"The new moon rode high in the crown of the metropolis
Shinin', like who on top of this?
People was tusslin', arguin' and bustlin'
Gangstaz of Gotham hardcore hustlin'
I'm wrestlin' with words and ideas
My ears is picky, seekin' what will transmit"
- Mos Def (as Black Star)
Just over a week ago, I returned from my 5th and probably final INN mission trip. We spent a week in Vancouver, British Columbia. I won't try to retell all the stories I find relevant, or share all the processes I went through as a result of the trip, but I will share something. Regardless of how something changes me, whether I think it to be good or bad at the time, it is not for me to decide how I am changed, nor through what avenue(s). So I'll just start typing.
To be honest, I didnt' have a great time on the trip. It was the first trip I can say that I honestly don't think I had a whole lot of fun. Is that good or bad? Not for me to say. Maybe on my other trips I had too much fun. I found myself discouraged, frustrated, and tense most of the week. Maybe it was because I was holding myself responsible for helping Seth & Karen lead the trip, and that was making me think differently than I thought I would have to. Maybe it was because I didn't really connect & relate to hardly anyone on the trip that I didn't already have connection with when this whole thing got rolling. Maybe it was because I didn't really believe in most of the organizations we hooked up with while we were up there. Whatever it was, it was that way, and I don't think of that negatively now, a week later, but I sure did then. I was disappointed that I didn't mesh easily with the folks I was with, but that was probably because I was feeling like they just plain didn't like me. Which, even if that is the case, shouldn't bother me that much. I didnt' like most of the organizations we were with because they didn't seem as transparent as I would hope that I would have been. Some people had great connections and experiences with these same organzations, which is wonderful; however, I did not. There was one organization I did like an awful lot, but I will mention them later. So my week was met with unexpected challenges that I didn't anticipate or like having to work through.
I didn't connect with my team very much for several reasons, probably. It doesn't matter so much I guess, but I am curious about one in particular. Like I mentioned, I felt semi-responsible for helping facilitate healthy processing of the new experiences some students would be having, and I was happy to be there for that. I feel very blessed to have seen and done the things I have, and to be there for some folks who haven't seen and done those things yet was a true honor. Unfortunately, without my knowing it, I believe I detached myself from the group in order to be able to gauge their processes, and thereby isolated myself from the shared experience. So even if my teammates were trying to connect and share with me, I was indirectly rejecting them by standing outside the circle, looking in. My fear is that my teammates feel I was standing outside looking down, which is something completely different and not at all intended. In any case, I now feel like the ways that I tried to show leadership on the trip just probably didn't translate in to people's immediate scope of their process, and that despite that, I can just hope that any minor influence I may have had will hopefully contribute to the leaders they become someday.
A great example of that has to do with the organization that I really took a liking to. It is called Agape Ministries, and it is a group that works in service to the women of Vancouver's Downtown East Side (mainly E. Hastings Ave.), the poorest, most densely populated, "roughest" area of town. Every night people from the ministry walk in red jackets through the streets, handing out bags of candy and other sweets to the women who will take them. It is strictly a women's ministry, and the men know that they cannot receive gifts from the folks in red coats. The women though, wow! The women. They came running across busy streets, flagging us down, so overjoyed to choose between 2 or 3 little bags of "Fun Size" candies. As a man, my role was to walk behind/beside the women we volunteered with, and wait for conversation to be initiated with us. We weren't to initiate ourselves. The ministry does this ground-level stuff beautifully. Give a small leisure gift to a person who assumingly receives very little leisurely choices in her day-to-day life. I watched eyes light up like stars, faces brighten like a sunrise, tears emerge like a bursting dam. Happiness and significance is strictly commodity here. And Agape contributes! But even better than that, they talk to the women. They learn names, faces, personalities, stories, birthdays, anniversaries, backgrounds, prayers, everything. The women met every night can pray and be prayed for, can receive a warm and non-threatening embrace, and have a relationship with a person who for perhaps no understandable reason, loves them and affirms their humanity. Beautiful. Agape also provides resources to drug rehabilitation centers, safe housing, medical treatment, and most any other basic human need that they can help meet. They are set on affirming the women they know as loved by God, lovable as humans, and able to love fully and purely as women. Truly a wonderful, useful, necessary thing that is happening in Vancouver.
Well, that leads me to my example. Some of our students (or should I say, all of us) were pretty overwhelmed by our few hours spent face-to-face with the reality of the street life. As I stood and listened to one young woman talk, all I could think of was, "Wow. This really is the belly of the beast." Drug trade and sex trade run rampant and unhidden on E. Hastings. Most of our team had obviously never witnessed with their own eyes a sight like this. So naturally, they were responding purely on instinct. Being somebody who cares very deeply about the consciousness of language, my ears and mind were pierced by some pieces used by some teammates. For example:
"I never would have believed that I would go out in Vancouver at night and hand out candy to prostitutes."
"Why don't they (B.C.) make a food stamp program instead of cutting big welfare checks? It's just feeding the problem (drug abuse, sex abuse)."
"After talking to a few of the homeless guys, I realized that they're just regular people."
"Those people are just living in a different world than me, and I don't think I'll ever really understand it."
I held issue with all of these types of statements, and I did my best to graciously push our young team toward a more conscious way to express what we were processing and beginning to wrestle with. No, I don't believe we handed out candy to prostitutes. I believe we gave candy to women. We know their names. Why we fall in to the despicable pattern of dehumanization by confining them to a stereotype we don't even know is founded in truth, is a mystery to me. I suppose that as young, white (most of us) Americans, we are just raised to believe that we are inherently superior to any and all other people, and to prove it, we will classify every other person in to a subtly self-denigrating people group to make it easy for us to scoff at them. We don't even include them in our minds when we say "we". As I tried to stress these points to the team, I found a room full of blank stares and a few bored sighs. I asked that the team stop using the terms "those people," "these people," "poor people," "prostitutes," and any other inherently segregating language. I don't think it got through that day, or that week, but hopefully it will make sense some day. One thing I've actually learned through Starbucks' leadership training is that strong, effective leadership doesn't have to generate immediate positive response; instead, the strongest and most effective leadership is better gauged by the long-term. So I guess I just have to be happy with that.
So that is what I have to say about the INN mission trip to Vancouver, B.C. If you know me, you probably know that I am prone to wander off when bored and pace around city sidewalks alone. I did in fact do that quite a bit in Vancouver, whether it was known or approved by Seth & Karen, the official staff leaders. One time because I was asked to leave a church service, but all the others because I feel most in tune with the city when I walk it's streets. I used that great quote from Mos Def as the title for this post because I believe it to be true of myself. I walk in cadence with the inhale and exhale of the city, and hope to forge a connection with the heart of the city, by simply walking on it. In that sense, I suppose I can say that the trip I took to Vancouver was overwhelmingly satsifying.
-HVC
Shinin', like who on top of this?
People was tusslin', arguin' and bustlin'
Gangstaz of Gotham hardcore hustlin'
I'm wrestlin' with words and ideas
My ears is picky, seekin' what will transmit"
- Mos Def (as Black Star)
Just over a week ago, I returned from my 5th and probably final INN mission trip. We spent a week in Vancouver, British Columbia. I won't try to retell all the stories I find relevant, or share all the processes I went through as a result of the trip, but I will share something. Regardless of how something changes me, whether I think it to be good or bad at the time, it is not for me to decide how I am changed, nor through what avenue(s). So I'll just start typing.
To be honest, I didnt' have a great time on the trip. It was the first trip I can say that I honestly don't think I had a whole lot of fun. Is that good or bad? Not for me to say. Maybe on my other trips I had too much fun. I found myself discouraged, frustrated, and tense most of the week. Maybe it was because I was holding myself responsible for helping Seth & Karen lead the trip, and that was making me think differently than I thought I would have to. Maybe it was because I didn't really connect & relate to hardly anyone on the trip that I didn't already have connection with when this whole thing got rolling. Maybe it was because I didn't really believe in most of the organizations we hooked up with while we were up there. Whatever it was, it was that way, and I don't think of that negatively now, a week later, but I sure did then. I was disappointed that I didn't mesh easily with the folks I was with, but that was probably because I was feeling like they just plain didn't like me. Which, even if that is the case, shouldn't bother me that much. I didnt' like most of the organizations we were with because they didn't seem as transparent as I would hope that I would have been. Some people had great connections and experiences with these same organzations, which is wonderful; however, I did not. There was one organization I did like an awful lot, but I will mention them later. So my week was met with unexpected challenges that I didn't anticipate or like having to work through.
I didn't connect with my team very much for several reasons, probably. It doesn't matter so much I guess, but I am curious about one in particular. Like I mentioned, I felt semi-responsible for helping facilitate healthy processing of the new experiences some students would be having, and I was happy to be there for that. I feel very blessed to have seen and done the things I have, and to be there for some folks who haven't seen and done those things yet was a true honor. Unfortunately, without my knowing it, I believe I detached myself from the group in order to be able to gauge their processes, and thereby isolated myself from the shared experience. So even if my teammates were trying to connect and share with me, I was indirectly rejecting them by standing outside the circle, looking in. My fear is that my teammates feel I was standing outside looking down, which is something completely different and not at all intended. In any case, I now feel like the ways that I tried to show leadership on the trip just probably didn't translate in to people's immediate scope of their process, and that despite that, I can just hope that any minor influence I may have had will hopefully contribute to the leaders they become someday.
A great example of that has to do with the organization that I really took a liking to. It is called Agape Ministries, and it is a group that works in service to the women of Vancouver's Downtown East Side (mainly E. Hastings Ave.), the poorest, most densely populated, "roughest" area of town. Every night people from the ministry walk in red jackets through the streets, handing out bags of candy and other sweets to the women who will take them. It is strictly a women's ministry, and the men know that they cannot receive gifts from the folks in red coats. The women though, wow! The women. They came running across busy streets, flagging us down, so overjoyed to choose between 2 or 3 little bags of "Fun Size" candies. As a man, my role was to walk behind/beside the women we volunteered with, and wait for conversation to be initiated with us. We weren't to initiate ourselves. The ministry does this ground-level stuff beautifully. Give a small leisure gift to a person who assumingly receives very little leisurely choices in her day-to-day life. I watched eyes light up like stars, faces brighten like a sunrise, tears emerge like a bursting dam. Happiness and significance is strictly commodity here. And Agape contributes! But even better than that, they talk to the women. They learn names, faces, personalities, stories, birthdays, anniversaries, backgrounds, prayers, everything. The women met every night can pray and be prayed for, can receive a warm and non-threatening embrace, and have a relationship with a person who for perhaps no understandable reason, loves them and affirms their humanity. Beautiful. Agape also provides resources to drug rehabilitation centers, safe housing, medical treatment, and most any other basic human need that they can help meet. They are set on affirming the women they know as loved by God, lovable as humans, and able to love fully and purely as women. Truly a wonderful, useful, necessary thing that is happening in Vancouver.
Well, that leads me to my example. Some of our students (or should I say, all of us) were pretty overwhelmed by our few hours spent face-to-face with the reality of the street life. As I stood and listened to one young woman talk, all I could think of was, "Wow. This really is the belly of the beast." Drug trade and sex trade run rampant and unhidden on E. Hastings. Most of our team had obviously never witnessed with their own eyes a sight like this. So naturally, they were responding purely on instinct. Being somebody who cares very deeply about the consciousness of language, my ears and mind were pierced by some pieces used by some teammates. For example:
"I never would have believed that I would go out in Vancouver at night and hand out candy to prostitutes."
"Why don't they (B.C.) make a food stamp program instead of cutting big welfare checks? It's just feeding the problem (drug abuse, sex abuse)."
"After talking to a few of the homeless guys, I realized that they're just regular people."
"Those people are just living in a different world than me, and I don't think I'll ever really understand it."
I held issue with all of these types of statements, and I did my best to graciously push our young team toward a more conscious way to express what we were processing and beginning to wrestle with. No, I don't believe we handed out candy to prostitutes. I believe we gave candy to women. We know their names. Why we fall in to the despicable pattern of dehumanization by confining them to a stereotype we don't even know is founded in truth, is a mystery to me. I suppose that as young, white (most of us) Americans, we are just raised to believe that we are inherently superior to any and all other people, and to prove it, we will classify every other person in to a subtly self-denigrating people group to make it easy for us to scoff at them. We don't even include them in our minds when we say "we". As I tried to stress these points to the team, I found a room full of blank stares and a few bored sighs. I asked that the team stop using the terms "those people," "these people," "poor people," "prostitutes," and any other inherently segregating language. I don't think it got through that day, or that week, but hopefully it will make sense some day. One thing I've actually learned through Starbucks' leadership training is that strong, effective leadership doesn't have to generate immediate positive response; instead, the strongest and most effective leadership is better gauged by the long-term. So I guess I just have to be happy with that.
So that is what I have to say about the INN mission trip to Vancouver, B.C. If you know me, you probably know that I am prone to wander off when bored and pace around city sidewalks alone. I did in fact do that quite a bit in Vancouver, whether it was known or approved by Seth & Karen, the official staff leaders. One time because I was asked to leave a church service, but all the others because I feel most in tune with the city when I walk it's streets. I used that great quote from Mos Def as the title for this post because I believe it to be true of myself. I walk in cadence with the inhale and exhale of the city, and hope to forge a connection with the heart of the city, by simply walking on it. In that sense, I suppose I can say that the trip I took to Vancouver was overwhelmingly satsifying.
-HVC
1 comment:
Thanks for your honest thoughts Fred. That restlessness of the streets that you experienced is very hard for me to put into words and the frustrations we've discussed grow out of our inability really "get" what's going on at the ground level. Thanks for opening all of our eyes to moments where we hold on to the concept of "the other", rather than approaching our brothers and sisters of Vancouver from on common ground. I'll look forward to our continued discussions and debriefs about what we each learned on this trip.
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