BeeVeePublications

So, we had a group of people from my church take a misson trip to Honduras a few weeks ago. Last night the two students from the Youth Group that participated shared their experience and it made me realize a few things.

This sign hangs above the doors in the Youth Cove (Youth Room) at my church. Every Wednesday night we walk past it and don’t even give it a second thought. A few weeks ago, as I’ve mentioned before, I participatd in a Ladies’ Silent Retreat with the women from my church and there was a sign saying the same thing as you left the campgrounds.

All throughout my life I’ve always heard of missionaries being people that went to different countries like Africa, Honduras, Mexico, etc. I didn’t fully understand how we could be entering the mission field if the most incredible missions took place in all of these foreign countries.

And then last summer I got to go to a camp called Urban Experience. It’s a Monday - Friday camp and it is seriously life changing. It’s not even about you changing other people, it’s about the people you interact with during that week changing you! It was so eye-opening and awe-inspiring that I could tell God was working in these peoples’ lives.

What’s the big deal about this Urban Experience?? I didn’t even have to leave my city! We drove about 30 minutes into downtown Dallas to a church we’re affiliated with and we stayed there the whole week. The whole camp is about learning what it’s really like to live in the “inner cities” of America.

[[If you're from the REYG and don't want your time at Urban Experience spoiled, don't read until you see more purple font!]]

On Monday we got to the church and introduced ourselves to the coordinator and played some “get to know you” games, which was really fun. Then we went over to the North Texas Food Bank and got to pack boxes of food for ministries that helped out needy families. After we got back from doing this, we had a little talk about respect and the way we should respect people, whether they’re homeless or supremely rich.

Next was the hard part… We had to go to lunch, 2 group members and a chaperone. We had to figure out the bus route to get to the restaurant we were supposed to eat at and we were given a specific amount of money to use and we couldn’t use our own money we brought with us to pay any extra. It was a neat experience having to actually budget for what we were going to eat. We went to this quaint little Mexican restaurant that was really good! It was great until we got out to see our bus driving away from the bus stop. We walked to the bus stop and saw that it was going to take another 45 minutes for another bus to come. So we hiked the 8 blocks or so back to the church and had a fun time bonding with the people in my group.

Later that night we planned out a faux menu of what we would buy from the supermarket if we had to live off a dollar a meal. After our groups did that, we figured out the route to the supermarket (the only one in South Dallas) and had to find all the food we decided to buy. We didn’t actually buy the food, but it was so weird thinking about having to live off a dollar a meal everyday! I’m so used to being able to stop by Wendy’s and get a quick burger whenever I want to, so I never thought about that stuff before.

Then when we got done buying our actual dinner that we were going to be eating, the coordinator made us carry it back with us on the bus (during which time I fell asleep). Then, we participated in a Bible Study that’s held at the church on Monday nights.

Tuesday was the BIIIIIIG day, the one that has prolly changed my life the most. We did this thing called “A Day in the Life” and it’s basically where you live a scenario of an inner city resident.

First off, we got into different groups of 3 and had to draw slips of paper from a hat. On the slips of paper were things like, car, $2.50 (for a bus pass), bus pass, laptop/cd player/ipod, cell phone, etc. Whichever one of the slips we drew, we were allowed to have that thing, BUUUUUT if we drew car, we couldn’t use it because we had no money for the gas; if we picked laptop/cd player/ipod, we couldn’t use the laptop because of the lack of WiFi Connection, etc. Unfortunately, my group chose two cars and the laptop/cd player/ipod, so it really did us no good. The coordinator took away everything that we didn’t choose, even our money. (The adults in the groups were allowed to have a cell phone for emergencies, but they couldn’t use them to assist in our scenario unless someone drew cell phone.)

We had 7 different scenarios to choose from and my group picked the one we thought would be easiest. (It wasn’t…) We picked the scenario of a family that had run out of food and had no more food stamps and no money left until the mother got paid at the end of the week. This happened the month before, as well. We needed to figure out where to get the food, how to get it home, what the regulations and stipulations were to get the food, etc.

Since we couldn’t use our cars, we had to walk everywhere that day. At 10:48 AM, we approached a cop sitting in his car to ask him where the closest food pantry would be and he told me that he had one in his kitchen… Yeah, like we were gonna go and raid his kitchen, I dunno how well that would turn out. He also gave us talking to him weird looks because of the way we were dressed. Here’s what I wrote in my folder about it.

“The cops don’t know what a food pantry is. How is that helpful to people that actually need it?? He didn’t take us seriously because we weren’t dressed like we were actually in that situation.”

At 11:45 we decided to find a church in downtown that could direct us to their food pantry. As we were walking to this church there was a car wreck and we stopped to help the people out, but there wasn’t much we could do. Another lady had already called the cops by the time we ran over to the scene, so it was basically taken care of. The drivers were pretty shaken up and had some cuts, but other than that, things looked okay so we went on our way.

While we were walking to the church I thought of an idea for a “Man vs. Wild” episode about surviving in the inner city.

So, at 11:50 we went inside the church and asked if they had a food pantry. The lady at the desk directed us to where it was located a few miles away.

At 12:18 PM we got to the place and wrote down all their rules and such, like we were supposed to figure out. But for some reason our group didn’t feel like we had accomplished what we were supposed to, so we kept went downstairs to where their soup kitchen was and decided to ask where another food pantry was located. We walked in the exit door because the entrance had been locked behind us. So, we asked one of workers where the closest one was and he directed us to someone else. As we started to walk to the other person we saw a black lady come in behind us through the exit door and the workers started yelling at her to leave. The next person we talked to, before we could even open our mouths to say anything, asked us if we were lost. We said no and what we were there for and he directed us to one of the cops in the soup kitchen. (We could tell where this was going.) So, after being relayed through 3 more people we finally talked to the person in charge of the soup kitchen who told us we should go to the food pantry at the church we were staying at. Oh bother, this was getting more and more difficult as the day went on. After we left the soup kitchen feeling a tad defeated and totally confused by how helpless the cops were, I gave my water bottle to one of the homeless people sitting on the sidewalk. The guy next to him asked me if I was gonna make him pay for it. I smiled and said no and told him about how I just wasn’t thirsty and thought someone else could use it. After this we asked a traffic officer on a bicycle if he knew where another food pantry might be.

At 12:50 we reached the other place we were directed to besides the church we were staying at and they only had a soup kitchen. So, we asked for the number to a food pantry on their list and to use the telephone.

At 1:00 we had to sign a list and wait in line to use the phone. Then a worker asked why we were there because of the way we looked. (I forgot to mention this before, but we weren’t allowed to tell people what we were actually doing.) We made up some bogus story about our house burning down and we were living with our aunt, but she didn’t have enough money to buy food for us, so we were looking for the closest food pantry. I felt really bad about lying to him like that because he was a really nice guy and seemed genuinely concerned about us. He actually told us that we shouldn’t be in that position. When we finally got our turn on the phone, I called the number of the food pantry so we could get directions. The lady that answered the phone didn’t drive, so she didn’t know how to help us get there. We asked the guy at the counter how to get there and it was really far away.

At 1:30 we we took a break at a little park thing because we were tierd, hot, and in a lot of pain. (And we were remembering that people go through this every single day!) This is what I wrote about it.

“Takin’ a break because I’m in pain. (HEAD and FEET ache and water is wonderful.)”

At 1:35 a man came up to us and offered us an orange Gatorade.

“I was supposed to meet my friend, but he never showed up. This must be a sign from God that I’m supposed to give y’all this Gatorade!”
“But don’t you want it??”
“Nah, I got my beer right here, y’all can have the Gatorade.”

It was so interesting to see someone that was clearly living in poverty offering us a Gatorade. I suddenly felt like I was a part of something much bigger than myself, my church, and my group of friends. It made me realize how closed my eyes had been. I had never really looked at a homeless person before this day, but now, if I ever see someone walking along the side of the road (whether they look homeless or not), I feel compassion for them.

“I had an A-Ha moment! Salvage anything you receive along the way.”

After this we headed back to the church we were staying at for the week. In all, we walked 6 miles that day. We attended another Bible Study at the church that night.

On Wednesday we had service projects and we switched groups once again. My group went to the AIDS Resource Center and we helped out at their food pantry and served lunch to the patients at the Center. It was really incredible to see people that were so obviously suffering from this disease so happy and so alive. It really made me appreciate life more than I did before. We had some questions to answer and I’ll write down everything from my journal.

Before we got there:

1. Considering what you know about this place, product, or service, what do you expect to find??
   – I don’t know much at all about the place we’re going to, but I expect to find a place where we can do our best to help people through God’s will.
2. How do you expect the place to be organized??
   – I expect that the Resource Center will be organized in a well put-together system.
3. What type of clients/customers would you expect?? Would one age group or gender predominate?? Would you expect a certain income or educational level to dominate??
   – I don’t really know, I think the clients, age groups, genders, etc. will be all over the board.

Before we left:

1. Who’s in charge?? How is power gained or lost as people interact??
   – Dean and Debra. It seems like the power in the organization is shared, even with the volunteers.
2. Who controls conversations?? What are the topics of conversations??
   – There’s not really any leader in conversations, it’s pretty much an open input sort of thing. We talked about where we were from, school, what we liked to do, what all we’re doing this week, and computers.
3. What are the key elements in the scene??
   –  HIV, food, volunteer work, it’s not about what we want, it’s about what THEY want, and treating people with dignity. They’re (the people we encountered today) all sort of their own support group for each other.
4. What are the relationship of the people??
   – They’re all friends, the workers and the “clients” aren’t afraid to interact with each other.
5. What language or actions seem culture and scene specific??
   – When you leave, you hug and kiss each other on the cheek; everybody made sure everybody else was doing okay.
6. What ethical concerns arise from the assignment??
   –The way most of the people were homosexual and/or transexual. HIV is obviously something that the media wants us to believe is only caused by having sex, doing drugs, etc. and that’s not necessarily the case.

– I had an A-Ha moment! Similar people want to live in similar locations. It’s so hard to achieve solidarity when this happens. This is why, we as Christians, should not hide behind our fellow Christians, we must set ourselves apart so that others may achieve solidarity through Christ.

Then we went back to the church we were staying at to unwind and share our experiences.

On Thursday we had another service project. We switched up our groups again and were read the children’s book “Something Beautiful”. We were instructed to ask people we would encounter during the day what they thought was beautiful. The group I was in went to a summer day camp program at Youth World in Oak Cliff. (Can I just add that Oak Cliff is SO pretty to me??)

We had such a great time hanging out with the kids and the other teenagers that were there. I was kinda judgmental going into this project because we were told that the teenagers were working off their hours of community service there. (And we were the minority, which isn’t something I’m used to because there are mostly white people at my church.) Man, I was so wrong in thinking that, a lot of the people turned out to be SO cool! And the kids were so astonished to see a digital camera. They kept asking me to take their pictures and stuff, it was totally adorable.

I remembered that we were told to ask people what they thought was beautiful so I asked a few of the kids and recorded them on the voice recorders we had. One girl said butterflies and she had the most adorable Texan accent, too. That day, those kids were beautiful to me.

The biggest issue we had that day was getting back to downtown Dallas… We sat on the wrong bus for nearly 2 hours until we got off to catch the bus we thought was coming next. I had to pee SO bad and in Dallas there’s no such thing as a public restroom. You have to be a customer and we didn’t have any money!!! So, we sat and waited for the next bus to come in the extreme heat… Guess what?? IT WAS THE SAME BUS WE GOT OFF OF BEFORE!!!!! Ugh, I was so angry because the bus driver told us that she knew there was another one coming. Of course she didn’t know it was her’s though.

We sat on that bus for another 2 and a half hours. When we finally got back to the church, my group was exhausted and the other groups had already talked about their days. So, we just chilled and took naps until it was time to go to the Bible Study. The Bible Study we went to on Thursday night is formally called “Warriors For Christ” (informally “Smokey John’s”), which is a Bible Study focused on prison ministry and helping recovering addicts and recent prison releasees (is that a word??). Here’s what I wrote down about about the prison system, you may not know some of this.

• $2 billion a year is spent on maintaining prisons.
• Inmates get 5 minutes on the phone every 90 days.
• Most women get their babies taken away from them while in prison.
• No education allowed while in prison and they can’t vote after they’re released.
• 6 weeks before people are released from prison they can get their IDs.
• 86% of people in jail are not criminals, they are there for doing drugs.

From the lesson:

• Romans 5 - You are justified by faith.
• God is working in your life, even when you don’t want it or need it.
• Everybody needs a Judas in their life. (So God can glorify you.)
• The fruits of the spirit come only through trials and tribulations.
• It’s not a 12 step program, it’s a 1 step program… 1 step toward Jesus.
• All the Hell you’re going through, remember to keep hope and you will NOT be ashamed.

And to this day, I still go every Thursday that I can, as you’ll see that from my post a few weeks ago. It’s so incredible because every week there’s someone new and every week the new people are always welcomed without a second thought. Nobody cares about denomination there, nobody cares about where you’ve been or where you’re going, all they care about is helping you grow closer to God.

And on Friday, we packed up and went home. :[

[[Spoilers are over, REYG peeps.]]

So, last night while the two people were sharing about their experience in Honduras, I remembered everything I learned and faced during Urban Experience last summer. And I finally understood that you don’t have to enter a new country to enter the mission field. Sometimes, the most important mission fields are the ones we are at all the time. So, on your campuses, in your homes, in your workplaces, everywhere you go, that is holy ground the Lord has walked on. I will leave you with this verse, it reflects everything I experienced last summer.

“Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have entertained angels without know it.” Hebrews 13:2 (NIV)

May the Lord be with you as you enter your personal mission field. Sorry it’s so long, but I couldn’t leave anything out! :P Toodles!

-Bee-