Holiday Hardship 101- A Belated Holiday Piece

We are in the midst of an awesome holiday season where there is a constant go go go mentality and a business in the air. Now Christmas festivities have faded slightly and all eyes are on New Years now, but as I'm in NC I can't help but be drawn to conversations had in Detroit and small realizations had about this season...

It was a couple weeks ago when talking to a good friend (we can call him Ronald) about the excitement of the coming holiday that I realized most of the excitement was being expressed by me. I asked Ronald about this, and if he was excited for the holiday. Now Ronald an I have known each other for a year and half now and I have heard muh of his story, but it was in this moment of vulnerability that I found that Ronald had a very powerful reason for this feeling of discomfort and even frustration.

Ronald explained to me that in December symbolizes for him a month of dismal anniversaries. It was in Decmeber that his mother passed, his sister was died and most poignant for him of all, Ronald's son was killed.

Now I recognize that we all have different experiences, whether it's with family, friends or growing up we have different experiences, but it was in this moment where I recognized my own blindness. In my own depiction of the holiday I envisioned it similar for everyone. However, Ronald's feelings about this time of year caught me by surprise for yet another lesson.

So I am not very sure what to do here, but in the moment I felt it to be very important to attempt to empathize with Ronald, to tell him that I cared about him and how much it meant to share this troubling time for him. The conversation continued and eventually ended with Ronald shooting a
rubberband at me because I cut on him. However, even though the conversation ended a while later with some playfulness I am doing what I can continue to allow this lesson to remain in my head.  

This brings to mind an important recognition of what the holidays can be for others also. I hope to be more compassionate and open to the possibly differing feelings towards this time of year. I have seen this beautifully done for years at different churches I have attended and not even recognized the power and hospitality that is incorporated in that. The holidays can be beautiful, in the joy and expectation and even in the memories, I just hope to continue to be a part of a community that reminds me to keep that open mind in the midst of our differing experiences.

Photo of the Week! Thanksgiving...Belated!

I know its a bit belated but I wanted to share just a couple of photos from Thanksgiving! We had a pretty huge gathering this year and my parents were actually able to join which is always just so so much fun! 

Aprons were included in the dresscode...for some of us

I think the Thanksgiving Meal may have been a bit much for ole Jeffery!

This year the Powells were in  charge of bringing desserts, I'd say we delivered!

Self Caring!

Recently I have been in a lot of conversation about different things that help me rejuvenate and how do I take care of myself. I think it is awesome that I have a group of friends and coworkers that challenge me to think of that, but truthfully it has brought about some reflections that I thought I would take a moment to share.

I feel that deep down self care is seen as in some ways antithetical to the "American Way of Life." Since grade school I feel I had shoved into my head the idea that we were to work as hard as we could and to stop would be to not be working hard enough. Self care seems to be taking a moment to say I work hard and because I work hard I need to be intentional about making sure I do not burn myself out. In many ways this takes so much vulnerability and self analysis and honesty to ever say this. However, I actually thought this was weakness upon first coming out of undergrad. "Sleep when I die" was my saying and while I still wish I never had to sleep, I see the importance and I see the beauty of taking time away.

I believe that self care will be something that I continue to learn about for the rest of my life, but I am okay with that because I actually do feel that it is something that can cause me to accomplish things with more joy, less stress and all the while not burning out. So, I guess take care of yourself and how do we allow others to do the same?

Detroit is Eligible: Bankruptcy Begins

Posting this in two places on this blog, but big news today: 

Check out this article about the Detroit Bankruptcy filings and its a tough time here and for many it may get more difficult. I just pray that we are able to work through this process and better understand how we can possibly do this right.

"Judge Steven W. Rhodes of the United States Bankruptcy Court, found that Detroit was insolvent and that the pension checks of retirees could be cut during a bankruptcy proceeding, a crucial part of his decision."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/us/detroit-bankruptcy-ruling.html?hpw&rref=us

Picking Locks

Just a short funny story to share today:

Today I am approached by a long time volunteer saying he is unable to open up the volunteer desk. Well this is pretty strange as this desk is never  locked because we leave the key in the lock. Well of course that key has since disappeared and we are left with a locked desk. Quite the frustration. 

So of course this desk had to be opened, maybe not so much out of need, more so out of desire. A couple YouTube searches later and I am going at the lock armed with two paper clips and a determination that is more pride than anything else.

There were a couple times I was sure I had gotten it only to find the paper clip had simply slid sideways. Half dejected and defeated a good friend and volunteer pokes his head around the desk to ask "WHAT are you doing down there?" I explained the locked desk and my defeat. Eyeing the desk he simply told me to walk away and he'd take care of it. 

Skeptical if he would pick the lock or break the desk drawer open I walked away to complete some paperwork. Not 5 minutes later I hear "Ohh Brandon!" And to my surprise I find the desk drawers opened and my friend smiling and pointing. Of course I convinced him to show me how he did it and to let me do it myself and a lesson was learned! Never boring at NOAH!

I think today just reinstalled the differences that we find at NOAH. Clearly at no point in my life had I picked a lock, but NOAH has given me the gift of being able to be a part of a family of people that all have incredibly different backgrounds. I believe these experiences add to the richness of our family and certainly the most "interesting" moments. Now regardless the reason of why my friend knows how to pick a lock I find so much beauty in the conversation and community we can have now, working towards a common goal of serving with those who walk in our doors, unlocking things as we go.

Pumpkintastic!

Its a Pumpkintastic day at NOAH!

On Wed of this past week we had a special event with our volunteers at the NOAH Project where we took 15 ordinary, average, boring looking pumpkins and morphed them into some beautiful works of art (some more pleasing to the eye than others). We declared October 30, a Pumpkintastic day, therefore if you know me and my obsession with pumpkin then this is practically the best day of the year for me. Anyway, the morning began with eggbakes galore and homemade cinnamon roles and i must admit a little pumpkin spice creamer in the morning coffee. The main event of the day was carving pumpkins! I believe it is in moments like this when we are all working on a simple project and just enjoying time together that we are able to continue to get to know one another and our experiences. All in all a great day for community and a great day to show off some artistic abilities all the while celebrating Halloween a bit differently!

Photo of the Week- Hands 4 Detroit!

This week's pictures come from a huge event put on by the United Methodist Church. This is an annual event where here are several different sites for volunteer opportunities. N.O.A.H. was of course one such site! Well of course we were worried because it is very out of the ordinary for N.O.A.H. to have a saturday meal, so who would come? Well we did a little advertising and well we had a fantastic turn out! There was chili and hotdogs galore and we were able to spend all day saturday with volunteers from Birmingham First UMC. After serving and brief visit from the bishop, we all gathered for a worship service to hear some of the final numbers of what was done and about other worksites. 1,700 people joined in the work for a day of service and an attempt to build partnerships with people in Detroit! An awesome day to see so many people involved and so much good work done!

Photos of the Week: Catching Up and Running it Out

So this week has been a pretty eventful one that is certain! I had an awesome opportunity to  go to Chicago, IL. So a Megabus trip later and I was able to catch up with several really great friends in the Windy City. I would say most of the pictures are from an office party that a friend was able to snag an extra ticket for and I was able to crash. It was absolutely beautiful and to be honest somewhat strange feeling, cruising around the harbor on a yacht, while usually I am looking at the yacht. 

In addition to seeing friends I was able to run the Chicago Half Marathon and I must say it was an awesome race where seemingly half of Chicago came out to, cheering and making signs for. It was a great time and topped off with Chicago style pizza afterwards for each runner! Who says you can't have pizza for breakfast?!

Pictures of the Week!- It's a Birthday!

So this week was a pretty easy week when it came to choosing a picture of the week topic, it was my Birthday!! So of course I have a few pictures from August 28th! The day was pretty awesome and sadly I don't have pictures of everything, for instances after work about 15 coworkers, friends and neighbors got together to celebrate at a local resturaunt. While the food of course was fantastic there I was somewhat overwhelmed with the group that showed up. To consider this time last war these were all acquaintances if that and now to call them my friends and family here in Detroit was a powerful moment. Beautiful time to have everyone together!

So I thought I'd show some of the more interesting gifts:

Toothpicks!

A Painted Rock

Banana Pudding!

Some lovely decorations for the office, high class!

Avalon and a present to start the day off!

The Ego of Volunteering

Before reading on into this post I ask you to recognize how this story comes from a very vulnerable part of my own life. I have done my very best to be very honest, open and tactful. I believe this is an issue that has come up in my own life, perhaps in yours too, or maybe these are just points to ponder.

I have mentioned a couple times in past newsletters and blog posts that upon getting into Detroit I immediately looked for a service opportunity outside of NOAH where I could get to know another organization, get to know the people I am working with better and just have a place where I can get to know others who are working with the homeless. So the search was on for a dinner program that I could easily get involved with volunteering my time and that I could get to directly from work via bike. It took me until late September to find such a place, but finally after hearing about this church from several of my friends who come through NOAH and actually referring some to this church for a hot meal and a warm bed, I decided to check it out.

I will just use the church's initials MBK, I am not sure it matters about being confidential with the church, but just in case. Anyway, I have been working with MBK for quite sometime now I think it has given me a fantastic avenue to see familiar faces in another setting, do what I am told and see another way of service. It was at MBK on Thursday of this past week that I had some painful realizations.

See at MBK I never know who is going to show up to volunteer, sometimes there are 40 sometimes there are 3. Anyway, this was one of those days where I walk in with nearly 35 people present to volunteer. I kept busy cleaning up after people and serving the food when asked, but it was in some downtime between when everyone had been served and seconds being passed out when I sat down to take a break. 

While sitting in that chair overlooking the gym where people were eating I saw several people that I had already talked to, that I would say that I know fairly well through N.O.A.H. Some of these men and women in front of me I am striving to learn more about, get to know even better and learn from. This is when a stinking feeling slowly snuck its way into my head.

I realize that as much as I feel volunteering is a humbling, eye opening and overall a "good" experience in this situation there was a sense of pride still in present. I strive to build relationships with the people that I am giving a meal to yet I do not sit down and eat with my friend. It was in this moment where I could feel a still present barrier. While I was willing to step into the same building, work with, talk to, joke with, learn from and build community with many of these people I was still secretly adamant about keeping a small buffer built to separate us. This barrier was that of being a volunteer and the ego involved. 

The ego that I find that we find with volunteering is the notion in the back your head saying, "I am giving my time, your welcome" or "my 'daily bread' doesn't depend on this place." While I never, ever dreamt of saying this to anyone I believe this is a consistent sentiment held by those who volunteer in different settings and it is divisive to the two parties interacting. This ego ruins mutuality. This ego keeps differing power dynamics and socio economic status' alive and well. And worse we even see people gaining a certain amount of pride off of this power differential, when someone volunteering simply does not see those being served as an equal. This hurts.

It hurts to realize that if we are not constantly vigilant to keep the mindset that each party has something to gain from the interaction of volunteering. One party may bring 14 pans of lasagna, while the other may come to the table with a couple plastic bags of clothes, each still arrives with a story to share, lessons to be learned and a common humanity and need for relationship. Maybe if I can keep this fact in mind this ego barrier can slowly become smaller and smaller (and possibly begin to disappear).

I must finish with a recognition of reality. I understand that there probably will never be a time where I can completely eradicate the barriers between myself and the homeless that I work with, but if there is ever an opportunity to make this differential smaller then I hope to work towards that. I feel that as we make our differences in experience, beliefs and status between each other smaller, it then leaves more room for us to get to know one another on a deeper more authentic level. Maybe that is more along the lines of community and the community that we see preached with "love your neighbor" as a central tenant.

Photos of the Week! - OASIS Conference

This past weekend I had the awesome opportunity to share about the US-2 program at a conference called Oasis by Restoration Generation. The conference was in Washington DC for the Northeast jurisdiction young adults. While at the conference I had a chance to get up in front of the group and explain the program along with field questions. However, more importantly to me I was able to meet several people who were very interested in applying the US-2 program. This just once again gave me motivation that if people at least hear about the awesome opportunities with Global Ministries, they would be interested in short term missions. 

One such case was from one girl that I was able to speak with saying this program of the church is something that has been missing. She mentioned she has grown up in the church but found at the age of 23 that there is so mug more the UMC that she wish she would've known. Such a great chance to share what opportunities I have been granted and hopefully encourage others to go for it also. 

In addition to the weekend l was able to reconnect with an old friend from training, Lorenza! Lorenza is still going strong with her ministry to share the love of Christ at all times. She has been on the street for the past 2 years, giving up her salary, pension, benefits and home in solidarity. It was a great time to catch up and talk about other issues and I am so thankful for these opportunities!

Most of the event took place at Mount Vernon Place UMC, a beautiful place to learn more about urban ministry in an area experiencing gentrification in a huge way.

This is Lorenza!

Of course cannot be so close to the mall and not see some sights! I was able to go for a run to see MLK and the Lincoln Memorial, kinda awesome to visit!

Detroit, A Love Song

The massive flood of articles about Detroit continues. But hey what is this? In a July 29th NY Times Op-Ed piece writer Frank Bruni describes Detroit and his experience (very different from mine) in the city for 5 years. After seeing reactions to this article from different people I really feel it has a certain emotion to it that so very many people in Detroit can identify with. One thing can certainly be true, there is so very much pride in Detroit, pride and aspiration to make it even better.Check this article out if you have a moment:

Detroit, a Love Song

Making Headlines

Check it out! I was recently interviewed by the United Methodist Church to talk about some of what we are seeing here in Detroit as a US-2 with the different bankruptcy procedures! It made the homepage of the denominational website, check it out!

www.umc.org- It was the largest frame, but I'm not sure that it will stay there, it is a "Featured Article"

Also here is a direct link to the article!
The People Behind the Headlines

Photo of the Week- Produce Creativity- Blueberry Edition

As a part of my service here in Detroit I have added to the tenants of my service "living simply." This has encompassed my eating habits. Sense moving to Detroit I have experimented making more vegetarian dishes and more local produce and groceries. This has been an on going learning process learning to make everything from my own bread to how the heck do you cook eggplant? I have thoroughly enjoyed this adventure moving away from chicken on a Foreman Grill with a side of Ramen and on to the items from my own garden and Detroit itself. I believe I could go on for days about stories of failed recipe attempts (who knew I could mess up cooked collard greens so bad) and we'll call them less conventional recipes.

However, this week's photo of the week is of one of those experimental times. I was gifted 10lbs of fresh blueberries from outside of Kalamazoo, MI this week! While they were delicious I think I would have turned into a blueberry if I ate them all (straight off of Willy Wonka). Therefore I set out trying to find different uses and preserving methods. Check them out! I have to admit I am both surprised and pretty darn proud of how everything turned out.

From left to right we have:
-Dehydrated Blueberry- Soon to go into some granola!
-Frozen Blueberry- Holy smokes better than ice cream aaaannd I found an interesting recipe for them to go into a smoothie along with a bit of the mountains of kale that we have.
-Fresh Blueberry- No explanation needed, these are just awesome right!
-Accidental Blueberry Jam- Well it started with boiling some blueberries slightly to allow them to dehydrate faster after the skins crack...one thing led to another and BOOM- Blueberry Jam!

A Reminder From Art And Soul

Check out this awesome connection with N.O.A.H.! This video was created by a program that works with N.O.A.H.to provide an artistic avenue for the homeless that are a part of N.O.A.H. What an awesome creative reminder that More is More!

Photo(s) of the Week- Fire Up the Grill, N.O.A.H. is on Bell Isle!

So for starters to this Photo of the Week, I need to send out a disclaimer. I know in most every photo of the week there is generally more than one photo, but this week there are even more. I am sorry if it seems I am a little carried away, but I just gotta share it all! I am sure you'll understand.

Anyway, This Friday the N.O.A.H. Project went out to Bell Isle in order to have a cookout for our quarterly hangout/chillout event we do with the volunteers. We started the morning off with a fantastic smoothie bar, egg bakes and of course Monkeybread (the exception to our new "health kick" at N.O.A.H.). After some fun times making all types of smoothies from kale, cayenne and ginger smoothies to the crowd favorite the strawberry, banana and pineapple smoothies, we then packed into cars and headed to Bell Isle! While at Bell Isle we found a nice little shelter and played some charades, fired up the grill and had some delicious food! There was quite the rainstorm, but really that just created quite the story to go along with an awesome day. After eating I got my butt handed to me in chess and dominoes so now I certainly have something to work towards for next year! All in all, it was a day for the N.O.A.H. family to just relax and hang out together, days like that are certainly tiring, but so very worth it!

As you cane tell, no one really goes hungry!

We certainly had a full grill and this was before the torrential downpour and grilling in the rain!

Here we have the awesome game of Charades! And of course the team I was on won (I think).

The 20 miler Map!

So here I am attempting to give you the link to check out the route I took to run the20 miles once I was at Annual Conference

You should be able to click the following link, the only issue may be that if you don't have a Map My Run account it may not let you view it, but it seems that it may work? One thing though, the mileage in that 18.69 miles, which for you mathematicians is less than 20 miles! Well fear not! The Map My Run App that I use for some reason does not show the bridge that crosses over Lake Junaluska right where the ending point is. However, I did cross the bridge there, turned left and did a smaller loop, where I got back on to 19 and then S Lakeshore and crossed back over the bridge to then turn right on North Lakeshore and went back to Stuart, that mileage comes out to 2.42 miles, not including what ever the bridge is... So all in all the total mileage ran was 21.11!

Try it --> THE Map

Thank you so very much for the help, support, encouragement and just all around awesomeness!

I know i posted this picture earlier, but I just like it! Thanks again everyone!

Last Day of Annual Conference!

As is usual I think I just have too much to say and explain! Conference has been so great, I have been able connect with old friends, make connections with new friends, hear about new and different opportunities and be involved in the voting process of the United Methodist Church. The worship here has been simply phenomenal. There has been a very diverse group of speakers, worship leaders and focuses all the while adhering to the overall conference mission found in Micah 6:8: "And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?" ( NASB).

The teaching time was certainly enlightening as well with professor of Evangelism at Perkins, Elaine Heath, spoke 3 times teaching each time about the joys, concerns and experiences from beginning new monastic communities across the nation. Also, of course Bishop Larry Goodpastor has been a great leader and example for the conference and those involved!
As for the voting sessions themselves there will certainly be more to come about them and what I experienced, but overall they were wonderful examples of compromise and discussion. I was very thankful for the SPIRIT that influenced and lead our "holy conferencing." I'll expand petitions passed and not passed but for a moment we can sit and connect. Now as I write this, check out the view:

Just a little break in the day from sessions! Not a bad place to break!

20 Miles Down!

20 miles down!!

As you may have seen in other posts, I did reach the goal to get me here to Western NC Conference and as a part of the deal I ran my 20 miles this morning! I woke up around 5:30 and boy was it pretty out there! I have to admit I did stop twice to snap a couple pictures, but overall the run went well. I tried my best to stay focused on just digesting and mulling over what I was seeing at conference and my thoughts on things. It took just under 3 hours and I must say it was great to see so many other very enthusiastic and friendly people out so early. Check out some pictures below and as soon as I get to a computer ill post the route I took! 

So I've got my water and oatmeal and its off to the day's first session! Thanks again guys!

 The "Finish Line"

 The "Start Line"

The view this morning certainly wasn't too bad!

Lacein Up the Running Shoes

So many of you may already know about the fund raising effort of running in order to get to Western NC Annual conference. Well it is all complete and I now 20 miles to run! Tomorrow morning is the time and I just wanted to take one moment to thank you so very much for any support, letters and thoughts that were sent my way! I'll be getting up at 5 to get out and get the run done before the sessions begin once again. Thanks so much again and be looking for an update later!