November Newsletter

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." ~John 13:34-35

“Once you get a handle on the infinite cycle of the restless existence of all things, do you despair or do you willingly take your place in the circle? Does enlightenment lead to sorrowful disengagement or willing participation? Once you know where the roller coaster is going, are you still in for the ride?” ~Robert Fulghum, Uh-Oh, Some Observations From Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door

Happy November! It’s hard to believe that I have been in Oakland for over two months (and that Christmas break is quickly approaching).

I am still enjoying my service sites and am learning to love the diversity that comes from serving homeless men two days a week and elementary-aged children on the other two.

The hardest part of this month for me has been neighborhood outreach. Getting to know and finding opportunities to love our neighbors has been harder than I imagined. I think I expected that it would function much as fishing did for Ernie on Sesame Street.

I can remember watching Bert and Ernie sit on a calm lake in a small canoe and attempt to catch fish. Nothing worked for Bert–as usual–but all Ernie had to do was yell, “Here, fishie, fishie, fishie,” and the fish would just start jumping into the canoe. This caused Bert great frustration, of course, and I don’t believe he caught any fish at all.

I suppose I expected to show up in our little apartment here and watch the neighbors flock to us. Why wouldn’t they? We came to love them, after all.

Unfortunately, my fishing skills are much more akin to Bert’s than Ernie’s, and I’m finding that people are suspect of us, probably for good reason. We most likely don’t act like any neighbors they’ve ever had before, and I bet that I would be doubtful of someone who didn’t fit the neighborhood profile and was so interested in getting to know me.

I also suppose that I came here with grand expectations of what my teammates and I would be able to accomplish in our neighborhood in a year. I envisioned that we would have made all sorts of relationships and positive changes in this area by the time we moved out in August.

I am, however, once again learning to revise my expectations in humility. God can and is doing great work here, but I am learning that real progress comes from years and years of work. Now, my goal for this short year is to have just one relationship in which I can positively influence the life of one person in this neighborhood this year. I’m no longer looking to end the prostitution or gang activity here; I just want to have a crack at increasing the Shalom of the world by improving one person’s life.

During orientation we discussed Shalom as not just peace, but a return to the way God intended life to be for every person. This may include freedom from poverty, the right to pursue a fruitful life or the ability and opportunity to cultivate a meaningful relationship with God. Cornelius Plantinga says, “In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight, in which natural needs are satisfied, natural gifts fruitfully employed–the whole process inspiring joyful wonder as the creator and savior of all opens doors and speaks welcome. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

Pursuing Shalom is now my goal for neighborhood outreach. But it’s still hard.

And it’s not much easier to pursue it in my apartment, either. Christian community is a challenging prospect, but I believe that it is one more way that our neighbors may see us as real human beings, as humans who strive to love God and his people even when we don’t always agree. It has been good for me so far, and as a great English author once said, “We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.”

It may be that I am the student more than the teacher this year.

So I would ask your prayers as I undertake neighborhood outreach this year as well as living in Christian community. I am blessed by wonderful roommates who are teaching me about God and myself in some pretty interesting ways.

Please remember my roommate Noel in your prayers as well. As I write this she is back home in Appleton, Wisconsin, mourning the death of a friend. We are all feeling her absence from the household, and her loss has proved to us that we really are a team, a family unit in which each part works for the good of the family and genuinely cares.

As always, God has been good to me, especially by blessing me with supporters like you.