of peacemakers so that all may thrive. To remember that I am part of something, that I'm not alone in wanting a more just world, and to see that there are other young people with drive and energy and privilege to serve others, is such a powerful part of this orientation, and I am thankful for that. I will return to that concept of privilege in a little while, because much of the first two days was spent on discussing privilege and power, topics that can be touchy but are so crucial to take on thoroughly so as to hopefully build trust and understanding with the communities in which we will be serving.

This circle of praxis is also a healthy way to approach our upcoming year of service as we live our new experiences, reflect on them, be challenged by them, act for justice, and as it gets hard and struggling against the systems of injustice is unending, take time to pause and celebrate the small victories - the incredible people we meet, feeling like we have a handle on our new geography, navigating new social customs and constructs, making even the smallest wave in the political system, or sprouting something in the neighborhood garden. Life isn't all peachy, and the work may seem unending (which social justice work really is - the end goal is to work yourself out of a job!), but lift up and celebrate the work you're doing, and then keep going!

But even before we get to where we are going, we needed Critical Cultural Competency. By that phrase, they emphasized a community-centered process, historical understanding, and appreciating a community's assets and affirmed the goals of enhanced quality of life for all, access to resources for everyone, and community partnerships.

To obtain/horde resources, make sense of our world, and whatever other reasons (cue sociological theory with which I am not well-versed), human beings have put up walls to divide us, and we began by "unveiling" those walls. "To tear down the walls, we must first tear away the veils," announced our presenters. So many important trains of thought came out of this training, but my overall reaction was that I was just happy to be back in open and critical dialogue of race/culture/ethnicity/gender identity/socioeconomic status/sexuality/privilege again. Many in the room may have been receiving this training for the first time in these moments. I was thankful for at least some exposure and some healthy discussions at Carleton, formally in the classroom, institutionally following incidents that challenged the nature of Carleton's culture and wholehearted intentions at inclusiveness and diversity, and informal conversations with other students of similar and different experiences than my own. To sum up what we learned from two amazing presenters and further broke down and discussed with our fellow YAVs, we all need to recognize that to be at this orientation and to be in this program is a privilege.

For those of you who want the actual visual reference of the "box" versus the "borderlands":

Some of us come from more privileged backgrounds than others, and some are privileged in every way that society affirms has power: white, male, upper-middle class, straight, cisgender, born here, etc., all illustrated in a permeable box our presenter drew with dichotomous characteristics outside, in a region she called "the borderlands." Some of us do not fit any of those characteristics in the box and may "fit" in the borderlands in every way. We all come from different backgrounds and different experiences, and some of us bring more box characteristics to the table than others.

But to be in the position to choose to do a year of service inherently denotes some sort of privilege, if only that you have the choice to do this program and at least the bare financial means to live off a stipend rather than seeking out the best-paying work so you can feed yourself and/or your family. We come from different places, but we are united in that we are blessed to be here. 

The bottom line is that we need each other, and we all need to be doing this work. Those in the borderlands will unfortunately never expand the inner box just by working within the borderlands, no matter how much they recognize their own power and strength. They must indeed recognize their importance and the validity of their collective histories as well as personal experiences, but those within the box must also work to expand the box and make it more inclusive. Here is where solidarity work comes in: those of us with more privilege within the social constructs in which we are operating have a greater responsibility to dispel the guilt about our position and instead be proactive about forming partnerships across the permeable lines. I cannot change that I am a white woman from a family that was financially able to provide me with resources and opportunities. But with this position I have the responsibility to perhaps use the nonthreatening "nice white lady" social construct to convince others like me and within the box that we are all better off and will have healthier communities when we start treating immigrants more like human beings worthy of inclusion and understanding in our communities!

When going into our communities of service for this next year, the most important thing will be to acknowledge that we are privileged to be there and to recognize we will not know all the effects and consequences of that privilege. We cannot live an experience other than our own, but we must walk into every situation with the intention of being humble enough to admit we do not know everything and trying to understand the circumstances and experiences of others. It takes time to feel out a new community, just as it does with new individual relationships. This sense of mission is much different than the traditional mission of seeing a need or problem with our own lens and forcing our religion, our social constructs, our own preconceived notions, and our help on others. I dearly hope we will all keep open minds and hearts to practice humble service to meet the needs of the community as they determine and call for.

Phew. That's a lot. Don't worry, we got to breathe a little bit too. (Photo credit: YAV program)

Within these two emotionally- and process-heavy days, here are more important threads of note:
- As we plainly laid out in my small group: "With great power comes great responsibility." Anyone catch the nerd reference? Spiderman.

- "Homeland" is the place that shapes us. When going to a new place, "wonderland," option 1) replicate the ideals, standards, and comforts of our homeland. Option 2) try to blend in, but everyone knows you do not belong. Or option 3) recognize that "you can never leave home" - home being the place that socialized and shaped you and is always inside of you. See what you carry with you in every context, and only then can you transform, and later become an agent of transformation. Acknowledge that this is all beyond comprehension, and see/smell/taste/listen/observe/learn.

- Much of this work requires the ability to think flexibly and to see and hold multiple perspectives as valid. Over the course of this year, different vantage points will challenge your most basic ideas and truths you thought were proven long ago. If we only see and defend our point of view rather than listen and be open to another, even if we do not agree with the other, we never allow for the possibility of the imagination being sparked, thereby allowing for creativity and evolution of thought.

- Culture is how a group of people does life together. Deep, core worldviews are lived out through lifeways (the most visible, surface-level actions such as food consumed, body art, dress, rituals) and mediated through language (which includes music, feeling, and other modes of meaning-making). Invest time in understanding the worldviews that shape a culture's lifeways!

- In a culture or society, the center inherently defines what characteristics are pushed to the borderlands. And I use that verb quite intentionally - the center pushes out what it finds weird and dangerous, or conversely exciting and exotic. The wall between the two is often reinforced as the borderlands are conquered, converted, controlled, and criminalized. Can you think of examples within U.S. society and politics? Institutions and systems are the vehicles through which those four trends are reinforced, so if we ever want to shift the balance of power, we need to think power and accountability. We are bound by the rules of the institutions, but we are responsible to advocate for others, so social justice work must figure out how to navigate the system with that understanding, as well as the understanding that while we are not all on equal footing, we all have power!

- And on a final note: "It takes two groups to break down a wall. If only one group is trying to take down that wall, that's called an invasion!" Breaking down socially constructed barriers to community work takes time, patience, listening, and mutual investment from both sides.

As we step into our new communities and new contexts next week, may we all as YAVs be mindful to listen, observe, be aware of our own privilege, and be aware that we will not always be aware of how that privilege works (hopefully you followed that!). May you, dear readers, also be mindful of the privileges you have in your own life and your social contexts, as it is all relative, but our liberation as people is bound up together:

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
~ Lilla Watson, Aboriginal Australian artist and leader

First Day as a YAV!

Hey there, dear readers! My apologies for cross-blogging, but I have two blogs going on and I poured out most of my recent thoughts in the other (to mainly transition to this one...), so you should check this post out first! KEMS Blessings Blog - feel free to follow that one too if you like, but I'll mainly be using this travel blog for my upcoming year of service in Tucson, Arizona! First, check out some photos of moving many of my life's possessions into storage due to the fact that my dear parentals decided to downsize out of the house I've lived in since childhood... just when I'm about to leave for a year. Needless to say, the past few days have been a little bit of craziness, but you have to keep it interesting, right? It did work alright to just pack up much of my life while making all the decisions of what I really needed/wanted (you have to ask the need versus want question a lot when you can only check two pieces of luggage to bring with you for a year) to take with me for my time in Arizona. In any event, transitions went quickly and things somehow got done, but here's some of the process! 

Dear old Dad, showing off his SpongeBob duct tape.

Getting creative with the storage space!

Hmmm, what to do next?

There were a couple more carloads to storage after this, begging the question, "How have I accumulated so many things in my time on this earth?!" And it boils down to three main threads: I've been fortunate to buy a few things in my time, I've been fortunate to be able to save many things that hold memorial value, and I've been fortunate to have been given many things to move me towards adult life - for instance, tons of hand-me-downs from grandparents and parents from various downsizing adventures.

I'm thankful for all I have been given up to this point, and I'm also thankful for all the YAV program gives us for the next year. Like a house. Hopefully stocked with kitchen supplies and whatnot. But we'll see! For now, my bags have been packed, and I have arrived successfully in Stony Point, New York, where all the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs), do orientation together for a week before we disperse to our sites around the country and world. My checked luggage didn't quite get this far, but that's another story. I'm safe and I'm here after a long day. I was safely brought to the MSP airport, but my flight from MSP to Chicago got delayed by an hour and 20 minutes when my layover was only an hour long... So needless to say I got here a bit later than the 6pm expected time given I had a couple standby flights to try, and then they routed me to LaGuardia instead of the intended Newark, however, my bags still went to Newark... Thank goodness for a new tshirt at orientation! And also thank goodness for a young mom who ended up in the same travel situation from MSP to supposedly Newark, as we went through the whole saga together and became fast travel buddies, keeping each other in light spirits throughout the mess. When we were getting our new LaGuardia flights, she actually put me ahead of her in line, and I was the last one to get a boarding pass for the 5pm flight so she only got on standby. Due to her kindness and sacrifice, she didn't get out until the 8pm flight and she has to present at her conference in the morning. It was so wonderful to connect with her and have a companion for the craziness, and I hope that we can connect again in the future so that I can repay her kindness by doing some portrait photography with her kids!

 

And now, I'm here and ready to get oriented. The program is already so welcoming, I have a sweet roommate, and I'm ready for tomorrow! After some sleep :-) 

Until soon - hasta pronto!