Andrea Davis
About Mission Year
Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor. Learn more about our first year program…
Andrea Davis's Blog
Saying goodbye? / Jul 10, 03:28 PM
During May we got a few interns at the Fitness Center. Everyone was excited about this because it meant more coverage and a lightening of each of our loads just a bit because we’ve had one less staff person for a couple months now and we were always scrambling to have someone to greet people and check them in at the front desk. I was excited about this because it meant that I could focus more on organizing member documents without the distractions of the front desk and also keep focusing on the Healthy Church Initiative, where I work with neighborhood churches to give each one’s members 2 weeks of free access to the Fitness Center. I really enjoyed getting to know the interns as we trained them in using the computers and give them professional training specifically about our Fitness Center, but also in general improving their customer service skills (I know mine have improved through working at the Fitness Center – I used to have none! :)). We were getting to know one another and I felt like I was connecting and everything. Then within a couple of weeks these three ladies all were unable to continue volunteering for various reasons. There was no real, closing goodbye with any of them – at least in the way I would’ve liked to say goodbye and let them know that I would miss them.
In some ways there has been a lot of transience throughout our year in Lawndale – after a while coming to the realization that just as my team and I are here for only a fleeting moment, many of the situations and relationships we have found ourselves in here in North Lawndale even within the year are also often brief and fleeting. In many ways people don’t stick around for long (that may have been the case back at home in Iowa, but I didn’t notice it as much then because I wasn’t being as intentional about relationships). This quality is probably the main reason why when I ask people I meet where they live they say “I stay at…” because no one lives anywhere very long. They’re just staying for a while. Melissa and Sam experienced the reality of this earlier in the year when a young man (and his brother and mom) whom they had built a relationship with all of a sudden called from Oregon saying he’d moved. They had been tutoring him in his schoolwork and we’d had him over to the house. Then all of a sudden he called saying his family had moved away. This was obviously hard for Melissa and Sam and for all of us because we saw this budding relationship change drastically with that phone call (but we also realize the reality that it was likely much harder a transition for their family to make – moving away from their entire support system in our neighborhood to a completely new state and community).
As I begin to tell people that I’m leaving to go back to school in Iowa at the beginning of August, they often react with… well, what emotion is it? Probably surprise and frustration and some sadness. For one thing, it’s not expected that you will hear ahead of time when someone is moving away or will no longer be working someplace. You often find out not even while it’s happening, but after it’s happened. You don’t get a chance to say goodbye. And I feel like my friends here, especially at the Fitness Center, are genuinely sad that I’m leaving and will miss me. My friend Cliff came up to me the other day and said “So you’re leaving for real?” He had thought that I’d be going away and coming back, but I told him I’ve gotta go back to school… though I really hope to come back to visit sometime.
A few weeks ago Leroy our president of Mission Year had encouraged us that as we near the end of our Mission Year to say goodbye WELL. Most of us know that we’re leaving the city and we know ahead of time, so we can do it “well.” Whatever that means. I guess we’re finding that out… doing our best. Part of that for me is I want to be able to let people know how much they’ve meant to me… how much they’ve impacted me and changed my life… how do I show that to the people I care about? I’m not sure. But one part I do know that will help me to say goodbye is knowing that I am not really saying goodbye to the hearts of the people I have known this year – because I’m just not able to do that. I am not giving up on their causes, which have become mine (ours). Justice, racial reconciliation… for the homeless, for children who have not received a fair education… I am taking these causes with me when I “leave” and I will be championing them as I share their stories, which have become a part of my story, for the rest of my life.
Physical Fitness & Justice / Jun 27, 03:41 PM
I mentioned in my last blog that I had finished my Justice Project, which was about fitness disparities, specifically here in North Lawndale and the ways that places in the community (including Lawndale Christian Fitness Center, where I work) are trying to combat the injustices of services. I’ve adapted and abridged the paper that I wrote for that class for my blog, so please check it out. It’s long, but I think it’s worth learning about if you have the chance to read it or even skim it!
In the late 1990s the Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) and Lawndale Community Church (LCC) was attempting to address the obesity epidemic and ensuing diabetes that they noticed among their patients, most of whom are lower income African American and Latino patients. Noticing the growing levels of obesity and diabetes the clinic wanted to encourage more than the handful of Health Support classes they were able to offer at the time so they started looking at fitness options for patients within the community.
There are a few parks in North Lawndale, including one of the largest city of Chicago parks, Douglass Park, located about 3/4ths of a mile away from the Ogden LCHC facility but residents in the area did not consider Douglass Park to be a safe place to engage in outdoor physical activity because nearby neighborhoods are areas of high crime and people are just not comfortable being outside themselves, much less allowing their children to get exercise at the park. If people actually did feel safe exercising outdoors in their neighborhoods, what would the options be during the winter in Chicago with the months of snow and cold weather? Ellis said that as LCHC looked for fitness options in the community there were no fitness facilities nearby on the west side – companies must not have seen enough economic benefit in neighborhoods like North Lawndale, with its average family income somewhere around $20,000 a year, near the bottom of the average income levels out of all the neighborhoods in Chicago, and fitness companies probably decided to bypass poorer neighborhoods here on the west side. There is an abundance of fitness facilities in Chicago as a whole, but they seem to be concentrated in the downtown “Loop” region and the North side of Chicago – areas that have much more economic wealth than west side neighborhoods like North Lawndale – probably a testament to this sentiment as well.
A study done by the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has found in a national study that “individuals who live in economically advantaged neighborhoods, where the education level is high and the population predominantly non-Hispanic white, have greater access to both publicly funded and privately owned facilities and resources that promote physical activity.” While researchers conducting the study expected to see more equal distribution of public facilities like public swimming pools, parks, YMCAs, etc. including in disadvantaged neighborhoods, unfortunately these sorts of facilities are more likely in more advantaged communities than ones like North Lawndale and Little Village.
**A look at Theology
I think that the area of physical health and in particular physical fitness is one that is largely neglected by Christians. It seems that rather than searching the Bible and finding some biblical mandate for providing fitness facilities for the underserved, the founders of Lawndale Christian Health Center “simply” perceived a need in the community, had the resources to meet it, and so they did!
What does the Bible have to say about all of this? Well, there are really two issues here. There’s the issue of the Biblical mandate for physical fitness and then there’s the issue of the injustice because of the lack of equal distribution of access to physical fitness facilities. The Bible doesn’t seem to say a lot specifically about physical fitness, but in III John 2 John prays that the people he is writing to will prosper and be in good health in all respects, in addition to the prospering of their souls. I Corinthians 6:19 says “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” If the Spirit of God lives inside of Christians – the spirit of a perfect God – doesn’t that mean that Christians should keep their bodies as healthy as they can?
Being physically fit has so many benefits including weight management, chronic disease management, and increased energy level, to mention a few. And then, “love your neighbor as yourself.” If we Christians living in middle to upper class economic status and with relatively easy access to facilities for physical fitness really want to love our neighbors as ourselves, I believe that we should be willing to work towards seeing resources more equally distributed.
Another verse that talks about loving our neighbors speaks of the physical needs, in James 2:15-17, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Our Christian faith, our “personal walks” must be accompanied by action! And finally, “do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly” (Leviticus 19:15). This verse was probably talking about issues of justice in the courts, but it makes sense also in this context – and I think it’s striking that it says not to even show partiality to the poor. It says to judge fairly, not misrepresent justice, and I take this to apply to where services are available for different people. The economically driven business world tries to avoid equality of services, but all people have value and need for services and it is unjust for there to be so many opportunities for fitness in communities of the “great,” of those with money and resources, but not opportunities for the “poor.”
Sometimes now, especially throughout Mission Year, I feel like the church often neglects social services and certain kinds of justice. My eyes have been opened to this and it is hard to see. It is hard to see the continued resources poured into my community back at home in Iowa, when resources are already so prevalent there and I see so many needs here. Once during this year I had the opportunity to take a survey of my Iowa hometown’s parks and recreation department. The survey asked about my satisfaction with the programs and park offerings. I thought about all the beautiful, safe, though small, parks and open areas in my hometown and I told them I thought everything was good as it was. I couldn’t resist commenting saying that I think it would be neat to see some of the extra resources that my hometown has put into partnership, revitalizing a disadvantaged community in an urban area somewhere. I thought about how absurd that would probably sound to the parks and recreation department – why put resources elsewhere? Why don’t they take care of themselves? But I feel so strongly that we all need to work together as we share thing that we have.
Some areas (people and communities) have been blessed with so much – often more than they need – and other areas don’t have as much or have been deprived for years. I think it is just to place some extra attention on these areas to make things more equal for everyone. We complain about educational issues and how “those people” are like this or that, but we aren’t willing to do anything about it. We don’t have collective, shared concern for other brothers and sisters.
Major steps have been taken in communities near North Lawndale. Just 5 years ago even there were really no indoor fitness facilities in these areas. There are now actually facilities providing service here on the west side of CHicago. In response to the previously mentioned physical fitness needs that LCHC saw in their patients, the health center started a community fitness center within their original Ogden health clinic in February of 2005. The Lawndale Christian Fitness Center (LCFC) started small, with low fees of $15 month to month individual memberships and has grown in size of the machines and aerobics class offerings, but maintained the low cost of $15 for the 30 day memberships. LCFC really tries to reach out to the community and bring justice in this area by offering the rates so low and even having specials sometimes, where people can get more than one month for even cheaper.
In March of this year we had our most total visits in one month since the Fitness Center opened: 6,527 people came through our doors and took advantage of the services we offer at the Fitness Center! The LCFC, where I work doing paperwork, filing, maintaining the front desk, signing up new members, giving tours, etc., now offers 13 adult classes and 9 youth classes (for youth ages 6-17). These classes include Cardio Punch, Toning in Motion, COR-iffic, and for youth: Tae-Kwon-Do, Hip-Hop Dance, and Gymnastics. These classes are great because they give people the opportunity to be involved in structured physical fitness activity and they’re included in the $15 cost. There are also six treadmills, five elliptical machines, two stationary bicycles, a stair-stepping machine, a bunch of different individual strength-training machines, dumb-bells, and medicine balls. We don’t have personal trainers (which would increase the operating costs of the facility) but we always have a volunteer or staff member upstairs on the fitness center floor in order to help people out with use of the machines.
Every single day new people come in to the Fitness Center to sign up for memberships. They are always commenting about the affordability and how much it means to them to have a place like LCFC in their neighborhood! One woman, Maria, stopped me and just shared with me how much it means to her that this facility exists. She said that she was coming with her mother to the Health Center and noticed that they had a fitness facility. She has recently lost her job and she needs something to occupy some of her time and also to help her stay healthy and she started crying tears of joy when she shared with me how much this place means to her – and this was on her first day!
One thing that I have been able to personally do in order to help bring awareness and justice to the need for physical health and fitness has been reviving LCFC’s Healthy Church Initiative. The Initiative encourages local church congregations to become more healthy through physical fitness and I agreed to coordinate Healthy Church Initiative 2008! This means that I coordinate finding two North Lawndale or Little Village churches each month to which we can give two weeks of complete access to the Fitness Center facilities for free! Of course we also hope that some of the church members who come to use the Fitness Center will continue to use LCFC after their free weeks of access are finished. I’m really glad that I’ve been able to be a part of bringing even a small bit of awareness and justice to the community through this Healthy Church Initiative. I’m glad that someone came up with the idea long before I came to North Lawndale and I’m able to just be the facilitator, giving churches the opportunity to help their congregations become more physically fit in order to serve God better.
Comment [2]
Full Speed Ahead / Jun 17, 09:24 AM
Life has been at full speed. I feel like every time I sit down to write about life (whether in my journal, newletters, e-mails, or occasionally here) I have to start by saying “Life has been at full speed.” Yesterday evening I finished up the coursework for the Mission Year courses I took through Eastern University this year under the professor-ship of the honorable Chris Lahr. :) It was Urban Issues I & II and I’ll get cross-cultural credit that will transfer back to my home college, Northwestern College, in Orange City, IA. I still have a year of college to finish up this fall. What I think about that is a whole other blog… I’m mainly looking forward to it though because I’ll (we’ll) be getting married in October and getting to spend our last year of college together. After living a year in community with 4 other girls, I’m looking forward to keeping house with one male. I’m guessing it will have about the same amount of drama. ;)
But back to life at full speed HERE and NOW. I finished my Justice Project, which was about fitness disparities especially here in North Lawndale and the things that places in the community (including Lawndale Christian Fitness Center, where I work) are doing about it. It was tough to write as it was to be 10-12 pages, but it was broken up into 3 sections, which really helped. I did enjoy writing it, it just stressed me out a bit. I should do something to celebrate tonight. :) I really want to post excerpts of the paper here at some point in the future.
We have less than 2 months left of this Mission Year thing, actually. I want to make the most of it. Take full advantage of it. This will be the quickest summer of my life probably. We still have our service sites to go to through the end of July and we’re hanging out with neighbors every Saturday and any other moments we get the chance, and Mission Year has different activities going on for us, like later this week all of the Mission Year teams and cities will be converging on Atlanta and we’ll be having an Urban Festival. I’m excited. Then at the end of June we’re going to a retreat with other volunteer corps to help us reflect upon our year. So time is going fast and I’m beginning to reflect on this year in a more wholistic way, now that most of the whole year is gone. It’s starting to get sad though… I’m looking forward to getting married this fall and I’m going to be going back to college and all of that, but this year is informing all of my life – probably everything I’ll ever do has been greatly affected by this year. That’s exciting.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By / May 22, 01:12 PM
As an educational supplement to our Mission Year Ashley, Linnea, Melissa, Sam, and I are always reading and having book discussions each week on different assigned books. This year we have read books about race, education, politics, and spiritual development, all in an effort to better understand issues of our world and issues that are particularly relevant to living life here in North Lawndale. Last month we read a book called “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” a memoir where a white, female journalist decided to join millions of women in the low-wage labor market, to find out what life is like for the poor – how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour? If you have any interest in learning about the daily lives of those who work at businesses that you and I rely on almost daily: waitresses, grocery/retail workers, or other customer service personnel, please pick up this brief, easy-to-read book!
A couple of weeks ago I was downtown on my Sabbath (Monday, our day off), reading “Nickel and Dimed” and I wrote in the back of the book:
“As I read this, a lady working at Navy Pier, carrying a broom and dustpan walks over to rearrange chairs near me. I want to say “I’m sorry… how is it working here? Do you think they pay you enough… how much is it anyway?” But I don’t know how to (and that would be weird, wouldn’t it?). I wish there were some way of communicating some sense of solidarity with her. But who am I kidding? I’m not in solidarity with her. However, now I do have a bit more of an idea of what she actually goes through on a daily basis. So… I just look at her, smile, and say ‘how are you doing?’ – hoping that simply my recognition of her life will mean something.”
Our Mission Year Church... / Apr 28, 11:20 AM
I began to write in my April newsletter about our church involvement and relationships we’ve begun to form at our church, Greater Galilee Missionary Baptist Church. Here is part of what I wrote in that newsletter and the continuation of it:
We’ve felt that so far this year we haven’t really gotten to know anyone outside of seeing them on Sunday, and part of our purpose in Mission Year is not only to partner with the local church in the ministry they are doing, but also to learn how to better love in this African-American context from a church and from people who have been working in North Lawndale for years. And how do you learn from someone? You spend time with them. So as I said, we’ve been praying for relationships and trying to be better at reaching out to people and letting them know that we do want to get to know them outside of the church walls. I’m excited that during the past few months I have been able to take advantage of opportunities like Wednesday morning Bible study, where a group of 6-7 of us – usually retired ladies and me – study a chapter of Isaiah, led by Sister Coleman, who has facilitated our involvement in Greater Galilee. I have also continued to be a part of the church’s monthly feeding ministry, serving a free hot meal to up to 300 people over the course of two days. We also got invited to a big 90th birthday party bash for one of the “mothers” in the church and Melissa, Ashley, and I attended a purse swap in March where ladies had brought purses and they were all set out on a table and we got to choose 2-3 purses each (I have one purse to my name… so I got another new – to me – purse and a nice wallet because I didn’t even have a wallet)! I can’t wait to tell you soon about one lady from our church, Gail, who I have been blessed to get to know outside of church as well!
—————————————————————————-
An update on Lawndale Christian Fitness Center: March was an extremely busy month for us in the Fitness Center (LCFC). Sometimes around 6 p.m. I would be the only one at the front desk checking in members and youth and sometimes working on signing up 3 or 4 new members at a time, plus needing to find new membership cards and still remember to “buzz” to let people in the door to the fitness floor upstairs where all of the equipment is! The Fitness Center continues to be busy, although the staff have told me that any day now things should be getting “better” (less busy), especially as it warms up and people can get their exercise outdoors. The great thing is how many people’s lives are being impacted through use of LCFC! People in our community are becoming physically healthier and stronger, affects every other part of their lives – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and socially!
We recently hit some LCFC records:
389 adults and youth visited the fitness center during a single day!
1,157 active members – the most “current members” we’ve had in the history of the fitness center!
6,527 total visits during the month of March –the most visits we’ve ever had in a single month!
