Mission Year: A Recap

I've learned more and experienced more beauty this year than I can list. Nevertheless, this is my attempt to break a few things down – concepts, experiences, changes. Even now I'm sure there are things I'm blind to because I'm still in the midst of it...different is what hits us. But these are some things I've been trying to notice and grasp from this year, and a few developing thoughts....

Ways we have connected with our neighbors this year:

• Community dinners! And one-on-one family dinners.
• Soccer at the park!
• Supporting local businesses
• Music together
• Our Justice Project! (see previous posts)
• Lending a hand with projects, like spring cleaning
• Bubbles, chalk, frisbee, jump rope
• Baking them cookies
• They teach US how to cook
• Starting a community garden and sharing the harvest!
• Visiting local churches
• Going to garage sales (which happen to take place all the time in our neighborhood)

Community:

• Intentional. Starting and ending with unity through active commitment. Openness.
• Pseudo community = avoiding conflict. Community = conflict resolution
• Taking off our veils. Veils allow us to see but to not be seen, giving us a false sense of power and control. What we truly desire is to see AND to be seen.

Justice:

• Pursuing God's heart for the world
• Overcoming entitlement
• The command for right relationships – God & man, Man & man, Man & nature
• Loving the person right in front of you...and more
• “What love looks like in public” - Cornel West

Prayer: 

Expressed attitude of our dependency on God in all things.
“To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, within you.” (Theophan the Recluse)

Sustainability:

“What would happen if I lived a slower-paced existence?” (Serve God, Save the Planet)

• Helping to build and cultivate a community garden.
• Doing laundry by hand.
• Limited technology usage!
• Making art from trash/recycled materials.
• Using public transportation to get around the 4th-largest city in the country.
• Learning where our food and other products come from. Supporting local business and committing to purchasing only Fair Trade coffee and chocolate in the beginning steps of understanding our roles as consumers.
• Budgeting (Mission Year budget: $17.50/week/person for groceries, $70 stipend)

Reconciliation:

...Ask me about this one if you're curious.

Spiritual Disciplines:

Have you ever heard of the “Examen,” by Ignatius Loyola? If not, you MUST check it out: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

Poverty, an illustration:

On Sunday afternoons, we go to a local park for Simple Feast, a ministry where we serve and share a meal with the people at the park, play volleyball, and just hang out. One day another church drove in to pass out Lunchables and, well, preach. I can see how people think they're doing something good when they do this. But multiple people have come up to us afterward and say, “I appreciate what y'all do. You just come and hang out with us and get to know us. You don't try to cram crap down our throats like they do.” People assume they don't know Jesus. They assume homelessness is purely the result of poor choices. But let's be real: I'm sure a lot of those guys at the park know Jesus better than I do. At any rate, I've learned more about Jesus from them than I have from drive-by churches.

“Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” (St. Francis of Assisi)

A few of my favorite memories:

- One night three of us hung out at our neighbor's house. Maya, 10 years old, wanted to give us pedicures. We sang songs together in her room, as one by one she washed our feet and painted our nails. My feet are super ticklish, so I was laughing uncontrollably through the whole experience, which made everyone else laugh too.

- For my experience with Sergio, see a previous blog post.

- Translating “Are You My Mother?” on the spot to a couple Hispanic girls in the nursery. They asked me to read it again and again until they had it memorized and were reading to ME in Spanish, pointing to the words as if they were in Spanish.

Things I've been learning in Mission Year....

How to affirm people well and receive affirmation well. Compliments are based on actions and superficial elements. Affirmation highlights the truth of someone's character. Both are good, the latter has made the biggest impact on me this year. We, like children, are desperate for affirmation, but we are not quick to admit our desire for affirmation. I am learning not only to share good thoughts as soon as they come to mind, but to actively search for goodness and imago dei in my brothers and sisters.

To flow. And I thought college life had taught me to be spontaneous...HA! One of my art professors used to tell me all the time: “Let the process inform the work.” I have a whole new concept of what that means in life, not just my artwork.

How to trust God with my future. He will grow me wherever I am, and use me to grow others because that is who He is.

To hope in people. The hardest people to love this year were some of the most unexpected. This is not about getting what I want; it's about serving others. I can let go of my judgments and anxieties of others because it is God who does the fixing. God said, “I'll deal with their hearts. You LOVE.”

To let go of controlling things to be the way I wish them to be. This means letting other people write the grocery list and do the dishes. We all have different standards of what life together should look like...who knew?

Forming new habits, breaking old ones. Habits of response. Habits of staying updated. Habits of affirmation. Habits of revisiting dreams and who I am.

Generosity.

Drawing close to those who are suffering, not running away.

A healthy transparency that invites people in, not revealing all at once.

Sensativity.

My faith doesn't mean anything until it costs me something.

Things I'm learning about myself:

I want to live in community.

I am a professional artist, and I want more art in my life.

I am valued, beautiful, and wanted – not just for my talents, but for my heart.

I want to live in a warm climate, with Spanish-speaking neighbors. That has been such a GIFT this year!

I want more silence, and a steady, deliberate rhythm to life.

God's dreams for my life have never been so much at the forefront of my mind, and I am learning to embrace them without fear. I have confidence that as long as I keep those dreams fresh in my mind and commit myself to prayer, the Lord will be faithful to guide me to where I ultimately hope to be. And in the mean time, I will unapologetically savor the journey.

I've heard someone refer to Mission Year as the ultimate “you had to be there” experience. And that's not a cop-out, but a challenge: Wherever God places you, be there.

Upcoming post: The latest news on my future! It only took me til the last day of Mission Year to figure it out...

Grace and peace, friends

One more video...at least for now :)

Mission Year 2012-13: Bauman Road

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meTquyzIcRU&feature=youtu.be

miscellaneous

GUIDE TO HOUSTON

If you ever come to Houston, here are a few places I've enjoyed...

Hermann Park (includes Miller Theatre, Japanese gardens, etc.)

Discovery Green

Villa de Matel (where we had our Silence Retreat)

Kaboom Bookstore

On my Mission Year budget, I haven't been out to eat very often, nor do I consider myself a connoisseur of food, but for what it's worth, here are a few of my favorite food stops:

Georgia's Market

The Hobbit Café

Niko Niko's

Chipotle (My first experience, thanks to Josh)

And of course, the ever-popular taquerías (taco trucks), panaderías (bakeries), and Raspas (snow cone joints) in our neighborhood!

Free Art Museums!

The Menil Collection

Rothko Chapel

Art League of Houston

Museum of Fine Arts (free Thursdays)

BOOKS

In case you missed it, here's a list of the curriculum reading we did this year. Bolded are the ones I especially liked:

Restoring At-Risk Communities John M. Perkins, Editor

The Way of the Heart By Henri Nouwen

Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? By Beverly Daniel Tatum

Serve God Save the Planet By Matthew Sleeth

The Ragamuffin Gospel By Brennan Manning

Jesus and the Disinherited By Howard Thurman

Jesus for President By Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw

Wisdom of Stability By Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove

Flat Broke: Women in an Age of Welfare Reform By Sharon Hays

The House on Mango St By Sandra Cisneros
Simple Spirituality: By Chris Heurtz
Welcoming the Stranger By Mathew Soerens and Ginny Hwang

A couple videos...

So, back in January, I won this pretty snazzy camera from a contest at World Vision Youth (http://acts.worldvisionyouth.org/). And it came with a hilarious function which allows me to take a photo and a 2-second slow-mo at the same time. With the help of my dear teammate Kristin and her Mac, we were able to put together the following videos:

Justice Project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaSfL8md1tQ

...Someone asked me if I was going to post any photos of the final products of our Justice Project...and it occurred to me that I didn't make a conscious effort to get photos of the final pieces. It was all about the process to me, the joy of those moments with our neighbors.

Fletcher 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69ay9MLHOsk&feature=youtu.be

...Another example about the value of the process. It was cool to experience how the mural evolved from my original conception, with the help of the kids, and to experience the process with them. My favorite quote from our time together: Neftali telling another one of the kids what we did that day: "We were painting the mural, and then it started raining so hard, and we got so wet, and we ran around and were so wet, and we were superstars, right, Tracy?" Yes, Neftali, you are all superstars.

Coming soon: A final video montage of life in our lovely neighborhood ♥

Orange Birds and Rainbow Leaves

At Kids Club last week, there was a group of volunteers that came in from a local church to help us out. I was sitting at the craft table with a couple of them as kids starting coming in. The craft that day was a coloring page about the parable of the sower. Images of a farmer, soil, plants, seeds, and birds covered the page. Little Sergio soon came to sit between me and one of the church volunteers to color. He reached for some "colors" and began coloring the sky purple and the plants pink. When he started scribbling orange over the birds, the woman on the other side of him took notice and said, "Hmm...I've never seen an orange bird before. Here, why don't you color the birds blue? Don't you think birds are blue?"

Here's a short back story before I continue:
When I was Sergio's age, a teacher once looked over my shoulder when I was coloring a person's face orange (Peach-colored markers are hard to come by). She said, "Hmm...I've never seen an orange person before," and walked away. I was devastated. She didn't like my orange person.

It's a rare occasion that I feel physically angry. Livid is probably an accurate adjective for how I felt. My first reaction was to want to cover Sergio's ears and scold her. But I took a breath and calmly said, "Well, I've seen orange finches..." She shrugged off my words: "Oh? Well here, let's color the plants green, not pink. And this dirt should be a nice brown. And a blue sky. I like blue skies."

I felt paralyzed. What could I say? This is not your drawing how dare you crush his imagination leave him alone and by the way what planet do you live on where birds are only blue? I sat there with my hands shaking, searching for an appropriate way to redeem the situation. Finally he finished and she said, "That's much better. You can go play now," and little Sergio made a beeline for the legos.

I comforted myself with the fact that this woman will not, Lord-willing, be coming back to Fletcher very soon. I prayed and waited for the right moment to talk to Sergio. It came yesterday morning when he was playing by himself. I sat beside him and said, "Hey Sergio, remember last week at Kids Club? We were coloring and that woman was telling you how to color your birds?" He thought for a moment. "Uh...yup." "Well, I just want you to know that when you color, you can use whatever colors you want. It doesn't matter what anyone says. You can color your birds orange, okay?" He smiled and was silent. Finally he said, "Will you play with me?"

Playing with Sergio yesterday was one of my favorite moments all year. We built an awesome boat together and it was priceless to see just how rich his imagination is. Sergio comes from an especially rough family situation. His skies are not always so blue. To see him come alive in the act of play is hope beyond hope to me.

Eventually we sat down to color. He reached for a coloring page of a girl. Hesitating for a moment, he reached for a violet-red crayon. As he began scribbling her all violet-red, he glanced up at me with a smile, and I'm pretty sure he winked at me.

 
The topic of imagination also came up a few prior at Kids Club. We were talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.

We had a half-hour before Kids Club and I still had to come up with a craft. As one who is wary of Christianese imagery of puffy clouds and angel babies with harps, I opened up to the book of Revelation for help. In chapter 22 I read: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."

"On each side of the river stood the tree of life..." That phrase caught my attention. I drew the image above and made copies for the kids to color.

The kids were really excited to color this page, and began coloring away in unusual silence. Little Natalia climbed up on my lap and began to carefully color each leaf a different color. Mercedes, who had carefully begun her tree in brown and green, glanced across the table skeptically. In Spanish she said, "But leaves are neither blue nor purple nor pink." All of the children's faces around the table looked up at me to see what I would say. I replied, "But this is a special tree, the Tree of Life, in the New Jerusalem. Do you think perhaps the trees in heaven have leaves of all kinds of colors?" She thought for a moment. "Really? Like a rainbow?"  "A que sí! I bet so!" someone said. A few minutes later Mercedes reached for another page and began to carefully color each leaf a different color...

May God open our eyes and help us to dream again. In every color. Like a child.
Enjoy your day, friends.

Guest Post: "It's a good thing you're doing."

My lovely friend/teammate/worksite partner Abi York is great with words. Here are some of her latest:

http://abigailyork.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/its-a-good-thing-youre-doing/

It's cram time! But I'll try to write again soon...

Tracy

Keep dreaming!

A quick note on my future:

I've been mildly overwhelmed lately that my life could go in any direction from here. Never has it seemed so open-ended. When I dream about what I want to do with my life, it's not one, clear-cut answer. I cannot cram everything I would love to do into my daily rhythm. There's no magic formula that would allow me to be everything I would love to be on a weekly basis, although this is probably the closest I've ever come – an artist, volunteer, student, social activist, writer, farmer, musician, translator, missionary, athlete, community developer, etc. To an extent, I am all of these things right now. But eventually I wish to select one or two areas in which to really focus and invest myself. In order to make truly good art, I must invest hours in the studio each week. In order to be a truly effective social activist, I must do thorough research. I try to imagine the ideal set-up, the maximization of my gifts, talents, and dreams...but it seems that there will always be a deficiency somewhere. And I've realized that that's okay. I am free to live out God's dreams for my life in seasons. I'm living one right now. Right now! And the focus is service. And it's beautiful and good for this season, and right to embrace it. I cannot pursue every path I want to at once. But whichever path I choose can be good. As C. S. Lewis describes it, we must accept and embrace each new wave that comes to us, and not pine after the ones that have already come and gone.

That being said, I'm going to let my inner social activist steal the stage for the next few paragraphs...

This month, the House of Representatives PASSED the Trafficking Victims Protections Reauthorization Act! I do not know how to express to you how significant I believe this is.

...Let me back up a second:

I believe that we should not rely on a broken political system to fix problems. I believe, to quote Shane Claiborne, that “another kingdom is coming – one that you can participate in but cannot build, a seed you can plant and water but cannot make grow.” BUT...I also believe that we have a responsibility to act, even when we don't see results or experience tangible success. Whether or not you believe our government is good, the fact remains that our government officials have a responsibilty to listen to us. There is no excuse for us to not voice our concerns (and/or thanks) to our officials. Their job is to govern according to what the people demand. We hold a veritable influence in our own political system that many people in the world do not have. Let's take up that responsibility.

So, anyway, the TVPRA....

This is a foundational piece of legislation established in 2000; the first comprehensive federal law to address human trafficking, focusing on prevention, protection, and prosecution. As the crime evolves, the law must also evolve, which is why it must be renewed every few years. In 2011 it was not reauthorized, so one of the major focuses of our Act:s team my senior year of college was to push people to hold Congress accountable to reauthorizing it. Over a year later, it has been passed. To learn more about this bill, visit: http://www.ijm.org/docs/justice_campaigns/TVPA-Summary.pdf

Alright, now let's break this down into real life and take a look at Houston.

Some of us had the privelege of volunteering at a Free the Captives conference this past weekend (www.freethecaptiveshouston.com). It was encouraging to connect with people who desire to learn more about the injustice of human-trafficking and how we can combat it. In fact, Houston appears to be taking great strides in their fight, as is certainly necessary. Houston is estimated to be in the top six cities where trafficking takes place, due to its proximity to the Mexican border and the Gulf and its international airport, among other things.

Much of the information that was shared was not new to me. However, for the first time, I'm hearing this information and specific people and places are coming to mind. I know about houses in our communities where trafficking has taken place. I recognize the massage parlors and nail salons where it undoubtedly takes place. I know young girls whose moms encourage them to go out to the clubs. Our directors have the anti-trafficking hotline taped on their desks (1-888-373-7888). I have looked into the eyes of traffickers themselves and have seen their humanity. It has occurred to me recently that it has become normal for me to have conversations on a weekly basis with prostitutes, ex-convicts, and drug-dealers. There is a sweatshop down the street from where I work. We can all too quickly get caught up in statistics about justice issues and allow numbers to dehumanize the people behind them. Now, after having done some research over the past few years, I've found myself suddenly surrounded by the reality of it. On one hand, these people are becoming real to me. On the other hand, I now live in the danger of injustice becoming normalized.
...I must newly ask myself: What can I do?

So, let me close with a few cursory action items...

Human trafficking is a complex system; there is no simple solution to eradicating it because there are many layers. But that also means that there are so many ways to get involved:

Getting to the root of the problem: Porn. A key point to remember here is that human-trafficking is a system of supply and demand, and the demand is largely fueled by pornography. Learn more about reducing the demand: www.PornHarms.org

Rescue and Prosecution: Learn how to recognize suspicious activity and ask your government officials to DO something. And thank them for what they have done. Thank your Congressmen for passing the TVPRA!

Restoration: Girls who have been rescued need a safe place to go. Learn how to start a safe home for trafficked teens or how to help them rebuild lfe after the trauma. Support businesses like http://www.freethecaptiveshouston.com/new-creations.php that sells jewelry and soap handcrafted by teenaged trafficking victims and at risk girls.

Prevention: It is estimated that a runaway girl will be approached by a pimp within her first 48 hours on the street. Get involved in your community. Become a mentor or tutor at your local school or community center. Build relationships. Relationships are the best prevention.

Some featured resources from the conference this past weekend: http://www.freethecaptiveshouston.com/get-involved.php

And a couple of my favorite resources:
http://www.callandresponse.com/
http://www.polarisproject.org/

Until next time!
Tracy