The packing epiphany

Just now, in the midst of packing for a week of vacation and hanging up laundry, I had a small epiphany. So for old time’s sake I thought, “Why not write a reflection about it?”

My near-perfect packing skills brought to mind YouthWorks and GreaterWorks and my now definite departure from the organization as I look for what will be next for me. My thoughts ultimately lead to pondering why God is asking (or rather, telling) me to stay in Cincinnati right now. While I think the answer to that very large question is being revealed to me bit by bit and day by day (in time I’ve been able to spend with my mom, in the compliments about how much better the house is looking with some of my cleaning, in getting to see old friends again — or to not see them, but know that the option is still available), my revelation is more in the confidence in knowing YouthWorks is not right for me, at least right now.

“Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, ‘Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,’ He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.” — Mark 9: 5-6

In reality, a significant portion of the past 15 months of my life has been incredibly challenging. Entering into my summer I was sure that I would conclude it by moving home. But then my staff was pretty much fantastic. And the summer went unexpectedly smooth with only minor bumps and hang-ups. So somewhere along the way I started to change my mind about being ready to leave.

Hindsight being 20:20 and all, I think maybe I was a little scared to leave behind what I had come to know and had become comfortable with in order to reenter a life I knew better five years ago. Like the disciples, I was a partly afraid and just didn’t want to leave an amazing experience. But now I see my summer in Booneville was a gift from God and His gentle way of saying to move on to what He has in store for me next.

Which, after this wonderful 3 a.m. insight, I think I am finally ready for…

Peace,
Becca

Multi-tasking

I am attempting to multi-task at the Boys and Girls Club. Access to posting my blogs has become a premium since my laptop no longer will connect to our neighbor’s wireless Internet (don’t worry – they knew we used it).

There was a surprise waiting for me at the Boys and Girls Club today – our Start SMART class has been canceled and Caleb, the usual computer room monitored, couldn’t come in to work today. So here I am, monitoring the computer room with no book to read. I figure this is a good time to catch up on the reflection I never wrote for this past weekend.

At this point, I can now officially say I have less than a week in Booneville in the capacity of a GreaterWorks intern. And I can genuinely say I am sad about having to leave. I realize this might sound funny since I’m coming back, but I’m sad that after this week there will probably be a decent number of kids from the club that I’ll never see again. And I’m sad that I won’t be here to help make check-in smoother and Power Hour more manageable. I wish I could be here to finish SMART Kids with my class.

Even though I know by this time next week I will be well on my way to Minneapolis, Minnesota, I can never quite wrap my mind around change until it has already happened. Maybe this is a way to keep myself from being too saddened by the reality of leaving. I’m not sure.

It is hard for me to think about leaving the kids that I have really connected with and gotten to know over the past months. There is a part of me worried that they will miss me too much, but another part of me that wonders if they will miss me at all or just forget about me after a week or two – like I was never here to begin with. I can’t decide which would be worse … I guess the latter would be better for the kids.

Seasons

Last night our team had our final book discussion. We were finishing Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer. In his final chapter, he uses a metaphor of the seasons to make his point.

In essence, as interns we are in the autumn of this experience. Palmer explains that autumn is a time of paradox. Everywhere we look, we see life dying off, but hidden beneath the death are actually the seeds of new life.

And I can see that. I see the ways we as a team are saying our goodbyes … through the flood of dinners we’ve been meaning to schedule but never set a date for, in passing off our responsibilities or looking for replacements, in answering the question of “how much longer do we have you for?” with “two weeks.”

But I can also see the tiny glint of seeds of new life. I see it in the way that we, as a team, can genuinely sit and have a fun conversation without the awkward silences. And in a way it makes me sad that it took this long for us to be able to appreciate each other.

But I suppose that is the way these things work. My mentor was celebrating her birthday last week when she picked me up from the airport and let me in on her newly found insight that the further she progresses in life, the more she feels like she understands it and gets it right. She was also slightly frustrated that she couldn’t have figured it out earlier.

That in mind, I guess the best thing to do is just appreciate the company of my team and the progress we’ve made over the last seven months for these next few weeks and hope that this year leads to continued friendships with them as we each move our separate ways and move yet again into the metaphorical springs and summers and embark on new experiences.

The airplane blog

As I fly somewhere over the distance between Ohio and Texas, learning that not all American Eagle tray-tables were created equal (I must hold my laptop on my lap … my plane home had superior laptop-supporting tray-tables), I know that it is official: I only have three weeks left in Booneville… sort of.

Unlike my teammates, who are working on saying goodbye, I am saying, “see you soon.” In some ways I think this task is deceptively harder than the former. For Rachel, Katie and Kyle, all loose ends must be tied by the end of April for better or for worse. Their goodbyes are fairly final. In my case, it is easy for me (and perhaps equally easy for those in the community) to think of May as a small hiatus where if my loose ends remain loose, they can be tied upon my return.

Of course this is not the case. What I must continue to remind myself (somewhat of a procrastinator by nature) is that my return in May will bring a new and different set of responsibilities. My involvement in the community will, without doubt, look different than is has for the past seven months.

My newfound enjoyment of church on Wednesday evenings might continue, but not at my small Catholic church. Rather than consistent Monday through Thursday afternoons at the Boys and Girls Club, I anticipate shorter, drop-in visits. Of course, I do hope to continue weekly line-dancing lessons at the senior center throughout the summer.

I can’t say I’m concerned about the transition for myself; I think I adapt well to change (perhaps adaptability is my no. 6 strength?). However, I have heard transitions can be hard on Booneville. For this reason I am striving to do the best job I can at preparing the community, especially those less familiar with YouthWorks, for the changes in my involvement.

And while I am a little bit saddened to see my involvement with GreaterWorks coming to a close, I am very excited to introduce YouthWorks to new corners of Booneville and touch more lives as a result of the work I have been doing since September.

Hope in the mist of despair

This week, I will not write so much about my own accomplishments or personal revelations, but rather my observations of the community I live in.

It would be denial to say I have never wondered why there is GreaterWorks in Booneville, out of some 75 YouthWorks sites. I have pondered the reasoning for this, the necessity, the need. Of course Booneville can utilize GreaterWorks interns… but do they need them more than other places?

I am not going to pretend to know the process of choosing GreaterWorks sites, but I am sure there are myriad factors that play into such decision-making.

As my time here draws to a close, I have been blessed to have conversations that help me to see why I am here. I can now begin to comprehend specific instances in which I was the right person to be in this community, and I am very grateful for having been able to help.

But what I’ve seen in the past week has nothing to do with me. As you know, the lives of many of the people in Booneville changed quite drastically a week ago. As a result, I have been able to see what this community, on its own, is capable of doing.

I’ve attended several ministerial fellowship meetings that often appeared (let’s be honest) somewhat pointless to me. The fellowship had an emergency meeting this week that was the kick-start of forming a clearinghouse to aid the families affected by the Cargill fire. The clearinghouse has already been stocked. And what is even better to see is that more than just the ministers of this community are working together, but more the members of the various churches.

I guess all of this has just kind of left me in awe and caught me off-guard because my perception of Booneville has sometimes been that things here are slow to get started and hard to complete.

This all goes to show that in the midst of disaster, there is always good. This community is working together to get through this. (In fact, there is a sign in town that reads something to the extent of: “Sleet, snow, fire or flood. Booneville will triumph!”)

Perhaps for myself, this has been an opportunity for my belief in this community to be strengthened. With less than a month remaining of my GreaterWorks term, I need to trust that the things we have begun as a team, whatever improvements we have made, were not done in vain. I need to trust that everything will not go back to the way it was before we came. For me, this is a way of seeing that this community can, and will, take care of itself long after we have left.

The long day is over

To say the least, this, my first Easter away from family, will be one I do not forget (save possibly if I get old and senile at some point, but I digress).

The weekend kicked off well for me with a thoughtful Good Friday service, followed by a packed Saturday of lunch with my mentor, hiking at Mt. Magazine with Will and Rachel, making dinner for my team and attending Easter Vigil at my church.

It was during the celebration after the conclusion of Easter Vigil that I mentally planned out how Easter Sunday would go for me. Rachel and I would wake up and break our Lenten fast with a breakfast of pancakes, followed by a potluck, Easter egg hunt, and Sunday service at her church. That would then be followed by a lunch with some community friends, which in turn would be followed by dinner at a couple from my church’s home.

The day seemed to be going seamlessly when we were relaxing at our lunch destination and one of our hosts entered, announcing that DPM, a major meat processing plant and significant supplier of jobs in Booneville, was burning to the ground. My immediate reaction was, “You’re kidding,” in the shocked way that one assumes such a random and horrific truth cannot be so. He was not kidding. I later witnessed this myself when I walked outside and observed a big billowing cloud of grey-black smoke rising east of town.

My perfectly planned Easter promptly ended.

The primary concern was the large amounts of ammonia used for refrigeration that, due to the fire, were now leaking into the air.

In the hours immediately following, I called our dinner hosts and debated whether or not it was safe to stay in Booneville. Airing on the side of caution my team and I packed some Easter leftovers and a change of clothes and headed west, on the way calling my family to ensure they would hear the news from me first and not a local news channel.

All that said, I am now typing this reflection from my own bed in our house, back in Booneville. And I am very grateful that I will be sleeping in my own bed tonight.

But the part that makes this topic worthy of my reflection is that the future of Booneville has been on my mind. Though the air is safe, the economic future of this town may very well not be. Employing anywhere from 400-800 (depending on the source) individuals, DPM/Cargill by far provided the most jobs in this community. I can easily name a handful of people I know personally directly affected by this. The plant is gone, useless.

As a volunteer living in this community precisely to help it, especially knowing I will be spending an extra three months here, I find myself grasping for ways I could offset the devastation that will ripple through Booneville as a result of this great loss. But I am coming up empty handed, feeling useless. One of the only things I know that I can do is to continue with what I have been doing and keep my eyes and ears open for other opportunities.

The only other thing I know that I can do is ask for prayers … for a community full of people who woke up this morning celebrating the day that is central to our faith and go to bed tonight wondering how the day’s events will impact their lives.

Feeding the hungry

“For I was hungry and you gave me food …”
“Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? …”
“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
— Matthew 25: 35, 37, 40

In the most basic sense of the word, I fed the hungry last week.

Allow me to elaborate. On any given day at the Boys and Girls Club, it is not unlikely to have a half dozen or so kids come up and ask me if I have a dollar, a dime, a quarter, or some arbitrary amount of change so that the panhandler can buy a snack or a drink from the pop machine. Typically I say, “I don’t have any money,” which is sometimes followed up by, “Well when do you get paid?” To which I usually smugly reply, “I don’t get paid.” I should add that the club gets free snacks to give to the kids who don’t have enough money to buy their own snack. I usually recommend the kid try to chase down one of these if they are asking me for money.

I should also add that, unfortunately, there appear to be a few kleptomaniacs that frequent the club. Therefore dollars left in backpacks (or free in a cubby) do not last long. This was the case on Thursday when the younger kids came back downstairs from being in the game room and computer room. One young girl, who is always generous buying snacks for other kids or sharing her change, didn’t get to have her snack earlier due to participating in SMART Moves. Not unlike many other dollars, hers had mysteriously disappeared.

She came up to me and explained how she was so hungry. Though I tried my usual answer of, “Have you gotten a free snack?” there were none left. Her usual kindness and generosity moved me to go to my purse, retrieve one dollar bill and one dime. (This happens to be the same little girl who gave me many birthday gifts.) I proceeded to explain that I would buy her the snack of her choice, as a much belated birthday gift to her. She chose a bag of Cheetos that she eagerly grabbed and ate (and, I feel I must mention, she shared with her friend).

I like to think that somehow in this small act of kindness toward a seven-year-old, I have essentially fed Christ.

Fasting for others

As I alluded to last week, the idea of fasting as more than the size meals I eat or whether or not I consume meat is a relatively new concept for me. This Lent is really opening my eyes to what fasting is and what it can be.

I’ve always thought of fasting as a personal thing. So I was surprised on Ash Wednesday to hear the priest at my church explaining that when we fast and pray and give alms, it should be for the benefit of others. I understood how we could pray for others and give to those in need … but how could I fast for others? I did not know at that time that this Lent would present opportunities for me to see how I could fast for the benefit of others.

One such opportunity was a 24-hour food fast I participated in with the youth of my church. About 15 of the youth (and some particularly inspired parents and grandparents) forwent eating and drank only juice or water for 24 hours to raise awareness and learn about world hunger and poverty while being in solidarity (a theme of Catholic social teaching) with those who hunger on a daily basis. It was great to see a group of 5th -12th graders be models for how the rest of the church might spend some of their Lent fasting for the poor.

One other way I had seen my fasting benefit others is among my own team. Not surprisingly, on a team of five we have a variety of eating preferences. Despite that, we have set aside a couple of meals each week to have one person cook and eat together. While the meals were always foods everyone would be willing to eat, recently I have seen much more thought put into meeting the needs of the rest of the team when making something. For example, though I have given up meat for the entirety of Lent, I know the majority of my team would still appreciate this source of protein in a meal. Therefore when it is my turn, I make sure to account for this need/desire in their life; they, in turn, have considerately accommodated a fairly restrictive diet. Though it was not originally my intent, I believe my fasting is benefiting us as a team.

I guess fasting for others isn’t as hard or strange as I had originally thought.

The similarities of sin and chocolate

Having been Catholic my entire life, when I think of Lent, fasting just kind of follows naturally. But in truth, I never put a lot of thought into abstaining from meat on Fridays (in fact I have probably forgotten about abstaining more times than I could count in my 23 years) or into fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. It was a rule I followed. I’m not sure I really got the point behind it.

Over my years I have also given up many things for Lent. I can still remember the year I successfully gave up chocolate for the whole 40 days — including Sundays — and was congratulated by my parents with an Easter Sunday gift of pogs representing every football team in the NFL. Oddly, I was very excited about it. Then there was the trend of doing something more rather than giving up. (One Lent I resolved to make my bed daily — unsuccessfully.)

I guess I’ve come to the point of combining these two lines of thought into giving up and trying to do more. For this year’s season that translates to a pretty restrictive fast for the whole of Lent (not just Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) and continuing my pursuits of putting God first in my life.

Twelve days into the journey, I would say I’m doing pretty well. Clearly the former Lenten resolution is more easily measurable than the latter, but all the same I think I am on the right track. But that’s not to say that I haven’t had wavering thoughts.

Without getting into all the details of my fast … to say the least sugar is off limits. Well, just in case you didn’t notice, Thursday was Valentine’s Day. And Valentine’s Day means candy and chocolate, especially among the elementary school crowd I hang out with daily at the Boys and Girls Club (but there were also a substantial amount of sweets that morning at the senior center).

Being utterly surrounded by chocolate and sugar in all its varied forms begins to make a girl think: What would one little bite of fudge hurt? Theoretically it probably wouldn’t hurt anything … except for every idea behind the fast I am doing. Immediately a parallel thought process popped in my head.

Can we not tend to use the same justification when it comes to sin? What would one lie or one unkind thought or a little bit of jealousy hurt? But ultimately that little lie or thought or jealousy would be my one bite of fudge on Valentine’s Day that would undo all the careful and thoughtful work I had been doing up to that point.

Just a little something to think about. :)

Oh and don’t worry — I resisted the sweet treats. This way Easter will be that much sweeter.

My very special birthday surprise

I have officially been 23 for just over a week now. It is funny to think about how this age used to sound so old to me, and yet now here I am … out of college and 23.

I was not one of those kids who always knew what I wanted to be when I grew up (although I did spend a few years convinced I would be an MTV VJ) so I can’t say I ever had a clear idea of what I would be doing at this point in my life. The only thing I know for sure is that I never would have imagined I would begin my 23rd year volunteering in a Boys and Girls Club in a population 4,000 town in Arkansas.

Usually, for a birthday spent at the Boys and Girls Club, all the kids sing “Happy Birthday” to the lucky staff or member. My birthday had no such event. But what I did get I appreciated much more.

At the club, there is a certain newly-seven-year-old whom I had informed of my birthday, only because hers is a mere three days after mine. I didn’t really expect her to commit the date to memory, but she did — always reminding me it was almost February 4 and what was I going to do to celebrate my birthday?

On Monday she rushed up to remind me what was so special about the day (incase I had forgotten I suppose) and told me she had a very special surprise for me but she couldn’t tell me what it was. This excitement was followed by quietly singing me happy birthday. She was so excited you might have thought it was actually her birthday and not mine.


My surprises from her were: A birthday pop-up card (made at the club on Friday), a painting of a Webkinz lion (pictured above), a golden dollar (not a Sacagawea … I guess these are new?) she had found at the club, as well as many hugs and much excitement.

I suppose what makes me so happy about my birthday surprises are they make me feel like I must be doing something right at the club. I am building real relationships with the kids and letting them know that they are valuable and cared for.

So, without a doubt, I never thought one of my favorite 23rd birthday presents would be a seven-year-old’s rendition of a Webkinz … about as much as I never thought I would live in Arkansas. But I guess that’s just one of the things I love about this opportunity.


Becca

The trouble with being needed

To a certain degree, to be needed is a wonderful feeling. It gives a sense of usefulness and purpose to one’s life. Being needed makes a person feel uniquely important; perhaps without her, a job or task could not be completed.

In a community with need (and let’s face it, that is probably the majority of communities everywhere — if not all communities), inevitably someone in my position will find places to be needed. Being able to step in and alleviate stress or do things others simply can’t get around to due to more urgent responsibilities has allowed me to feel like I belong in Booneville, like I’m not just keeping busy but actually helping.

It used to be that when someone would ask how long I would be in Booneville, the response was something like, “Oh, that long!” Now when someone asks when I leave a typical reaction is, “That soon!” occasionally followed by a question of how things will get done without me. Some members of my church have even joked about finding me a husband so I will stay in Booneville.

The difficulty I find myself faced with is showing my community that I am actually not needed, but that they, in fact, can fill their own needs. This of course means remembering myself that I am not the only one who capable of what I’m doing and finding people willing to take on a little responsibility.

After months of practice, I have worked out the kinks of making a complex-looking church bulletin with Word (a program most everyone has on their computer these days). Now I just need to figure out who would like to take over for me. At the Boys and Girls Club, I am hoping to enlist the older kids and teach them how to make a club newsletter.

You see, being needed can be a wonderful feeling — but ultimately I’m not here to be needed so much as to show that I am not needed. I am here to work alongside the people who won’t leave at the end of April so that this community can continue to improve with or without me. I’m not here to be needed; I’m here to love and believe in Booneville.

Everything I needed to know about coaching basketball…

So this story begins one week ago on Monday when one of the high school volunteers brought me the phone at the Boys and Girls Club. I looked at her with very confused eyes, sure she must too be confused about who she was supposed to give the phone to — because who would call me at the club?

Well, turns out she was not confused at all. On the phone was the head coach of the third and fourth grade girls basketball team I am assistant coaching. I discovered later he had attempted to call my cell phone first, but with no answer tried the club. He was calling to explain that practice for the evening was cancelled since there was the threat of ice on the roads (this is still odd to me, by the way). Thinking that was all, I thanked him for letting me know and got ready to go back to coloring with a seven-year-old. But, to my surprise, he had something else to tell me. He would not be able to make our game on Thursday. I would have to coach — alone.

At this piece of news I nervously chuckled and said that should be fine as long as he told me what I needed to do. Mind you — not only have I never coached anything in my life, but as a team we had only had one practice and one game since my return from Christmas break. I managed to grab myself a Post-It note and a pen and got ready to take notes. Everything I ever needed to know about coaching a third and fourth grade girls basketball team would have to fit on a three-inch square. At least what he felt I needed to know did.

As the time between Monday and our game on Thursday rolled by I tried to not think too much about what I would do. Granted, this was probably not the best coaching strategy, but we were playing the same team as the prior week (coincidentally the best team by far), so losing was unfortunately inevitable.

When 5 p.m. on Thursday finally came I decided my role would be to make sure the girls played even amounts of time and combat discouraged feelings no matter how ridiculous the score. I must have looked at least a little like a deer in headlights since Rick, the director of the club, offered to help me out. I welcomed it.

I didn’t call a single time out (mostly because I wasn’t sure when would be a good time for one). I have no clue what our final score was because the scorekeepers kindly reset it at half time so as not to overwhelm my team. In the end I think the girls and I are equally looking forward to the return of our real coach.

Assistant coach I can do; I am not a head coach.

March for Life

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to travel as a pseudo-chaperone with some of my church to Little Rock to participate in the 30th annual March for Life.

My trip began around 1 p.m. on Friday climbing in a van with three high school students, my mentor and another youth leader from the church. These might seem like odd or small numbers, but there were only five high-school-aged youth in our church to begin with, and since the diocese of Little Rock requires chaperones to be 25 (and I am just shy of 23) both male and female adults, not counting myself, were required. Barely on our way we realized check-in was at 6 p.m., not 3 p.m. This turned out to be no big deal as we spent our extra time at a mall (a rare occurrence for me these days).

Activities as the “Extravaganza” (as the diocese liked to call the event) included praise and worship, a couple of speakers, a Christian screamo band, a dance (or as I would refer to it from my high school days, a “mixer”), prayer service, Mass, rosary, adoration and, of course, the march.

Undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend for our youth was the dance. … It provided an opportunity for them to have fun and meet kids like them — other teenage Catholics living as Christian minorities and sometimes suffering as a consequence. They didn’t have to worry about being called out by a teacher for their beliefs or asked why they worship Mary.

Having grown up in very different circumstances, the need for such events was foreign to me (and to the archdiocese of Cincinnati). Even from the several months I have lived in Booneville I haven’t received any outright discrimination as a Catholic in an area where I am among about 1 percent. To hear some of the girls talk about how they are not comfortable in school expressing their religious background drove home what a blessing it is for these high schoolers to have a state-gathering.

Undoubtedly the highlights of my weekend were the march (of course) and getting time to really talk and get to know some of the girls from our youth group and spending time with my mentor.

The march was unlike anything I had done before. Trying to overcome my political apathy along with my journalism background (we are typically supposed to remain neutral/unbiased) protests and things of the like are not really my forte. It was need to stand in a place surrounded by people from all different parts of the state and all different backgrounds and beliefs united in one thing.

And the rest … see above about the hardships I learned take place in our small community for some of the youth to understand why I really appreciated that aspect. It is just hard to really get to know people in a group setting once or twice a week. Or in the case of my mentor when she has five children and almost always one is needing her attention (her oldest and most independent was on the trip with us).

If anything, the weekend was just a reminder how much I have learned since I have been here and how much more there is for me to continue learning.


Becca

New year, new schedule, new ministries

Being a northerner living in the south, I continue to struggle with wrapping my head around this weather. I went home for Christmas where I largely spent my time bundled in coats and scarves, then I flew to Minneapolis where there was snow everywhere. But now I’m in Arkansas. There’s no snow in Arkansas. I don’t think I’ve even worn a scarf since I’ve been back.

My logical mind knows only about three weeks passed between our departure from and return to Booneville, but the northerner in me doesn’t know what to do with January highs in the 50s. Weather-wise I feel like I’m in March, maybe even April.

This is all so confusing because in a lot of ways I feel like hardly any time has passed at all. Everyone remembers me and notices my return. Starting today, I’ll be getting back to what I have been spending the past 3 or 4 months doing … with a few additions and rearrangements (all of which I am excited about).

Last week Katie, Rachel and I checked out the senior center in town. It is a place we had been invited to but never gone to … and I’m wishing we had. We talked with some women there and agreed to start coming in one day a week. They seemed very enthusiastic about having us there, and I am looking forward to getting to know the seniors and hearing their stories.

This additional ministry will rearrange my schedule slightly, but I consider the adjustment to be well worth being able to do beginner line dancing on Thursday afternoons at the center.

Also coming up for me in this new year are additional responsibilities at the Boys and Girls Club in the form of assistant coaching a 3rd and 4th grade girls basketball team and lesson planning and teaching SMART Moves.

In a lot of ways my three week hiatus has made everything new. My shared king size bed seems bigger (though maybe Rachel would disagree); I have new resolve to keep in touch with friends, family and fellow GreaterWorks interns; and after months of us trying to make plans with Will (a former Booneville GW intern) we have finally been able to spend some time with him.

So with all that is new, what is even harder to wrap my head around than the warm weather is the fact that I only have about 15 weeks left in my community. 15 weeks that will probably fly by. 15 weeks that I could miss if I blink and forget to really be in my community.

So my challenge to myself is to appreciate these new ministries and opportunities as new ways to get closer to my community and love it more.

Peace,
Becca