Alex isn't passionate about anything. That's mildly upsetting to him, sort of. This blog is where he half-heartedly tries to figure stuff out... when he feels like it, that is.
This past weekend, I went home to Atlanta. My grandfather passed away the week before, so I was in town for the memorial service. While funerals are not usually considered joyous occasions, I was excited to have a chance to be with friends and family. Grandpa would have turned 96 next week, and had been in relatively good health and stable mind before his kidneys suddenly failed. After living a long, loving, happy life, he “received his promotion” (as one woman from the church put it) without prolonged suffering. So the weekend was much more of a celebration of his life, character and strong faith in Christ than a grief-filled lament of his death.
(Semi-related nerdy theology tangent: I really LOVE that the “technical name” for a funeral is a “Service of Witness to the Resurrection.” That really is what it should all be about, and I think Grandpa would agree. Yay reformed theology!)
Thanks to Grandpa’s passionate church involvement and the strong impression he made on everyone who knew him, during the course of the weekend’s events I had the privilege of catching up and visiting with many members of Central and Druid Hills Presbyterian Churches. I was very touched by the number of them that were genuinely interested in what I’ve been up to in Peru and Hollywood. Many people said that they loved, respected and were inspired by what I have been doing. Many people said that they have been thinking about and praying for me. (And reading my blog, which I need to do a better job of updating!) I feel truly blessed to have such an amazing network of supporters (at home in Atlanta and in San Antonio as well)! There’s no way for me to express how thankful I am to all of you who have been keeping me in your thoughts and prayers during this time of mission and service, whether you first met me as an idealistic college student or as a restless pastor’s kid “raising hell” in elementary Sunday school class. Thanks, and keep reading!
“What about that guy?” asks the voice from the back seat of the van. I quickly look to my right as we pass an elderly gentleman with slumping posture shuffling down the sidewalk. He definitely looks as if he might be homeless. Or he might just be out to pick up his newspaper. Courtney, my supervisor at PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) stops the van against the closest available stretch of curb that’s not in front of a driveway or blocked by cars parked on the street. She remains seated as I and our two volunteers step outside, going over in our heads the best way to approach this guy Our goal is having him complete a homelessness survey and offering him a free bag of toiletries and snacks without offending him, just in case he turns out to be a retired homeowner going for his daily jaunt around the block. Clutching my clipboard close against my chest for warmth in the frigid southern California air, I think about how I would be able to see my breath if it weren’t for the pre-dawn darkness.
Wendel, one of the volunteers, is a resident of the surrounding neighborhood of Baldwin Hills and has shown ambitious enthusiasm in helping our agency conduct a preliminary “snapshot” of the homeless population in his area. He confidently strides toward the man who’s now crossing the street. “Excuse me....” he calls out, “hey ol’ G.” I’m not exactly sure what “ol’ G” means, but the stranger stops to see what on earth we could possibly want from him at 6 o clock in the morning.
As I catch up to them and look the guy over, any anxiety surrounding how to inquire whether or not he’s homeless with tact and delicacy quickly vanishes. He’s wearing a tattered long sleeve shirt with a stretched collar that’s falling off of his right shoulder, and he’s walking on top of the ends of his baggy pant legs. His feet are almost completely covered by his blue jeans, but not entirely, and I see the toes of his socks peeking out through the holes. Having spent many years living in or close to the inner city, I wouldn’t have even noticed the low way he was sagging his pants if he had been wearing shoes. Well, shoes, and underwear, that is. Richelle, the other volunteer, who is Wendel’s fiance and is out here with us this morning even though it’s her 42nd birthday, immediately notices the same thing. We both quickly look away while the man tugs upward on the front of his pants to keep from exposing himself.
Wendel introduces me by saying that I work for PATH and that we’re conducting surveys in effort to start providing quality assistance to homeless people in the area of Baldwin Hills. If he participates in the survey, he’ll receive a bag stocked with deodorant, shampoo, a toothbrush, toothpaste, granola bars, a bottle of water, a razor, socks and other goodies. Before I start the survey I whisper to Richelle to check the bag that we’ve brought with us to make sure that it really does include a pair of socks. She checks. It doesn’t. Wendel jogs back over to the van to exchange it for a different one.
“Hi there,” I say, deciding not to extend my usual handshake when I see that the guy still has his fingers buried inside the front waistband of his pants. “First off, can you tell me your name?”
“OG” the man replies softly. I think to myself: Does Wendel somehow know this guy? I’m still not sure whether OG is a name or some sort of code. (I would later learn that “OG” is short for Older Gentleman.)
“Umm, sorry, what’s your first name?”
“OG” he repeats.
“Okay, so what’s your last name?” I ask stupidly, still not sure if I’m hearing him correctly.
“Just put ‘OG’ as his name” Richelle advises me as O.G. repeats his name for the third time.
“OK OG, can you tell me where you slept last night? A shelter? In the streets? In a vehicle?” I inquire, reading off the options on our survey form.
Normally when I interact with people on the streets I’m one of those guys that always tries to talk as if I miraculously grew up in “the ‘hood” instead of a middle-class white household (and according to my friends I usually just end up sounding embarrassingly silly and self-conscious), but I get the feeling this time that it’s going to be difficult for me to communicate with O.G. if I’m trying to imitate the speech pattern of a hip hop artist. So instead I’m asking him the questions in the same way I would talk to my 96 year old grandfather.
“In the streets,” he answers my question without elaborating.
“And how long have you been homeless?”
“Six months.”
“Six months?” I double check. I was guessing he’d say at least 10 years.
“Yeah.”
I write his answers down and continue with the survey. I start getting the feeling that he doesn’t trust me. The other two people we’ve interviewed this morning have told us stories and explained almost every answer. O.G. on the other hand is giving the bare minimum of information; just enough for me to fill in blanks and check boxes on the survey form. Plus, it seems like he’s saying “No” to every single yes-or-no question. No, he doesn’t have any health problems. No, he hasn’t been to the emergency room in the past 3 months. No, he’s never been to jail. No, he doesn’t have any mental health issues. No, he’s never been told he abuses drugs or alcohol. When I get to the question that asks which specific drugs he uses, Richelle interjects to clarify that we’re not with the police or government, and that his answers are completely confidential. However, he doesn’t change his answers and insists he doesn’t use any type of drugs or alcohol.
It’s a long survey; it takes nearly 10 minutes to finish the whole thing, and by the end I consider that O.G. might be giving such short, bland answers because he doesn’t want to spend forever standing on the sidewalk talking to strangers with no shoes or jacket when it’s 45 degrees outside. Finally, we finish the survey. Wendel gives him the bag as we wish him good luck, and the three of us trudge back to the van.
“Not a single one of our bags had any socks in it!” Wendel declares as soon as we’re outside of earshot.
“I was afraid of that” I say. “I made up the bags last week, and we only had about 30 pairs of socks.” Today is day two of our three day homelessness survey blitz in the city of Baldwin Hills. Courtney, Wendel and I are one of five teams composed of PATH staff and volunteers that are combing the streets, parking lots and alleyways of the city limits in an effort to gather as much information as possible about the number and vulnerability of the local homeless population. Each team is assigned a specific area of the city in which to conduct surveys between the hours of 5am and 7:30am: presumably the time when people are most likely not to be busy or moving about and in the same places in their daily “routines.” After day one we had already documented 22 people (and thus given out 22 bags), so I was not at all surprised to learn that we no longer have socks.
“Yeah, it’s ok; I just gave him my own pair of socks,” Wendel says plainly. Richelle, Courtney and I are all touched, and we each give him a variation of some sort of “oh my gosh, that’s so sweet” affirmation. Wendel just shrugs, knowing it was simply the right thing to do. As we drive off to explore the parking lot of a nearby McDonalds, I can see the orange glow of dawn beginning to break across the palm tree-lined LA horizon.
I've almost finished reading Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical(for the second time; the first time I read it was 2 years ago).I've been thinking about the book a lot, as it now has many direct applications for the manner in which I want to live my life during this year in Hollywood (and beyond...) I was originally going to blog tonight about some experiences working at PATH, but some thoughts on Irresistible Revolution have been weighing on my mind instead.
For those of you who don't know anything about Shane Claiborne's book, it is basically an account of how one individual has chosen to live his life in accordance with the message of the Christian Gospel. Shane Claiborne is a founding member of The Simple Way, an intentional community in Philadelphia. He is passionate about not only "serving" the poor, but living amongst the poor and even "being poor" by 21st century US standards. He notes that a huge segment of Christians base their faith on being "born again" because there's an account of Jesus telling someone in the Bible that they must be "born again" to enter the kingdom of heaven. What if there were an entire segment of the Christian population who based their faith on selling all of their possessions and giving the money to the poor -- because there's an account in the Bible of Jesus telling one guy to do exactly that, as well.
A couple weeks ago, my housemates and I, along with Matthew our site coordinator, were having a discussion on the book (we have "community day" where the six of us take time to check in, have book discussions, pray and be present with each other every monday). One of the interim pastors of First Pres. Hollywood had joined us as a guest to talk with us about some of his own experiences in Christian mission. The pastor hadn't read the book, but he eagerly listened as we talked about it and gave him a brief synopsis of the book's premise. During the discussion, the pastor cautioned that many types of theology like Shane's tend to "idealize the poor." Just because people find themselves in conditions of poverty doesn't mean that they're blameless and that their lifestyles should be imitated. We don't worship the poor or the Revolution, or Social Justice; we worship Jesus Christ. Poor people have their own spiritual problems and lifestyle problems that don't only stem from poverty.
This was a good point for me to hear. One of my only criticisms of the book up to that point had been my "theory" that Shane had to have sugarcoated and left details out of many of his stories and anecdotes that he describes in the book. He talks about giving away thousands of dollars to people on wall street and seeing people use it to share with each other and buy food for strangers. He recalls how a group of college protesters and homeless people working together helped overturn laws that forbid people from sleeping in an abandoned building or eating in a park. He tells stories about how he and his cohorts seemingly effortlessly would teach inner city kids to resist entering the cycle of violence. As someone that at least has a LITTLE bit of experience with some of these issues, I read the book and think to myself "How is it so easy for him to do all this cool stuff?!" There MUST be 20 stories of failure for every one beautiful kum-bay-ya moment. In the small neighborhood where we live, it seems unbelievably difficult for kids to escape the pull of gangs. The middle schoolers we tutor in our community house curse at each other, constantly talk about how "gangster" they are, and evidently must be watched closely because they're very frequently "dared" to steal things from the community house. Usually from my point of view, it does not seem like living in urban poverty should be idealized.
As I've made the startlingly clear realization that Shane Claiborne in his book and I myself in my own theology tend to "idealize the poor," I've tried to make sense for how I should change my outlook. Does Shane have something that I'm missing? Does he not realize that he idealizes the poor? Has he really lost sight of worshiping Jesus in his quest to live simply among the "least of these?" And at this point, I've reached the conclusion that *duh* of COURSEShane Claiborne and other intellectual, liberation theology author types realize that they idealize the poor. Shane KNOWS he's sugar coating. He knew that his book wasn't going to get the majority of middle-upper class citizens to move out of their suburbs and into the inner city and start inviting homeless people over for dinner. He's got a little more self-awareness than that. He's heard from plenty of critics and he knows perfectly well that many well-thought out projects and sincere efforts to live among and increase the quality of life for poor people fall flat on their faces.
But why the hell would he admit that in his book? "Um yeah, God says that there should 'be no poor among you,' but even though I personally am working to change that, it's really not practical or necessary for most people to try it. Besides, plenty of homeless people are perfectly content just living on the streets getting by on the products of other people's guilt anyway." That type of attitude isn't going to move anybody. Although many people in conditions of poverty were born into it with very little chance of getting out, not every single poor person is a "victim of the system." Some have no one to blame but themselves. Some have simply made poor decisions -- and some have been given second and third chances and continued to make bad decisions every time. Some prefer to rely on the government/other people's aid and have very little interest in becoming self-sufficient or taking responsibility for their own lives. Most people who have encountered poverty in the US know this. I contend that Shane Claiborne knows this. It's a politically incorrect, but widely known truth -- and it's the reason why attempts to fight poverty are so half-hearted (well, one of the reasons anyway).
Shane Claiborne knows that it's true, but declaring that it's true and then LIVING as if it's true only perpetuates the problem. If we seriously let this truth become a guiding principle of our lives, we stay walled in our suburbs. We become convinced that poverty shouldn't get too high on our priority list, because our efforts to solve it fail. The more important truth is that the reason that our efforts to solve poverty fail is that we never TRULY believed poverty could be solved in the first place.
It is really, really tough to make any headway on issues like poverty and homelessness. Shane Claiborne (and slowly but surely, I as well) know that short-term mission trips, under-funded non-profits, and the charity of middle-class Christian "do-gooders" isn't going to get it done. The only way to affect real change is through entire lifestyle changes that are, as the book title says, quite radical. When wealthy people go out to meet and really get to know the poor with the attitude that real change really is possible, that's when both sides are radically transformed. And the only way to create that sort of encounter is to idealize the poor. Idealize them as much as possible. Make it sexy as hell for gifted, privileged white kids to forgo comfort and money in favor of totally dedicating their lives to living in solidarity with people who aren't so privileged. And perhaps some of those facts about life that most of us know to be true will become myths some day.
EDIT: Notice again the date... and sorry again for posting late!
Last night, Curtis and I went to a USC football game. One of the members of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, a USC alum and former collegiate national champion in mens' tennis who never lost a match in 3 seasons of play (many years ago), was nice enough to give us two tickets in the fifth row on the home side at the 15 yard line. So Will gave us a ride down to the stadium two hours before kick-off so we could get the full USC home game experience (we were fortunate enough to meet some very hospitable tailgaters... but they drew the line at listening to two boys from the south try to tell them that SEC teams play the toughest schedules in college football). Once inside the stadium, after we got past the initial ooh-ing and aah-ing at the up-close-and-personal perspective on SC's tradition and pageantry, the game itself was incredibly boring. The Trojans defeated the Washington State Cougars 27-6 in a game that seemed devoid of much passion or intensity (and scoring, too, during the second, third and much of the fourth quarters).
After the game, however, is when things got interesting (well, at least interesting enough for me to write a blog entry about it). Curtis and I had planned to take the LA city bus home (as mentioned above, Will dropped us off before the game using our shared community mini-van; our thinking was to avoid paying for parking and dealing with saturday-late-night, post-game LA traffic). Problem was, by 10:30, when we finally got out of the stadium, the city buses had seemed to have stopped running. We waited at the closest bus stop to the stadium before noticing a small sign with a bus schedule that indicated that this particular bus only ran until 9pm on Saturdays. So using Curtis' iPhone, we looked up a route of another bus that would take us home (that supposedly came more frequently/ran later) a few blocks to the west of the stadium.
We arrived at our new bus stop a little before 11pm. We waited. And waited. As we watched a group of men drinking and loitering across the street (who seemed to be watching us), we started feeling more and more out of place as two white guys in USC gear late Saturday night on a corner in what we learned the following morning to be the edge of South Central Los Angeles. We met a woman who seemed to be from the neighborhood (she knew quite a few of the people milling about) who asked us for a dollar so she could buy another beer from the gas station across the street. After making conversation with her for awhile with no sign of the buses, we called a taxi company. When we told the person from the taxi company on the phone where we were, the intersection King and Normandie, he informed us that their company "doesn't pick up there."
A few minutes later, a young man in his late 20s/early 30s approached and asked if we knew if the buses were still running. We were trying to figure out the same thing, we told him.
The young man's name was Cesar. He told us he was recently released from prison and "didn't want to get in trouble again." He was trying to get home (from... where? We never asked.) and was nervous about the possibility of having to keep walking through this particular neighborhood. LA is notorious for gang violence that tends to fall along racial lines, and as a young, Hispanic male, Cesar (like us) was obviously out of place in South Central, a predominantly African American area.
By this point Curtis and I had each said plenty of quick, silent prayers that God would help us get home. I was almost to the point of calling one of our roommates to come pick us up (who would then have to figure out how to get to where we were and drive there at night after living in LA for all of 3 weeks) when we saw a taxi pull into the gas station across the street. Cesar suggested we go see if the driver could take us all back (Cesar's house was on the way to our neighborhood). We negotiated a fare before we got into the cab (like I would always do in Lima, where there are no taximeters, even though this guy had one). He agreed to take us for a very reasonable price, so all three of us squeezed into the back seat, and 30 minutes later, we were home.
And that's pretty much the end of the story. The taxi dropped Cesar off first, and then took Curtis and I back home, safe and sound. The driver was a college-educated immigrant from Ethiopia. Because of health problems, he was driving a taxi instead of continuing with school/professional work. We thanked him and wished him good luck.
Although it was maybe anti-climatic, Curtis' and my late-night experience in South Central offers plenty of things to over-analyze. In telling the story to our housemates and members of First Pres Hollywood afterwards, we both said we were scared. We were scared because we were "lost" on the "wrong" side of town. I still don't know how reasonable/justified our feelings of fear were. Maybe the feelings were products of our common sense/self-preservation instinctively trying to keep us safe and preventing us from acting unwisely. Or maybe they were products of having seen too many movies, listened to too many rap songs and heard too many rumors about that particular area of LA.
Although it has an important biological function, fear can sometimes be a bad thing. In the Bible, God is frequently telling folks to relax and "be not afraid." Fear can make us act violently and hatefully. Fear is probably the number one reason why most of us don't really pay too much attention when Jesus tells us to "love our enemies." Fear is why a lot of kids join gangs. Fear is why we build walls between us and them, and also why we steer clear of certain "wrong" sides of town.
The reason I would refer to South Central as the "wrong" side of town for guys like me and Curtis has a little to do with race and a lot to do with money and power. I've said it before (almost exactly a year ago, as a matter of fact) and I'll say it again: if you don't have money or power, you have very little reason to be afraid in the inner city. Not coincidentally, that's what this year of dwelling in the inner city is about. Freeing ourselves from enslavement to worldly money and power. Coming face to face with people that are different than us and that sometimes scare us. As Shane Claiborne says, while our society encourages upward mobility and a race to the top to become the richest and greatest, Jesus invites his followers to do the opposite: to enter into a movement of downward mobility, a "race to the bottom" to become like and to serve "the least of these." It's not easy, and for a North American, white, heterosexual, middle-upper class male, who's about as close to "the top" as you can get, it's a long, long race, and it's gonna be pretty scary. But that's when God finds us on the right side of town.
Note: as a community, we (the Dwellers) are currently reading Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, which is the reason why I sound so much bolder/more idealistic/provocative than usual (or maybe not?)
EDIT: Please notice the date that this entry was written. Sorry I'm posting it a month late!
We’re wrapping up our week of orientation here in Hollywood. We’ve had a chance to get to know each other, explore the city and see the places where we will all be working over the next year. On our first day of orientation, we went to Griffith Observatory, in the hills of Griffith Park, one of the largest urban parks in the country, which overlooks downtown LA. Looking down the hill from the observatory, it was easy for me to compare in my mind the view of LA with the view of the outskirts of Lima from the view of the top floors of Kilometer 13 church in Comas, where I worked last year. Both cities are huge metropolises overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The foothills of the Andes on the outside of Lima are really part of the same system of mountain ranges as the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains of LA. But that's where the similarities end (well, besides the smog/pollution). From Griffith Park in LA, I look down upon beautiful, ornate mansions that house single families. In Lima, I would look down upon slums and simple brick buildings that would house multigenerational extended families. The houses in LA have Spanish style colonial tiled roofs. The houses in Lima frequently had roofs made of cardboard or sheet metal. Or the roofs were covered with clotheslines and laundry, and usually featured long iron rebars sticking up, allowing for the house to continue being constructed upward as the family gets bigger. Check them out for yourself.
A view of Los Angeles from Griffith Observatory:
A view of Comas from Km 13 Church:
2008-2009 YAVs/Dwellers atop Griffith Observatory, with the Hollywood sign in the background. (From left: Will, Kenna, Curtis, Wendy and Alex):
The parking area/basketball court behind our house is decorated with artwork done by some of the kids who live in the neighborhood. The YAV site in Hollywood begun as a community house that was an urban mission of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood called the Hollywood Urban Project:
Last years Dwellers created and maintained a community garden in the front yard of the house. The five of us now assume stewardship of the garden:
"Pensamientos Peruanos" has run its course. No, that doesn't mean my blog is ending. It just means it's time for a new name. I've started YAV year # 2 in Hollywood. So my thoughts aren't quite Peruvian enough now to merit the blog title "Pensamientos Peruanos" (even though I'm sure I'll continue to relate to experiences from Peru as I blog in Hollywood). I will also continue to keep the same address -- http://alexcornell.blogspot.com, but in the coming days or weeks, I'll be changing the blog title to give it a nifty new Hollywood/Los Angeles themed name.
So I need suggestions on a catchy blog name. Alliteration is always good, so I could just make it "Hollywood Happenings." Another possibility is "Hollywood Headaches, Heartaches and Half-eaten Hotcakes." But that just seems a tad melodramatic. Plus, I always finish all of my hotcakes. The YAV/Dwell program in Hollywood started as a mission of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood called "The Hollywood Urban Project," and my cynical side kind of wants to name my blog "The Hollywood Gentrification Project." If I ever did live video blogging, I could call it "California Streamin.'" My esteemed Peru YAV colleague Sean Kerr has suggested the name "Pensamientos Hollywoodaños," which sounds really cool to me, but would set a precedent such that throughout my entire blogging life, I'll always have to have a blog whose title is in Spanish and describes my thoughts as they relate to the location I happen to be in.
So that's all I got. Yesterday, Kenna, the fourth member of our YAV/Dwell community in Hollywood arrived from Tucson with her family. Will, the fifth and final member will fly in tomorrow. Then, orientation starts Tuesday as the five of us get used to being out of our comfort zones as we struggle to live in community with each other, integrate ourselves with the neighborhood and work four days a week on the streets of LA. I will try to take and post some pictures soon! Be sure to check out the official blog of the "Door Hollywood" program, which includes YAV/Dwell. Matthew Schmitt, our site coordinator updates it regularly and has already posted a couple entries with pictures documenting our arrival. That's all for now, and keep in touch!
We could see the smoke from the L.A. wildfires through the airplane windows as we descended to land at the L.A. airport late Monday afternoon. Later, as Matthew, our site coordinator, drove us from the airport to the community house that we'll be calling home for the next year (with a stop at In 'n Out Burger on the way), we could see the actual flames lighting up the night sky across the southern California hillsides in the distance. I'm sure much heavy-handed, hyperbolic Christian symbolism could be used to describe our arrival -- the fearless group of Bible-believing Young Adult Volunteers descends onto the Godless Urban Jungle to "save" a city that's literally on fire as flames leap across the horizon and thick smoke fills the air -- but I'll let you simply take from it what you wish.
With the two other members of our Hollywood YAV/Dwell community not arriving until Saturday and Monday, this week is all about settling in and getting our bearings. Matthew took Curtis, Wendy and I grocery shopping on Monday, and we're already discovering how creative we're going to need to be this year if we're going to survive on the $85 per individual per month that we're given for groceries. Then, yesterday Curtis, Wendy and I took the community van to Venice beach and enjoyed the sun, waves and interesting people that hang out there. Finally, the past three mornings I've gone running to explore our neighborhood. Hollywood's touristy locales -- the walk of fame, the Hollywood sign, Grauman's Chinese Theater etc -- are mostly to our north. Hancock Park, a large, wealthy neighborhood, lies to our south. And scattered between Hollywood's busy thoroughfares -- Sunset, Hollywood Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Santa Monica Boulevard -- are side-streets like ours, Gregory Avenue. On these sidestreets are mainly apartment complexes and modest homes occupied largely by immigrant families.
This evening, I had my first taste of what our daily life living and ministering in this neighborhood might look like. Wendy and I were cooking dinner. We had harvested all of the okra from our house's community garden in the front yard, and we had just gotten back from riding our bikes to the local "Food For Less" discount grocery store to pick up a few key ingredients for a recipe featuring okra that Wendy got from her mom. As we started preparing dinner in the kitchen, Curtis was playing basketball with the hoop in the parking area behind the house with 4 or 5 of the neighborhood kids, who ranged in age from 6 to about 12. Wendy and I quickly discovered that the okra from the garden was over-ripe (who knew it might be difficult to grow okra in southern california?) and was going to be absolutely inedible no matter how long we boiled it. We decided to improvise; we scrapped the okra to the compost and instead added leftover ground beef and rice to create a stir-fry out of what was originally planned to be an okra, tomato, green pepper and onion salad. Meanwhile, the kids had grown tired of basketball and Curtis, who went to school at Ole Miss, was attempting to give the kids a geography lesson on the southern US, because Mississippi is as good as a foreign country to a 10-year old son of Mexican immigrants living in L.A. Finally, Wendy and I finished dinner and Curtis said goodbye to the neighborhood kids, almost all of whom live in the apartment complex across the street. We all sat down to eat together. The three of us enjoyed our third "family dinner" in Hollywood (the improvised stir fry was actually really good) and we prayed giving thanks for food and fellowship and asking God's guidance as we begin a year in relationship with a wonderful neighborhood and each other.
It's been a busy week. I was one of 67 YAVs attending orientation at Stony Point conference center in New York. For better or for worse, I found myself doing more looking back during orientation than looking forward. Finally, I had a chance to "process" some of what I experienced over the past year in Peru with a group of people who understood more or less my motivations for being there and what exactly my goals and intentions were. I eagerly gave advice to whoever would listen about "what it's like" to be a Young Adult Volunteer, especially in Peru.
I can't really describe how awesome the energy was that I felt at orientation. It was just really, really cool to be around so many like-minded Christians who had dedicated a year out of their lives for service to others -- not to "save souls" but simply to be in relationship with people. We all seem to be searching for more authentic ways of being after spending most of our lives in sheltered white, middle-upper class enclaves. Orientation included both practical training/information as well as times of worship, play and socializing. We had talks and workshops about how to care for ourselves and manage conflict when we experience culture shock, stress and anxiety as we live in unfamiliar and possibly uncomfortable settings during our years of service. We participated in amazing worship services in which former YAVs shared stories of their experiences from years past and we all praised God with singing and dancing using music from all over the world.
So yesterday, at the end of orientation, we dispersed from Stony Point to all of our various placements around the world. Hollywood, Peru, San Antonio, Guatemala, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Kenya, Denver, New Orleans, India, Tucson, Nashville, Northern Ireland, Alaska, Miami. The first group left Stony Point Conference Center at 3am early Monday morning, while the final group left at 11pm that night. The flight to L.A. left a little before 10am. I was accompanied by Curtis and Wendy, two of my four housemates (the other two Will and Kenna had prior commitments to fulfill and will be arriving this weekend). It is truly awesome to be a part of such a large contingent of service-minded young people spreading out all over the world with the same goals.
As many of you may already know, I will be serving ANOTHER year as a Young Adult Volunteer beginning this September. This time, I will be living and working in Hollywood. Yes, Hollywood, California. Believe it or not, Hollywood has its own problems with poverty and homelessness. The Hollywood YAV program has three components, which I will explain in this blog entry: living in intentional Christian community with the other Hollywood YAVs, working 32 hours per week for a local non-profit addressing homelessness, and serving as a “good neighbor” to the surrounding area.
The prospect of living in intentional Christian community with other mission-minded Christians is what originally interested me in serving as Young Adult Volunteer for a second year at a national YAV site. The four other Hollywood Young Adult Volunteers and I will struggle with the issue extreme poverty in the shadow of extreme wealth, which is prevalent throughout Hollywood. The five of us will agree on a covenant governing the way in which we want to live together during the year. There will be an emphasis on living simply and intentionally -- “the way Christ intended.” This will probably mean only walking, riding bikes or taking public transportation to work, limiting or completely restricting time spent watching TV or using the internet, committing ourselves to making responsible consumer choices as we share grocery, utility bills etc. We will also have regular times of community building, prayer, reflection and bible study between the five of us each week.
Additionally, we will commit ourselves to being good neighbors in our neighborhood. The house is located in a small, working class, predominantly Spanish-speaking immigrant neighborhood. As a house/group, the five of us must brainstorm some sort of service that we can provide to the neighborhood. In the past, Hollywood YAVs have hosted regular community meals, provided after-school tutoring and organized holiday festivals/parties as well as regular pick-up games of soccer/basketball.
Finally, I will be working as a “street outreach case manager intern” for an organization called PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) I am very excited about this opportunity. Although I have done a little volunteer work with the homeless before, this will overall be a very new, different experience for me. I’m still learning many of the details, but basically I will be working in a team of case managers who will work on the streets on a daily basis with homeless clients. Through conversations, we will attempt to help people living on the streets assess how they can best take steps towards self-sufficiency and search for affordable housing.
As you can tell, it promises to be a year full of personal and spiritual growth. The final part is the fundraising. As part of the YAV program, I have committed to raising $6,500 to help cover living expenses and program costs. I need your help with this fundraising! The YAV program in Hollywood is actually run in partnership between the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a program of the Mennonite Church called DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection). So if you are willing and able to help me with my fundraising efforts (no amount is too small), there are three ways you can do that.
The best way is to write a check to “DOOR Network” and write “Hollywood - Alex Cornell” in the memo line. Mail the check to
DOOR National Office
430 West 9th Avenue
Denver, CO 80204
If you would rather give through the Presbyterian Church (USA), you may do that as well (however, they do prefer that you give directly through DOOR). To give through the PC(USA), click here. Then click “Hollywood” in the box that says "Support specific national YAV sites" and then follow the instructions. In the “Comment” section of the online form, be sure to write that the funds are designated for Alex Cornell.
Finally, you can also give through the DOOR facebook "cause" page by going here and clicking “Donate.”
Once again I've gone too long without updating. I've started writing a couple entries, but they have yet to be finished. I'm back in the States having finished my term of service in Peru (I flew home July 28). I recently got a new laptop computer, which in the future might make me a better blogger, because I can just take it out and start writing the moment I feel inspired (like now).
Thus far, being back in the States has been weirdly normal. I felt like I heard about or was dreading "reverse culture shock" or "re-entry shock" for 3 or 4 months before leaving Peru. I was feeling ready to be totally disgusted with American culture and to feel out of touch or alienated by my friends and family. So far that's not the case. Over the past few weeks, I've been relatively busy traveling to see friends and family from home in Atlanta, my college in San Antonio, TX and my job over the summers during college in Montreat, NC. In each of those places, I've had many more good/positive experiences than bad. At times I certainly miss my host family, fellow YAVs and my brothers and sisters from the churches in Lima, but overall I am happy to be "home."
As I've mentioned before on my blog, at the beginning of September I will start another year of serving as a Young Adult Volunteer. I will be working for a homelessness agency and living in a shared house in intentional Christian community with four other Young Adult Volunteers in a small, working class Mexican immigrant neighborhood in Hollywood, California. Ironically enough, I feel like THAT is where I may experience the most "culture shock." For the past year, I lived a modest middle class lifestyle (by Peruvian standards) among fairly "mainstream" evangelical Christians. During the week-long YAV orientation and at the beginning of my time in Hollywood, I will be living an upper-middle class white person's version of a working class lifestyle among liberal/postmodern "evangelical" Christians ("evangelical" in the "let's take back this term" sense). In Peru, I feared being judged if I went out to a dance club or suggested that women could be leaders in church. In the US, I fear being judged if I use a gender-specific pronoun to talk about God or throw a plastic bottle in the trash can when there's a recycling bin right next to it. I've spent a year around people worried about making sure their families well-fed, healthy, happy and successful as opposed to being around people for whom those things are a given, so they're instead worried about fighting injustice and liberating the oppressed.
When it comes down to it I'm still squarely in the liberal/postmodern Christian/simple lifestyle camp. The difference is now I'm a little more self-aware and a little less arrogant than I once was about it. Thanks for reading, and I'll try and keep updating as I continue to wrestle with all of the theological/cultural tensions that have emerged for me over the past year.
Once again, I just want to thank everyone for the kind words, emails, facebook book messages etc that I've been receiving over the past few weeks in light of my surgery. I've been taking it pretty easy the past couple weeks, and am feeling back close to 100% (but people keep reminding me to take it slow regardless -- which is good). One of my fellow YAVs, Leslie, was exceptionally awesome in helping out sick Alex after my operation. Among many of the cool things she did for me was take pictures and write a great blog post about the whole ordeal. Here are a couple pictures, and you can see more and read the post on our Peru YAV group blog.
Right before going into surgery with fellow YAV Mike and PCUSA mission co-workers Harry and Alexandra
Debbie visiting me post-operation.
Even though I have had some extra free/down time on my hands, unfortunately I just haven't been in too much of a "blogging" mood lately. So I apologize for the lack of updates. Overall, having an appendectomy kind of threw off the way I originally saw my last month in Peru going. All of the sudden I find myself with only two weeks left and lots of odds and ends remaining to wrap up. It's been an incredible, interesting year, meeting only my prior expectation that this year would defy my expectations. Sometimes I think transitioning back to the US won't be so hard, since in many ways my lifestyle in Lima isn't really all that different from how it was in the US (as I've already discussed ad nauseum on this blog). But at other times I know that there will be plenty of things about "re-entry shock" or "reverse culture shock" that I'm not ready for.
One of the most distinct things about my YAV year has been living with a host family. When I look back on it, my host family, especially Javier and Raquel, have been amazing. As you may remember, they weren't my original host family. But when it was first decided two months into my year of service that I needed to change families, they quickly answered the bell. They didn't know exactly what they were getting into or really what exactly the YAV program was. They just heard from the President of the Session of Santa Isabel Church that their new gringo missionary suddenly needed a place to stay. They didn't know I had the support system of Debbie and Harry and the PC(USA) office, they just thought I was going to be left out on the street.
So they offered me a place in their home. At first they were told it might just be for a couple weeks, but then they ended up agreeing to let me live with them for the entire remainder of the YAV year (from the beginning of last November until the end of July). They make sure I'm safe, well fed and taken care of. They're my friends. I've participated in the birth of their child. I really do feel like a member of Javier's family. I always have a place at the table for the family gatherings. My host family has put up with my weird American customs, clunky Spanish speaking and awkward cultural interactions for 9 months.
They've also had to share in my struggle of giving up independence. That, perhaps, is the most difficult aspect of living with a host family. Before coming to Peru, I was basically an independent, low-maintenance adult college student who lived with other carefree 20-something-year-old roommates. I was free to come and go from my house as I pleased, quite literally as I also had my own car. After coming to Peru, all that changed. It was like I suddenly pushed the rewind button, back to high school, only this time I'm in a big, slightly dangerous unknown city immersed in a foreign culture and language. I'm now a full-time family member. I don't have my own car to get around Lima however I want. For meals, I don't just pop something in the microwave when I'm hungry. If I go out, my family wants to know where. If I'm not back (or if I don't call) before dark, they worry. I've recently realized that as I've made more friends in Lima and started to become more street-smart and confident in going places on my own, I've occasionally put my host family through some of the same stress that most parents (at least in the US) go through. But instead of feeling anxious or worried about a biological son or brother that they've known and loved since birth, they've accepted the same type of responsibility for a 23-year-old foreigner.
I'm sure I will have more opportunities for reflection on my experiences as a whole this year as my time in Peru comes to a close. But right now the thing about my YAV experience that sticks out to me the most is how special it's been to become "adopted" into a new family.
This past Monday night I was scheduled to travel with the other YAVs in Lima to Huancayo, a town in Peru's Andean mountain region for a 5 day retreat. The plan was first for all of us to attend a small party Monday evening at the apartment of another PC(USA) mission co-worker who lives in our site coordinator Debbie's neighborhood. After the party, we would go straight to the bus station to get on an overnight bus to Huancayo. However, we learned Monday afternoon that we would actually be unable to make the trip to Huancayo due to workers protesting and blocking the one highway that runs between Lima and Huancayo.
Regardless, I still went to the party with the other YAVs and Debbie on Monday night. The entire evening, I had been having bad stomach pains. As I was waiting for a bus to take me back to my host family's house after the party, my stomach was hurting worse than it had been all night. Upon seeing how full the busses were and realizing that I would probably have to stand up in a crowded bus for the hour-plus long ride back home, I decided to instead see if I could spend the night in Debbie's apartment instead of going all the way back to Comas.
Debbie and her husband Harry, being wonderful people/an extraordinary YAV site coordinator couple, of course let me spend the night in the guest bedroom of their apartment. We all figured I either had a stomach virus or had eaten something undercooked. Before I went to bed, Debbie off-handedly asked me if I still had my appendix. I said yes, but that I doubted my appendix was causing the problem because the pain was in the center of my stomach and not on the right side, where the appendix is located.
However, when I woke up at 3am, the pain had definitely all moved to my lower right side. Concerned and unable to sleep, I used Debbie's internet to look up signs and symptoms of appendicitis on Web MD. I basically had all of them (chiefly, stomach pain that starts generally in the center abdominal region and then slowly becomes acute and concentrated in the lower right side), and the web site said that appendicitis, if not treated quickly, can cause the appendix to rupture, which is a medical emergency. So I knocked on Debbie and Harry's door at about 3:30am, asking them to take me to the hospital.
The Stella Maris clinic is one of the best hospitals in Lima, and is probably less than 1/2 mile from Debbie and Harry's apartment. After being given a physical examination, blood tests, x-rays and an ultrasound, they confirmed the appendicitis and the need to operate. The laparoscopic operation was performed by a surgeon who also performs organ transplants. The operation was over and I was awake and talking by mid-day Tuesday, and discharged from the hospital at about mid-day Thursday.
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Calling this year of service in Peru a year of "firsts" would be a gross understatement. I had never even had an IV in before this year. Aside from my wisdom teeth being removed, I had never had surgery and had never spent the night in the hospital. This probably explains why I was a lot calmer during the whole ordeal than a lot of people were. (Debbie kept giving me updates about how people here in Peru were reacting when she told them the news. I did get a chance to talk to my mom before the surgery - she seemed a whole lot more nervous than I was, but I had never had surgery in ANY country before, so I didn't know what to be scared of).
At this point, I simply have a lot to thank God for. I could have very easily been on a bus to Huancayo Monday night instead of safe and sound in Debbie and Harry's apartment. Or I could have been at home in Comas, where I would probably have been taken to a much different hospital. And if Debbie hadn't asked me about my appendix that night before I went to bed, I probably wouldn't have even considered appendicitis to be a possibility for the cause of my stomach pain.
I feel very lucky and blessed to have so many visitors in the hospital - the other YAVs, Debbie and Harry (who I'm still staying with for a couple days before I go back to my host family), my host family and a few people from both Santa Isabel and Km 13 churches. The time I've spent in the hospital really is like a perfect snapshot of my mission year as a YAV. Thanks to the wonderful people, family, community, fellow YAVs and churches here in Lima, I've "received" and "been served" so much more than I myself could ever possibly give" or "serve."
I really love the website www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. I’m sure most of you have probably heard of it. If for some reason you haven’t, it’s a blog that satirizes and pokes fun of “postmodern,” “hipster,” “liberal elitist” culture from an insider perspective. Stuff white people like is so cool because it basically essentializes and stereotypes the type of (mainly) white people who tend to pride themselves on their uniqueness and inability to be stereotyped (like me and probably most people who read my blog). The list of “Stuff white people like” includes things like “non-profit organizations,” “apple products,” “[correcting other people’s] grammar,” “not owning a television,” “arts degrees,” “Honda Prius,” “yoga” and “having multi-lingual children.” Yep, it’s THAT type of white people. Among the commentary I’ve seen about the site is the observation that it could also be called “Cultural Profile of the EmergingChurch.”
Though I first came across the site last year, during my final semester at Trinity and thought it was hilarious and extremely clever, I didn’t REALLY appreciate its brilliance until I left my college environment (where I was totally surrounded by other “white” people) and came to Peru, where I’m now a minority. While you could probably come up with dozens of “grand narratives” (one of the postmodern-est of postmodern terms) to describe what exactly “Stuff White People Like” boils down to, for me it can be summarized by "modestly" and covertly asserting an aura of superiority over other "white people" and other cultural perspectives by demonstrating how varied and unique your tastes are and by how understanding and inclusive you are towards worldviews that are different from your own.
But like it or not, I’ve learned that (where I’m living and working at least) poverty and foreign cultures aren’t so easily romanticized. I’m not living in a mud hut. Most of my friends and acquaintances have plenty to eat. They don’t feel persecuted. They’re not victims of horrible human rights abuses. Although Peru’s two decade period of terrorism and war ended rather recently (within the past 10 years), and although violence broke out between police and indigenous people in one of Peru’s remote mountainous areas as recently as just last week, the people here in Lima don’t seem to have much more fear of war or terrorism than we do in the US. Some of the church members with whom I worship and even a couple of kids in the compassion program talk about the need to help the poor and hungry – in Africa! “NO!” I think to myself, “YOU’RE THE POOR PEOPLE! YOU’RE THE ONES THAT NEED HELP! THAT’S WHY I’M HERE!” I know I shouldn’t think that way, but I do.
But my cultural “letdown” goes deeper than that. If I were to bring home some of the “traditional” music that I hear here in Peru on a regular basis, it wouldn’t be “El Condor Pasa” or any Quechuan melodies featuring the charango and zampoña. Instead, it would be the urban sounds of reggaetón, cumbia and US pop, hip-hop and R&B songs. The birthday and Christmas gifts I’ve received this year have almost all been clothing items that are “typical” of the culture in which I live and work. No, they’re not the brightly colored sweaters, socks and caps made from manta or alpaca. They’re dark-colored t-shirts and hoodies that say things like “Abercrombie and Fitch” and “Diadora.” When I eat a special meal with my host family, it's not usually Incan pachamanca, but instead we go out to a sit-down chain restaurant to eat pollo a la brasa (rotisserie-style chicken with french fries -- which I unashamedly LOVE), usually with multiple TVs scattered around the eating area.
And let's not forget religious beliefs. Talking about the culture in which I live here in Lima becomes even more difficult when you consider the particular flavor of Christianity practiced by the churches where I work. Ask them if they believe that abortion is definitely murder. Ask them if they believe homosexuals should be ordained. Ask them if they think people who don't believe in Jesus as Lord will go to Hell. Ask them if they believe the Bible doesn't contain a single factual error. I don't think I (or most "white people") would agree with their answers.
So what has been disturbing me most about all these characteristics of the culture in which I've been living for the past 9 months? I've realized that in my mind, the only reason that they're "acceptable" is because the people living within the culture speak Spanish, not English, live in Peru, not the US and are brown, not white. Think about it. Taken together, all of these "tastes" - in music, clothing, food, religion etc. - form a perfect cultural profile of the "wrong type" of white person. Let me explain. For the most part, I've been very accepting of the "foreign culture" that I've been living in for the past 9 months. I'm living on the other side of the world and speaking a new language, so I recognize that I see everything with biased, foreign eyes. I know that I am in no place to judge them or educate them about the social/global implications of their lifestyles. Yet, even though I have never before admitted it, in my mind I am VERY quick to either judge or try to "educate" white North Americans that have the exact same tastes -- listen to "corporate" pop music, wear corporate, name brand clothes, love eating at corporate sit-down restaurants and practice a "closed-minded" form of Christianity. The difference is, I can relate much better to the white North Americans who do it. I assume they either don't understand that choosing to support multi-national corporate clothing/food/music companies contributes to global economic inequality and social hegemony (in which case I attempt to "educate" them) or I assume that they DO understand it but choose to support the corporate entities anyway (in which case I judge them).
When I think about the situation I find myself in, and how I ended up in it, the whole thing is quite absurd. I became a YAV to go searching for a new perspective on life and to be challenged by living in a way that was uncomfortable and different from what I'm used to. What I ended up with was quite possibly the opposite of what I expected and yet exactly fits the description of that objective. (Let me pause for a second to say that I don't want to come off as too "negative" -- there are definitely some unique cultural things I've experienced in Lima that you could hardly ever find anywhere in the US, and I've written about them here, and here and here, and here for example.) In many ways, I've ended up living immersed in culture characteristics that my entire worldview beforehand was predicated on changing or defying.
But the thing is, many of the people here in Lima that subscribe to these cultural characteristics are my friends. I've gotten to know them. They are wonderful people. In this sense, the YAV program has succeeded beautifully. The reason I haven't judged (until now, I guess) or criticized the culture of the people I work and live with is because I didn't immediately apply the cultural, political and religious "litmus tests" that I now realize I'm guilty of applying to people in the US.
So where do I go from here? How do I reconcile not wanting to judge or try to change the characteristics of a "foreign culture" with the fact that all of my understanding points to these characteristics as being potentially hegemonic and damaging if they continue? The way I see it, there are basically two options (once you read them, that statement in itself actually gives you a pretty huge clue as to which one I'll pick).
1.) I could use the fact that my friends in Lima are good, loving children of God to rationalize the idea that their views and lifestyle choices are okay. But in the process, I would basically sacrifice my own ideals about the way I believe God wants us to live by implying that they are negotiable and need not apply to everyone.
OR
2.) I could assert that my views on the way we should live (in terms of religious inclusion/open-mindedness and responsible consumer habits) really aren't negotiable; they're important and they can only be effective if as many people as possible subscribe to them. But in the process, I would be implying that my enlightened, educated lifestyle is "better" than the lifestyle habits of my friends in Peru, meaning that I think they should change their lives. This sacrifices my postmodern ideal of not believing one way of life is superior to another.
The oft-noted paradox of post-modernism is that declaring that there is no objective "truth" or "grand-narrative" is in itself an assertion of truth and a grand-narrative. Stuff White People Like and much of what I wrote during the first part of this blog entry proves that even though we don't want to, we white postmoderns do in fact see the world more in "black and white" and "good and evil" than we let on. If we declare that we want to be able to understand everyone's perspective under the premise that "everything is relative" and "truth depends on your worldview," then we are fundamentally at odds with people who believe that truth is concrete/objective/absolute. "Everything is relative" is an absolute statement.
The whole conundrum makes me think of something I've said before and believe in very strongly about faith. The presence of faith implies doubt. Without doubt, what you have isn't faith, but knowledge. Faith can't be proven. Knowledge can. My views concerning Christianity, economics, lifestyle habits etc haven't been proven to be any better than those of my friends and partners in mission in Lima, or anyone elses for that matter. Based on what I've learned through my own life experiences, I BELIEVE they are the best way to live, but I don't KNOW that. One of the first people to make this observation about the relationship between faith and doubt was Soren Kierkegaard, who postmoderns happen to LOVE -- he is sometimes seen as a kind of "forefather" of postmodern theology. But there is a major difference between Kierkegaard's perspective and a true postmodern one. Both perspectives put heavy importance on the presence of doubt/uncertainty. But while a real postmodern loves just mulling over and exploring all of the doubt and trying on all of the different perspectives, Kierkegaard asserts that we have to pick a perspective and stick with it. It's an either/or choice. True postmoderns relish doubt and use it to keep from having to take a definite position. Kierkegaard, on the other hand insists that we have to take a "leap of faith" and make our stand IN SPITE of there being doubt. Once you choose, you don't go back. Although it's risky and has led the church and Christendom to commit many egregious errors and injustices in the past, I believe this is what God demands Christians to do.
In conclusion, don't worry, I'm not going to go on a tirade against materialism, consumerism, corporations and ultra-conservative theology to my friends here in Lima. I will continue to love them and continue to struggle with the implications of the "superiority complex" I've realized that I have. Believe it or not "white culture" is gaining awareness here too. It is not totally culturally insensitive to advocate for my dearly held ideals of supporting local businesses and exploring non-traditional interpretations of scripture. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, or if I've said anything terribly offensive (I'm sure I have). I do believe that in general, the postmodern perspective is a valid, important one, and it continues to inform my beliefs. However, I've stopped lying to myself and finally admitted that I really do think the world would be better off if everybody thought like me... which, come to think of it, is probably something so basic and intuitive that it goes without saying for most level-headed people. So maybe I've been writing for 4 hours for nothing. Oh well.
Disclaimer: This last paragraph is probably unnecessary, and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Ironically enough, by self-righteously deciding to expose the hypocrisy of white culture -- its tendencies toward conformity and self-righteousness/superiority while being entirely predicated on non conformity, uncertainty and humility -- I've thus basically declared myself as superior to it and tried really hard to be a true non-conformist. In glorious postmodern fashion, I have adopted a new worldview that is truly "unique." I've withdrawn from the unspoken contest to see who's the best at using an anti-racist, anti-corporate, anti-materialistic lifestyle to show it's wrong to think that your culture is the best. And by doing so, I've won.
I turned 23 last Thursday. That afternoon, Blanca cooked lomo saltado for lunch, which is my favorite Peruvian dish - a plate of rice, french fries and stir fried onions, tomatoes and steak. Roberto made a Waldorf salad (he has a cookbook of American recipes) to make me feel "at home." And I got a birthday card from my REAL parents in the mail! I spent that evening with my first host family (Daniela, Juan, Juan Carlos, Giulia, Damaris, Dayra) where we ate causa that Juan prepared (I'm not sure what all is in causa... it's basically a mashed potato salad with tuna and mayonaisse) and of course they sang happy birthday and we ate cake, too. After spending time with them, I went back home to my current host family. Waiting for me with them were about 10 members of Santa Isabel Church. We ate sang happy birthday (again!) and ate cake (again!). I share the same birthday with Juan, the president of the session of Santa Isabel church, so it was really a double birthday celebration. As is the custom here, everyone took turns saying nice things about Juan and I, with some inspirational bible verses mixed in. Juan and I then each said a few words about what the year has been like and giving thanks for our friends. All in all, it was a really great birthday. But it wasn't over.
The next day, I went to work at Km 13's compassion program. After work, there was a small "party" in the office that was very similar to the one from the night before. More cake. More singing. More reflecting on the year and being thankful for the community that I've become a part of. Afterwards, Alison, one of the young adult members of Km 13's congregation who also occasionally volunteers with Compassion invited me to have a lonche (small snack-type meal eaten at about 6pm, between lunch and dinner) at her house with her mother and sister. So I went straight after the office part to spend time with Alison and her family. I carried the leftover cake from the party with me and offered it to their family. Thankfully, they accepted (I definitely love cake, but by then I was looking for ways to "share" it). I continue to be amazed by the hospitality that people in Lima have offered me.
Saturday offered me a reprieve of cake. I spent most of the day with youth and young adults from Kilometer 11 church. KM 11 is another church in the Presbytery of Northeastern Lima. I've gotten to know Priscila, the president of their jovenes (youth and young adults) group, from various presbytery events. She had invited me a couple of weeks ago to spend this particular saturday with the Km 11 jovenes, hoping that I could present a theme/message/reflection at the worship service that night. I told her that I could spend the morning and afternoon hanging out with them, but that evening I was already committed to helping out with the worship service/meeting for Km. 13's adolescentes (middle school-age youth) group. She told me that was fine, and arrived to meet me in my neighborhood to together to Km 11 church at about 10am. On the bus ride there, she asked me if I could lead a talk with the jovenes group about ways they can affect change in their communities/country/world.
I've gotten used to these sorts of last-minute-requests for speaking engagements. They seem to be pretty common in the world of the IEP (Evangelical Church of Peru denomination). Pastors are expected to be knowledgeable enough about the Bible to give a sermon or bible study on a moment's notice. And from what I can tell, a large percentage of them really are. And I guess since I also have a University degree (and carry the esteemed title of "missionary"), I'm also expected to be capable of speaking in public about a wide array of topics without previous preparation. On the one hand, it makes me feel really good about my Spanish skills that people who have spent ample time talking with me think that I speak well enough to coherently impart useful information to a large group of people while speaking extemporaneously. On the other hand, I sometimes feel guilty that I can't possibly be living up to their expectations when everything is said and done.
As I'm sure most of you know well, I'm generally a pretty outgoing, fearless, and "just say yes" type of guy when it comes to opportunities to talk in front of people or be the center of attention. Nevertheless, there have been many instances during my time in Peru when I've told people in these situations "I'm sorry, I can't give that [talk, sermon, reflection, etc]. I'm really not prepared or knowledgeable enough right now." However, this particular time, I told Priscila "yes," because doing social/community work from a Christian perspective is kind of what I'm all about.
When we arrived at the church, I got a chance to meet all of the jovenes (and adolescentes, too actually) in the Km 11 church group. Purely for curiosity's sake, one of them asked me when my birthday was. When they found out it was just two days earlier, of course they all sang happy birthday to me (and apologized for not having cake). Then I got to lead my talk. Without missing a beat, I started by reading Isaiah 58, which is a passage in the Bible about "True Fasting" -- which isn't giving up food and praying to God, but instead working to make sure the hungry are fed and "loosing the chains of injustice." (Presbyterians never carry Bibles around with them. Members of the Evangelical Church of Peru, however, do; I've changed my ways.) I then basically "borrowed" much of the central message of David Lamotte's "World Changing 101" seminars to explain why activism and volunteer work is important on both community and global levels. ("There's a difference between changing the world and fixing the world. No one expects you to "fix" the world, but you can't be in the world without changing it in some way. The question is: What type of changes/impact will you make?") Then I simply asked them to list some of the problems they see in their community so we could brainstorm together ways to address them.
The most common answer was gangs. After carefully opining (as a "professional sociologist") on some of the root causes of gangs (poverty, teenage kids in search of identity, lack of other constructive social outlets/activities/groups), we discussed what the church could do to address the issue. We basically came to the conclusion of having Saturday neighborhood clean-up days. There are several artists in the group, so they decided it would be fun to paint over gang graffiti and blank/unsightly walls with Christian pictures/images. They also decided to help clean up trash around some of the streets and fulbito ("mini soccer") courts in an effort to take pride in their neighborhood and convince the other residents to do likewise. All in all, it wasn't anything revolutionary, but I still really enjoyed participating in the conversation and being a part of a group with goals and a plan to improve the problems in their neighborhood. After the talk was over, we all played some fulbito, ate lunch, and then visited the homes of some of the members of the jovenes group who hadn't been attending the worship services recently. I then left to go to the worship service of the Km 13 adolescentes. (Yes, they sang happy birthday to me).
Finally, today I preached at the sunday morning worship service for Km. 13's congregation (a pretty decent sermon about forgiveness, if I do say so myself). And afterwards... you guessed it. More singing. More cake. Pastor Hernando and Ramon (Director of Compassion at Km 13) both shared some very kind words about the work I had been doing with the church. Someone had also put together a slide show featuring pictures from my blog and picasa site (I haven't shared the address with anyone in Peru, but it wouldn't be hard to find -- there's a link to it on the Presbytery's blog and website). And finally, I also got another chance to express my gratitude for the friends I've made and hospitality I've experienced while in Peru.
So one of the elders on the Mission & Evangelism committee of Santa Isabel church asked me a few weeks ago if I could help out with a project that the committee is working on. He told me they wanted to inform youth and families in the church neighborhood about an important personal issue - something like sex or abortion or drugs. He asked if I had any suggestions about what issue they could host a lecture/discussion on, and if I could be the one to lead it (since I'm a "sociologist," as EVERYONE knows by this point...) He then showed me a survey about religious beliefs and people's attitudes towards family issues/problems that the committee had prepared and was planning on administering door to door in the neighborhood to create a "profile" of the community they want to evangelize.
My mistake was that I looked at the survey before I answered the question about participating in or leading the lecture/activity. On the survey, I immediately identified several questions that were unclear, others that didn't give appropriate answer options, and more still that were worded in a leading manner. After looking it over, as a college grad who's taken more than a couple statistics and research methods classes, I DEFINITELY felt qualified to give them suggestions to improve their survey's clarity and effectiveness. This confidence boost also led me to tell him, in what must have been some sort of stupor, "yes, I can give a talk about a family issue from a sociological perspective. How 'bout I talk about teenage sex and its side effects?"
Fast-forward to today (all of that happened two or three weeks ago). This lecture definitely IS going to happen (frequently, ideas like this "hatch" in a hurry, and then the enthusiasm fizzles). However, because of the lack of communication and maybe my own misunderstanding of some things, the topic has changed a little bit. I went to a Mission & Evangelism committee meeting last Friday and was shown one of two hundred copies of a promotional flyer. Half the flyer has all of the information about the event: "Saturday, May 30, 4pm at Santa Isabel Church [address] a video presentation, followed by a lecture by North American Missionary Alex Cornell (Sociologist) from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas on the topic of 'Sex Outside of Marriage and Abortion.' Entrance is FREE." The other half has a big, fat picture of me. As of this morning, these flyers are now posted on walls and telephone poles around the neighborhood.
Yes, I really am not sure when "abortion" got added to the lecture topic. I know next to nothing about abortion. If any of you know the secret number to Obama's blackberry, I'd love to have that so I can get some advice (the only problem is I won't be talking to north american catholic college students). The movie that serves as the "video presentation" that is being advertised is called "Punto y Aparte" ("Point and Apart"...? I dunno) which I haven't seen (I've been given a copy and I'm going to watch it this afternoon). It's apparently a Mexican film that tells the story of two sexually teenage active couples that get pregnant, one rich and one poor. So in the next (less than) two weeks, I've gotta watch this movie and figure out what the heck I can say for an hour that will somehow accurately inform a bunch of families and youth about their sexual choices without getting me kicked out of the church. ANY ADVICE IS WELCOME! In the meantime, I probably won't be going out much, since I'm pretty sure there aren't too many other white, 20s-ish looking males with brown hair and goatees in the neighborhood...
1. I neglected to mention that my most recent YAV newsletter (now over 3 weeks old, whoops) is posted on the Presbyterian Church (USA) website and available for viewing here.
2. In a blog entry from way back when, I talked about a pie graph that's sort of like an unauthorized version of what Peru's take on the ol' USDA food guide pyramid would look like. This picture is painted on the wall of the kitchen of Kilometer 13 church. It explains why I eat so much rice and potatoes and so few vegetables. I recently took a photo just to prove I didn't make it up. Check it out.
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