Ashley Pharis
Keepin' it REAL with Mission Year
My name is Ashley Pharis, I’m 23 years old from Goshen, Indiana. After graduating from college with a degree in Speech Pathology, I decided that I wanted to take some time out to volunteer my time and services to underprviliged communities before going onto grad school. After a year of working and applying to various organizations (mainly African orphanages) I randomly find myself headed to Chicago to serve in the inner city (not my original intentions/desire/area AT ALL). But when a random acquaintence (now friend) told me about his year volunteering with Mission Year, I thought I’d check it out because it seemed to align very closely with my ideals and how I want to live out my faith and love for others. And now, here I am, two weeks away from moving to “the Windy City” with a complete peace about starting this new adventure in understanding poverty/social injustices/etc. I am so excited to get started and get my hands and feet dirty in the messy business of loving and serving people exactly where they are at.
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…
Ashley Pharis's Blog
We Made the NEWS!! / Jul 18, 02:27 PM
Earlier this spring I wrote about a series of Prayer Marches in North Lawndale I helped my supervisor Stanley Ratliff organize with local churches in response to the increase in gun violence this year. Well they have been in full swing, although the turn-outs have waxed and waned each time. We’d been working to get more police involvement in order to help bridge the emotional divide between residents and police officers in our neighborhood (there is much resentment towards the police in North Lawndale, a lot of perceived corruption on the cops’ end especially after a young African American male was shot in the back and killed by a police officer last August).
Well, when we showed up to the March at the sponsoring church (St. Agatha’s) this past Saturday, I was surprised to see several fully-dressed police officers. I approached them and thanked them profusely for their participation in the Peace Prayer March. Then I started noticing cameras and news crews. I was getting excited…our moment of glory had come!! Well….not really. Come to find out, a priest connected with St. Agatha’s had some connections and was trying to get the Mayor of Chicago to come out for the event. Well, he never showed, but the Chicago Police Department got wind of the event, and given the timing and the heat that the new Superintendent Jody Weiss has gotten for rising gun violence this summer, they saw this as the perfect opportunity for a publicity stunt to boost morale.
After realizing this, I was so angry, seeing how the police were merely using us to win favor in the public eye rather than actually WANTING to participate and show their support for the marches after we’d been on them for MONTHS to come out. And the way the news reported the event made it sound like Jody Weiss was a knight in shining armor riding in to save the day (never once did they mention St. Agatha’s, any of the organizers or any of the other marches that have been going on—-in fact the story quoted that Weiss “lead the march”!! see video clip here http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6261143).
But when it came down to it, we had a very strong showing of police officers on foot, bike, cars and segue ways, including several district commanders of the Police Department, at least 25, who marched the whole route with us. So the residents saw them. And that’s what we wanted from the beginning. Even if their intentions weren’t pure. So I’m realizing, as an activist, I have to get used to the politics. Like my Dad advised me recently, “Ashley, you have to learn to play the ‘game’.” I know what he’s saying, but I’m just not sure how much or if I’m willing to compromise my morals for the rules of this ‘game’.
I will let you know if the Superintendent or any other police show up at the next march. But don’t hold your breath.
A lesson from Cook County Jail / Jul 18, 02:26 PM
Every month the counseling agency I volunteer for goes to the Cook County Jail to facilitate workshops for female inmates who are nearing their “out-date”. These workshops based on the “Within My Reach” curriculum provide insight, tools and a space to dialog about what healthy relationships look like, the importance of them in our lives, and how to obtain and maintain them. For one week a month, about 25-40 women inmates gather together for two hours to be a part of this training.
I was given the opportunity to help facilitate a couple sessions, and of course, all my pre-conceived notions of what going into a roomful of inmates would be like were completely shattered. The women came from all different backgrounds and were insightful, genuine, caring individuals who welcomed us with open arms and shared their hearts with us and one another.
At the end of the workshop, each participant is asked to fill out a booklet, which includes background information like age, race, level of education, personal income, etc. The booklet is a series of questions with fill-in-the bubble responses. Part of my job as a volunteer this year has been to take the data from the participants’ booklets and input it into the online data system. However mundane this task may seem, I can tell you that it has been one of the most eye-opening tasks of my year.
Through this process, I have seen the statistics that stack up against many of the women that we serve in these workshops. The numbers don’t lie. But the more I see the patterns, I wish the numbers WOULD lie. I wish I could erase the circle that over half of these women bubbled in stating that the highest level of education they’ve received is the 8th grade. I am tempted more and more each time to ignore the question asking about race, believing that maybe if I deny the truth in the numbers that show over 75% of these women are African American, JUST MAYBE the negative stereo-type will concede and the chance that these women will come back into the prison system will as well. And I hope to God that the over 75% of participants who mark in that their current income is under $5,000 a year (many with multiple children in their home) are accounting for their income IN JAIL and not out of jail.
But it goes to show that there are interconnected factors, the pattern of the lower-educated women being African American, the pattern of single mothers with many children making little to no money, the high levels of drug-use coinciding with confessions of guilt about their drug habit. All these factors are correlated in a great big giant mess.
I cannot even begin to elaborate the level of guilt I have felt this year in realizing what great advantages I have had in my life because of being a white female from a middle-class nuclear family. It has been paralyzing in many ways, disheartening and really earth-shattering in my understanding of the many circumstances and choices that these women have to deal with. It has been very humbling experience to say the least. I’m hoping to find some reconciliation at some point, but I’m grateful for the journey I have begun.
Well...I THOUGHT I liked roller coasters... / Jul 7, 12:58 PM
The past few weeks I have become increasingly aware of the fact that our time here in North Lawndale is slowly coming to an end (thanks to my weekly planner). It is strange, this year has been some sort of mystical time and space of ‘floating’ for me, not truly grounded but floating in this experience of learning how to be present and enjoy the here and now. The idea of this time coming to an end doesn’t seem possible. Now that I’ve found a place where I finally feel like I’m fulfilled, isn’t time supposed to stand still??
But no, apparently not according those silly things called watches and calendars. And it’s been a roller coaster of emotions as that reality has set in. Some days I am still struck with wonder at the very thought that I am actually here, living in Chicago, doing this crazy thing called Mission Year. What an amazing gift it has been. This sense of awe comes to me at strange times too, like when I’m washing a sink full of dishes that were dirtied by our neighbor kids after helping make fry bread (more of which ended up in their mouths and on the floor than actually in the pan), or as I lay in bed at night after a long discussion with my roommates about Alice Walker and the under-representation of women in the Bible. But then, the very next morning I pull myself out of bed for morning devotions wondering how I will be able to make it through 5 more weeks of this! And by the end of the night I feel as though I am mourning the loss of a dear friend when I again remember that it will soon be over, that I will soon have to say goodbye to so many dear friends, families, neighbors and co-workers that have found small niches in their lives for us.
An example of how this reality is setting in for us….
I was standing in the kitchen, marking down various events on our house calendar for the month of July. My roommate Melissa walked up behind me. As she watched me mark in events like “Our last day at service sites”, “Last Sunday at Church” and “Closing Retreat”, she started crying. It just hit her. Sam came over and hugged her as she both laughed and cried saying “It’s really going to end?”.
As we begin the process of thinking about life after mission year, please keep us in your prayers. And continue to pray that we remain present for this last month in our community. This experience is a gift and we don’t want to miss any second of it.
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Up with HOPE, Down with DOPE! / May 9, 11:00 AM
Ok so I participated in my first official march. It was pretty cool.
So two Saturdays ago we had our kick-off of the Fast, Pray & March series in North Lawndale. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about the turn-out, wondering if it was just gonna me and Stanley and a few kids from Celestial Ministries.
When I first arrived at the church around 12:15 we had a few women from the church inside, sitting in the sanctuary praying their hearts out. One thing I’ve learned about my experience here is that I love the way black people pray. Don’t get me wrong, prayer is prayer, simple as that. But there’s just something about the way these women and men pray, the sense of urgency and authority that’s expressed as they cry out, I mean CRY OUT to God, and the way the rhythm of their words can resemble a gentle lullaby one minute, then blare into an alarming call to action the next. And then everyone else, chiming in “Amen Father!” “Thank you Lord, Yes Lord!”. It is powerful.
So I sat in the lobby, trying my best to listen to the women in the sanctuary while manning the sign in table. We had a few folks come in to sign up for the march, but by the time 1pm rolled around, I again wondered if our turn-out was even worthwhile for a march.
Then I heard Stanley yelling, saying it was time to go. I went to the doors to see if they were moving and I was shocked to see a large crowd of people- kids, adults, young men, even some senior citizens! It was amazing!! The drumline from Celestial Ministries started pounding out the beat and began leading us down the street. WE WERE MARCHING!
Community Organizing is CRAZY!! / May 9, 10:59 AM
I am getting the experience of a lifetime out here….let me tell ya. Here is a blog I wrote about 2 weeks ago.
With the number of Chicago student lives being lost to gun violence rapidly increasing, there has been a parallel in rising concern for our community’s safety. My supervisor at Hope House, Stanley Ratliff, shared the concern and felt lead to call a series of Fast, Pray and Marches here in North Lawndale.
So a couple weeks ago I walked into the office and Stanley said “Girl, we got work to do. We’re going to do a prayer march. Actually, 10 marches.” Then he showed me a powerpoint that he put together that morning with all the details- how we’d have the police and other organizations sponsoring us, a different church in charge of each march, the proposed itemized budget, how we’d pass out fliers from local organizations with resources for families, and we’d end with a BIG musical celebration and cook-out. This all compiled in a powerpoint by a guy (Stanley) who has to call me for help sending out email attachments. I was shocked to say the least, but knew that Stanley meant business. So I helped him fancy up the powerpoint, then made 50 copies for him and he went on his way, going to every pastor and reverend he knew in North Lawndale to get them to join us in our efforts.
So that was about 2 weeks ago. Since then we’ve sent out emails, posted flyers, held a community planning meeting, had 5 churches commit to participating, met with the Police Department, had a news media press conference, spoken with politicians, and talked with local stores to get food donations. And wowie, this stuff gets tiring!
But it has been so amazing working with Stanley, just seeing how God has laid this vision on his heart. He’s not a community organizer (clearly, he’s too unorganized to have the word ‘organizer’ in his title, that’s what I’m for..haha) but he just felt called to see the community coming together, publicly declaring they CARE about the community and are willing to march and pray in the streets to let people know it. The man already has 3 different job titles- 1.)director of Hope House-transitional recovery home for men, 2.)director of Celestial Ministries-music program for kids whose parents have been incarcerated, and 3.)Minister of Music for Lawndale Community Church. He does NOT NEED to be doing any more!! I know, I schedule all his activities and try to keep him in line and on time. But he just felt God nudging him to do this, so he did.
I have so much to learn. I don’t know how or why or even IF I am cut out to be such an obedient and spirit-led servant of God. I still struggle with this daily. BUT—-I am so grateful for this opportunity to be working under such obedient faithful servants like Stanley. More and more I’m seeing why he was one of 5 national winners of the prestigious Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service. Funny thing is, you’d never know it when you first meet Stanley. Really. He’s a modern-day Moses.
The first march is happening in a few days. I’m really excited. Check back for more details.
