The Spirit is coming! The Spirit is coming!

The following is a note from the wonderful and recently Master’s-graduated Blair Buckley, who serves on the Alumni Leadership Council organizing Advocacy & Sustainability for the YAV program:

The 2012 Pentecost Offering is coming up soon..May 27th! Does your local church collect the Pentecost Offering? If so, please volunteer to do the Minute for Mission. This is a really important special offering for the YAV program! Please talk to your pastor or worship committee about doing it very soon. The offering is 2 weeks from tomorrow. If you are not sure what to say for a Minute for Mission, just let me (Blair) know at buckley.blair85@gmail.com. We have some sample talking points we can send you!

Blitz Story 2

The second in a series of posts from YAV Alumni, sharing their stories and reflections at the NEXT Conference.

From Luke:

“I entered my YAV year as someone very interested in community. In college, I was part of a few different intentional communities, I visited the Simple Way to see this idea in action, and I spent a good many of my religious studies courses tossing ideas around as to what community looks like. My YAV year taught me to throw much of that out the window. The places I felt like part of a community were rarely where I thought they’d be and what I thought they’d look like. I learned the value of allowing community to become, an organic process that cannot be organized. I learned the importance of an inclusive community, a group that does not draw lines along religion, ethnicity, or age. I developed an awareness of community that completely redrew the lines of who I thought I was.

Looking forward now, after my YAV year, I feel the call to take that community to others. Specifically, for me, I want to take that feeling to the young people. I want them to experience community in a unique and special way, a community where they feel welcome and accepted. A community that is willing to take them each as they are. I want to allow them to be a part of a church community that emphasizes presence and heart over rules and stipulations. And, I hope that I can be part of a church universal that is willing to allow itself to grow organically and surprise us all with what the fellowship of believers can look like and accomplish. “

Blitz Story 1

Yesterday one of our Alumni Council members organized a social media blitz. I, for one, think that it was great to see so many people blowing up my timeline with YAV stories, pictures, and exhortations! What a great way to continue to get the word out! So great, in fact, that with a little help from a few others, I’ve decided to keep the social media blitz going. Over this week, we’ll be posting a few stories from Alumni, which were shared at the recent NEXT Conference.

Today’s story comes from Emily, who served in Guatemala and Nashville, and who recently decided to attend seminary at Union in New York (congratulations, Emily!).

Emily’s Personal Transformation:

“I served as a YAV in Guatemala from 2009-2010 and in Nashville, Tennessee from 2010-2011. In Guatemala I lived with a host family that opened their home and their hearts to me and made me feel loved and accepted. I worked at an organization that provided micro-loans for rural indigenous women and I helped teach classes to those women about environmentalism, citizenship, and self-esteem. We traveled to communities and held the classes in the churches or homes of the women who had received loans for agricultural and artisan projects. Although I wasn’t working with an organization that dealt with immigration, many of the families in the community where I lived had brothers, fathers, and husbands in the US, and many people asked me for help with their immigration papers. I felt so powerless to help and so outraged at the injustices faced by many immigrants in the US and the situations that I saw in Guatemala that drove people to emigrate that I decided to sign up for another YAV year in the US so I could work with and learn more about immigrants and their situations in the US.

Emily in Guatemala.

In Nashville I worked at an organization called Conexiòn Amèricas, coordinating  Spanish-English language exchange that matched a native Spanish speaker with a native English speaker and they both helped each other improve their second languages. I saw relationships formed between individuals and bridges built between communities that might not have otherwise happened. As a national YAV I also lived with the other YAVs who were serving at other non-profits in Nashville in intentional community, meaning we tried our best to live together, deal with conflicts, hold each other accountable for areas of growth, and support each other.

It is hard for me to remember what I was like before my experiences as a YAV. Here’s what I do know about myself now after two years as a YAV: I speak Spanish; I can use the bathroom anywhere (in a dirty outhouse, a cornfield, you get the idea); I am ok with being uncomfortable–physically, financially, in new situations; I intentionally try to live more simply; I love and am loved by countless new people; I am much better at handling conflict; I like doing political advocacy; I have hope for the future of the Church; I feel called to seminary and to ordained ministry in the PC(USA). “

A Late Start

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and as your Social Media guy was on vacation, nothing got posted. Even though I think the idea of weekly Wednesday post is a great idea during Lent. Let’s just pick that up from here, shall we?

Below is a post that was written on Ash Wednesday, for the beginning of Lent. It comes from David and Amy, who are currently in the midst of their year in Kenya. Read the post below, and if you’d like to check out their other musings/updates, go here.

“Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Blog

Today is the first day of Lent, and since I have not written a blog for a while, its seems a good time to restart. The last few years Amy and I have given up something we wanted to know we could live without (meat, ice cream, cheese, etc.) This year we chose something harder. This year we are giving up living in America.
Some may laugh since we are already giving that up, but this is very serious for us. The last few months have been an intense roller coaster of ups and downs; solace and despair; love and hate; welcomed and bullied.
We are getting used to some things, but every day usually involves a happy high, and a depressed low. Rarely a day passes when neither of think about going home home, back to mommy’s arms, and daddy’s protection. Rarely a day goes by that does not trigger some recent psychological or emotional scarring.
What keeps us going are the things to look forward to. Aunt Lee Ann’s trip in February gave us a chance to rest, relax, reflect, and leave East Africa (without actually leaving East Africa). Next week, during a short term break, we are planning on venturing to Jinja, Uganda and the source of the Nile for some adrenaline-pumping white-water rafting. April (beginning with Easter) will bring a long break between terms, which should include Nairobi (where it is easier for a mzungu to go unnoticed), a YAV retreat (possible to the island of Zanzibar), and other East African adventures. May will bring Mom and Dad Wigger, and June brings the Benish/Wadsworth clan. March (and very appropriately Lent) leaves us with our last, long, challenging period. Our last stretch with little or nothing to look forward to. (We may try to do something/go somewhere for Amy’s B-day, March 23, but it won’t be far or long.
So for Lent this year, we are giving up living in America, living in familiarity; we are giving up fitting in, being in control, and not being different. This Lent we will push through, hopefully, our toughest month left, and come out stronger on the other side.
During Lent, I always desire to eat meat, crave a piece of chocolate, or sneak a little ice cream when Amy isn’t looking. This Lent I will want to go home, will crave a hug from family, and will sneak back to Western society through movies, books, and maybe a night in Kisumu.
But I always come out of Lent stronger. I always leave a better person. I always am proud I made it. And I always come out more faithful. This Lent I am giving up living in America, and hopefully it will help me live in the promise land (or at least catch some glimpses of it.)

Guide my feet…
while I run this race.
Guide my feet…
while I run this race.
Guide my feet…
while I run this race.
For I don’t want to run this race in vain.
race in vain.”

YAVAs in the news!

We all know that there is a lot from our YAV experiences that lends toward ministry, ordained or not, in the church and in the communities in which we live. Recently, The Batavia News (Batavia is a town in the Genessee Valley Presbytery), posted an article about clergy-couple Mike & Laura Fry.

You may remember one or both of them, from your time as a YAV, from your time at McCormick Seminary, or perhaps from your Transition retreats where they have served as small group leaders. Now you can read about how they serve the community/region where they now live! If you read closely, you can see the echos of their YAV experience influencing them…

Read the news article here.

Update from YAVA Advocacy/Sustainability

The following is from Blair Buckley:

“The Advocacy and Sustainability team is off to a great start for 2012.  We are in the process of expanding and clarifying our team goals for this year. At a recent meeting, we talked about the need to better connect with both college and graduate students, and to find ways to advocate for YAV outside of the PCUSA.  We also reviewed how the YAV program has been advocated for through a few events in the past several months, including the Presbyterians for Earth Care National Conference, and the ACPE Conference. We looked at the YAV Wikipedia page that Essie and Andy Rector put together last year, which has a great section of statistics about the vocations many YAV alums have chosen and the ways in which they have continued to be leaders in the PCUSA. According to these statistics, the YAV experience has helped shaped many leaders within the PCUSA and beyond. That is because it is a YAVolution! J The web address for this Wikipedia page is:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Adult_Volunteer_Program

” The Advocacy and Sustainability team is also gearing up for General Assembly 2012, seeking to have as much YAVA representation as we can.  We have also been discussing the possibility of submitting a financial overture for YAV.  Other PCUSA events and conferences we hope to have a YAVA presence at this year include the NEXT Conference, the National Multicultural Conference, and the National Gathering of Presbyterian Women.”

Thanks, Blair, and everyone else working on these great projects!

Getting Over the Hump (Day)

Wednesday.  The middle day.  The space of limbo in the week, journeying from one weekend to the next, from the start to the finish, the beginning to the end.  Wednesday quite often elicits a sense of being the hardest day to get through, the last push to the apex, because after today, it’s all downhill from here, baby! (and for what it’s worth, I woke up today thinking that it was already Thursday…).

And while we most often see this metaphor in the academic and business worlds (based on a M-F schedule), this metaphor can just as easily be ascribed to our own lives and journeys: we reach a point where we’re tired and not sure we can muster up enough energy to make another push in an uphill struggle.  I know some who would read this who can even apply this to their current lives in the church (or their YAV year), struggling to follow the call they have received to serve in ministry (the uphill struggle part coming from denominations which throw up near-continuous roadblocks to that path).  Sometimes, it feels as if the only thing left to do is to give up, throw in the towel, and choose another path, forsaking all-together the path to which we’ve been commonly called.  It’s even happened to me.

But as I pondered this metaphor, and more so, the reality behind it this morning, realizing that it was in fact Wednesday and not Thursday, a new voice entered the conversation.  It could easily have been Mickey’s voice from Rocky.  It challenged me, and forced me to re-think everything I had been thinking.

“So what if the church is throwing up roadblocks to your call to ministry?  So what if the denomination is giving you the run around, and not the validation you know your call deserves?  So what if the human institution doesn’t understand what is so clear in your heart?  You’re not here to serve the human institution!  You’re not here be a ‘yes-person’ to the denomination!  You’re not called by the church!  YOU are called by GOD.  YOU are called by GOD in love, and you are called to share that love with humanity!”

Ultimately, what does it matter if it is within a framework of the church?  Are you loving humanity, the way you have been loved by God?  If yes, then that’s all the answer you need.  If no…well, if no, then perhaps it’s time to reflect on what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Life will continuously have hills and mountains to be traveled over, and as someone who loves to hike in the mountains, I can attest that it’s usually the final push to the summit that ends up being the most difficult.  On occasion, I even have to make the decision to turn around, to honestly assess myself and realize that reaching the summit could ultimately be detrimental.  That’s a touch decision; I’ve already traveled so far, and now I need to turn around?  But the true question I have to ask myself is: Is this the path that, for my ultimate goals, would best serve me?

Our ultimate goal, our calling, is to share the love of God we have received with the rest of creation, which is oftentimes in a state of deep hurt.  Getting over the hump is a great accomplishment, but it does not always lead us in this direction.

May you, on this Wednesday (and every other day for that matter) be able to look at your life and what you have done/are doing, and see that the path you are on is one that leads you further into this ultimate calling.  And whatever your day looks like, may you make it through with a deep, abiding awareness of God’s love for you.  If you don’t, call me: I’ll tell you (even with my best Meredith Burgess impersonation) that you are a beloved child of God, and are called to live as such.  Nothing on this planet can change that reality.

-Jason Cashing