[...continued]

5. So, as a recruiter for Mission Year, what are you up to?

Life as a recruiter is exciting and never-ending! I basically travel to campuses, conferences and festivals all over the country talking with young folks about the amazing opportunity that is Mission Year. Sometimes I travel with people like Leroy Barber (our president), Tony Campolo or Shane Claiborne, other times I just go from campus to campus setting up tables on my own. Last month Mission Year hosted an alternative Spring Break called The Original Event in Galveston, Texas where we had college students from all over the country come out to do repair work on damage caused by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. It was incredible to see how many students gave up their spring break to give back to people they don't even know. That's what I love about my job, everywhere I go I am meeting young people who are feeling called to really dig deeper into what it truly means to follow Jesus and live out a life servanthood. It's so rewarding and I'm honored to be a part of an organization that helps them process through that.

6. When I was perusing the Mission Year website I came across the PRoP experience and I was captivated. Explain what it is for those that don't know and unfold how a weekend like that plays out.

PRoP is designed to raise awareness about the issues poor and homeless people face on a daily basis. The end goal is to awaken compassion in the participants to join in God’s concern for “the poor” and to make the lifestyle decisions reflecting that concern. For our participants we like to keep the weekend activities somewhat unclear as part of the experience. But mainly, during the weekend we offer chances for participants to experience some of the struggles that our homeless friends often have to endure as well as time to connect with and learn from folks who have experienced homelessness firsthand.

7. What I love about the strategy of Mission Year is that it is all about action - about doing. It's not set up to try and just 'evangelize' in the modern sense, it is about embodying and being the Way of Jesus, not just talking about it. As someone whose done it, how did you find that to be true?

Oh my goodness, yes, this is the heart and soul of Mission Year and that's what I love about it too! I learned that the power of just simply being present to one another is a ministry in itself. All too often in our society, we are moving towards individualism, private property and picket fences. With that, we are losing the value of community, true community which is spending time with one another, sharing resources with one another, carrying each other's burdens. Like the church of Acts, that is how I learned to live out my faith during Mission Year. We learned to be intentional about being a good neighbor. Now the question that is raised, and I hope is raised to everyone reading this article, is WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR? Another aspect of Mission Year is challenging us to really think about who our neighbors are, or who SHOULD be our neighbors. Are we called to live in neighborhoods where we all look alike, or fall into the same income bracket or even share the same values? Or are we called to reach beyond those social boundaries to create a radical sense of community and to be a light in a dark place just by simply being present and being a good neighbor?

8. How can people find out more, support you guys or get involved?

Our website is a great resource, everything you could want to know about Mission Year is there- like how to apply, how to work towards a Master's degree with Mission Year, what events we might be putting on, current team members blogs and even how to donate! Visit us at http://missionyear.org

We are always in need of supporters in many different facets- prayer warriors for our teams, financial supporters to make it possible for our team members to serve, and even super-friends to help us set up events, spread the word and recruit more folks to come out and serve. You can email me at pharis@missionyear.org if you want to get involved in any one of those opportunities.

I set this interview up with Ashley (click her name to read her bio and blog over on the Mission Year site) to promote one of my favorite missional organizations in America - Mission Year!

1. Give us the run down on what Mission Year is and is all about.

Mission Year is a radical opportunity for Christian young people to live out the simplest and most important commandment of Jesus: "Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself." By living and working for a year in a low-income, urban neighborhood, partnering with a local church, volunteering at a social service agency, and spending time with neighbors, our Mission Year team members effectively impact their communities while catching a deeper vision for what the Kingdom of God is like. From September to August Mission Year teams serve in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Camden, and Wilmington.

2. Tell us about your Mission Year experience. What things did you do?

I lived on the West Side of Chicago with 4 other women. In my neighborhood, North Lawndale, the population is 95% African American and less than 1% white. Along with that the average income is around $18,000 which is the national poverty line. So the reality of racial injustice and poverty was very real for us every day as we walked the streets of our community and got to know our neighbors.

As a household we lived very intentional with one another, praying with each other each morning, reading and discussing different topics and books about justice, theology, race, simplicity, etc. Four days a week we volunteered in our community through all sorts of organizations, ranging from schools to homeless shelters to counseling centers and medical clinics. We were partnered with a local church where we could learn from, support and worship together with members of a church that has a history in the community. And Saturdays were our most exciting day! Saturdays were dedicated to spending time in our community, simply getting to know our neighbors. We would play basketball with neighbor kids, bake cookies for families, have barbeques. Really just share life with those around us, learn from and pour into them. And on Mondays, we rest. Sabbath is a wonderful thing.

3. In what ways did your experiences with Mission Year change your understanding of God, poverty, love and the teachings of Jesus?

To be honest, my year serving through Mission Year will take years to process through. It turned a lot of my beliefs upside down. The way I think, act, listen, see, spend- it has all changed somehow (or is in the process of changing). I will say that God is much bigger now to me than I ever imagined and uses people who I never would have thought before. A lot of issues that once were a clear black and white are now much more gray. But I have realized that is where Jesus loved to be, in the gray. His mercy is greatest in the gray. And God is ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS. If what you're doing for the poor, the disadvantaged, the orphans, the widows, the refugees, the prisoners....if it's not out of relationships with them, then it's not out of love. I mean, how can you be an advocate for someone you've never spoken to? And Jesus had to come to us, to Earth before he became our eternal advocate. So I've realized, if you are wishing to serve, go befriend someone you wouldn't normally befriend and love them with all you've got. Plain and simple.

4. Was there a particular person you met and interacted with that affected you? How?

So many to choose from. But one story I love to tell is about my neighbor Reggie. He lived in the apartment behind us. Reggie was a graduate of the program I volunteered for called Hope House, which is a transitional program for men coming out of prison. At one point in his life Reggie was heavily involved with drugs which lead to his incarceration, but after going through the Hope House several years ago, he turned his life around and is now an active member of a local community church and volunteer for the VA. And Reggie became sort of a surrogate father to my team and I during our time in North Lawndale.

Very early on during my Mission Year, there was a white police officer who stopped us on the street and talked to us about what we were doing living in the neighborhood. From the very beginning of our interactions, I could tell he was not very welcoming of us and very cynical of my team just wanting to reach out to our neighbors. Over the next several months, whenever he stopped me in our neighborhood, I always felt very uncomfortable and intimidated by him. Finally one night, when he was at our apartment building checking on a situation, he nearly barged into our apartment and said some very inappropriate things to me. I knew that what he said was not right and felt like I should do something about it, but he was the police and didn't I want him on my side??

I ended up telling Reggie about it and he encouraged me to report the incident. I said that maybe this would be the last time, but if something happened again I would report it. A week later I went over to visit Reggie and he casually asked me if I'd had any run-ins with that specific police officer again. I realized I hadn't seen him once that entire week, which was very unusual. As I told this to Reggie, he sort of got a smirk on his face. I asked him what he did and he just smiled and said sometimes you just have to watch out for people. He had indeed made a report to the police about this officer, and I never once had an encounter with that police officer for the rest of the year. Moral of the story: my African American ex-offender neighbor protected me from a white police officer in my African American neighborhood. As a friend of mine says, now that is how God spins the world upside down on it's head and shows His power and love.

[to be continued...]

So I read this post by Eugene Cho yesterday, engaging the first speech given by the first African American Attorney General, Eric Holder. In his speech, Attorney General Holder said 3 things that really challenged me:

1st - Our country remains "voluntarily socially segregated."

2nd - “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,”

3rd - "On Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago. This is truly sad."

I hate that he is right. Had I still lived in CO and heard this, it would not have resonated with me. I would say that "there is still some segregation, but not to the extent Mr. Holder is accusing." I would probably even accuse him of playing the victim of the past and be frustrated by his pessimism of the present. But, I didn't think that or accuse him. It resonated with deep convictions in my soul.

I've lived in the Motor City metro area for 3 years now and have seen and heard things I thought to be archaic - things we all learned were ignorant and empty in our American History classes of our high school years. Areas where white people aren't wanted, areas where black people aren't welcome, subdivisions being 'infiltrated' by Indians who don't maintain the same standards of landscaping, the feeling that I should be afraid and suspicious of every black person I pass on my walk 3 blocks from my secure parking garage to my secure work building. I honestly hate the suspicion I feel when I gas up at the station across from my work, the one thought to be 'dangerous' - but then a white guy was car jacked at gun point by a black guy and all suspicions are validated - and then everyone was right. I have never seen an American city that looks so war torn, destroyed by the air raids of white flight and neighborhoods ghosted by ghetto indifference. I have never felt so far from living in America as I do in the Motor City, because it is not the America I want.

I want to believe in the dream and something that transcends all this racial history - a history I didn't help to write, but a future I long to be a part of. I never enslaved anyone, but I know my ancestors did. I've never hated someone for the color of their skin, but I know family members who do. Yet, perhaps I am a coward because I have not fashioned my life, or positioned my home or diversified my circle of friends to embody that which does resonate deeply within me. I work with mostly white corporate people, I live in a mostly white neighborhood and I have mostly white friends. Perhaps I am a coward. Too harsh? Maybe. I know I didn't move 60 miles outside of Detroit to get away from the African Americans that make up the majority of it's populations. We had family out there, found a great house (at a then great price - since lived to regret that) and it was far cheaper than where we were living. But, I could have moved to Detroit for those same reasons, not as close to family but far closer to work, far cheaper to live.

So now I feel like part of the problem - and I'm left challenged by Mr. Holder's speech and must work to be the change I want to see. I am not satisfied by the status quo in our culture and churches.

Related posts, "The King had a Dream," "The Down Side To Freedom of Speech [Part 1]," "A Church without a Box?"