Anna Carroll
Why I'm Doing Mission Year
There is a little explanation of what Mission Year as a program looks like below with a link to the website. Read that first and for right now I don’t know much more than that. Here are my reasons and desires for doing Mission Year based on the little that I do know with a journal following to keep you updated on my thoughts and events.
I want to share God with people in the U.S. I have learned during the last few years of my life how much He wants a relationship with each person He created and how I can share that through relationships with His people. I am excited about all the ways I will be living, serving and involved in a community in Philadelphia and the new relationships I will make with my roommates, neighbors and coworkers. I love the way God has used every person in my life to change me and make me more like Him and want other people to know God too.
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…
Anna Carroll's Blog
The AmericanWay? / Apr 8, 09:23 AM
The night before I left for spring break we had training. We watched a video about a town in the US where years ago all the African Americans were forced to leave overnight. Their land and property were basically stolen by the white people who took over. The video/documentary followed the family of one man who lost land in that town. The family was trying to figure out how the land was transferred to someone else and to see who owns it now. After watching that movie and discussing other issues of race and racism in our country I was also thinking about what should be done in situations like that. The rightful owner is dead and so is the actual person who stole it but their families are living. Do you make the current “owners” leave so the descendants of the original owner can have the land? I’m not sure. But the next morning I was flying home and reading the AmericanWay magazine and found a story about a man and his role in WWII. This man was a part of a team who worked to find stolen art work (usually stolen from Jewish families by Nazi soldiers) and return it to the rightful owner. The same idea as in the video, but this one was a little less life-disrupting to reconcile. What I want to share from all of this is a quote by the man in the article. He said, “the spoils of war do not belong to the victors.” As I was getting closer to my home I thought about how that is easy to say and do when we are talking about a painting that was stolen by and from people an ocean away. But what would it mean if our country truly believed this and took action on it like the team of Monuments Men from WWII? And how can I, as one person, respond in a godly way to the injustice of the legacy in our country of the spoils of war going to the victors?
Snow Day / Mar 3, 09:27 AM
Last Friday it snowed the first real snow! I woke up and when I opened the quiet room window I saw big flakes falling and the grass of our small back yard was already covered. I ran down stairs to look out the big windows. I went back upstairs to work on the computer but then decided I better go outside before it melted or turned into rain. So I put on a few layers and went in the back yard to make a snow angel. There’s not much room for anything else. So Seth got the camera and took a few pictures and then joined me. We walked around the front and saw two of our neighbors shoveling their sidewalk so we went to say hi. They were just getting ready to go take their dog to the park so they invited us. We drove to Clark Park and MeeLin gave us two big pieces of cardboard she brought in her truck. Allison, Seth and I went down the hill a few times and then we all watched the kids that were skipping school to play in the snow. When we got back to our block a couple kids were out and we started a snow ball fight in the street. It was so much fun to run around throwing and dodging snow. It was also great to combine a sabbath with neighborhood time. Just hanging out and having fun. After our fight Allison and MeeLin invited all of us to come back for dinner and a movie that night. So we went back and had spaghetti and watched “Once.” Even though we didn’t get an extra day off it was still one of the best snow days I’ve had since I was a kid. Actually it is really only the second snow day I’ve had since high school so it’s not hard for it to be one of the best!
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Welcome Back! / Jan 30, 01:59 PM
So I’ve been back for three weeks now and while most days seem pretty “normal” our team has tried a few new things. Usually during the weeks we read books together. Not really together like out loud to each other or anything. Just each of us reading our own copy of the same book and then Sunday nights we discuss. But after many weeks of this “book club” things can get pretty routine and that sometimes really just means boring. So this week we tried something new. We decided to play a game while we discussed “Jesus and the Disinherited” by Howard Thurman. We chose to play Monopoly. We had a little discussion then a lot of game playing and then a little more discussion. I’m not sure it was the best way to discuss a book but I think it was a good effort. The game, however, taught me something about myself. I never realized that I was competitive. The game lasted for close to 3 hours. Everyone began by buying every property we landed on, but I didn’t get such a good selection. Pretty soon houses and hotels were being constructed all over the place and my bank account was getting smaller and smaller. Matt and Claire went out and I was starting to mortgage everything I owned. I could have just given up because it was obvious that my lack of houses, hotels and property weren’t getting me anywhere but I just couldn’t do it. I still had to hope that I could come back and win it all. In the end Rori won with something like $20,000 and everything I once owned!
Broken Trolley Tracks and Cell Phones / Dec 11, 02:46 PM
Last week the trolley on Woodland wasn’t running between 58th and some other street farther west. So instead everyone riding west had to get off at 58th and get on a bus that would take them to the next stop where the trolley was working. On Monday I went straight from my morning site to Cornerstone, so I walked down Woodland on the part where the trolley wasn’t running. I walked past a bus stop where a few women got off and were complaining that the bus was really crowded and a woman almost fell off. I’m not sure how a woman almost fell off the bus while it was moving and the doors were closed, but that’s what happened. So I walked some more and caught up with an elderly lady walking in the same direction. She asked me if there was a phone farther along and I said I wasn’t sure. She then asked how far I was going and said she would walk with me. We walked along the sidewalk until it was torn up because of construction and then we walked in the bike lane a little. We talked about the trolley and bus service and that she was going to find a phone to call her husband so she wouldn’t have to walk all the way home. When we got to the corner she asked about a phone again and since I didn’t know where to tell her to go I offered my cell phone. I dialed for her and she talked to her husband. After she hung up we talked a little while longer. She told me about her kids and the kids of the woman she worked for when she was younger. Between the two of them they had 8 kids. She asked if I went to college and what I was doing now. I said goodbye and walked to Cornerstone and she stayed to wait for a ride. It may not sound like much of a story but it made my day. I was so glad that someone on the street just started talking to me and walked with me.
