They say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, and it definitely hasn’t let us down here in Camden. The first few weeks were overcast and rainy and overall just cast a general feeling of “blah” over the work week. This past week has been incredible, though. The sun decided to reintroduce itself to the atmosphere and remind us what it’s rays feel like when they dance all over our faces and soak into our skin. …
I want to know why I had to spend half an hour on long division today with a sophomore in high school. Why am I the first teacher he’s had between 4th grade and now that cares that he’s scared of questions like 560 ÷ 5? Michael is brilliant and perfectly capable. So why has no one helped him be that? How in the world is Camden supposed to get better? On a more positive note, some of my after-school …
“Ah! Blessed be God, the most compassionate One! Welcome to the marketplace. I can see that you are staring at me and wondering already how you can avoid me, slip away perhaps, and hope that I do not catch sight of you. Ah, yes, I do know what you are feeling and thinking, by the grace of God I know. You see, I am a beggar, but I like being a beggar! You find that surprising? Annoying? Well, believe me, …
Apologies for posting the second half of my PROP blog more than a month later than the first half. Aside from not meaning to publish the first half when I did, I also like creating unreasonably large amounts of suspense. At any rate, after getting off the subway and heading into Philly, I headed to Rittenhouse Square, a quaint little park and a hot spot for homeless folks to hang out. I sat there for a good while, watching people …
Towards the end of November, we spent a weekend on another one of Mission Year’s crazy mind-blowing adventures that they have planned for us. This time is was PRoP (aka Pauper’s Rite of Passage) – a short term look into the life of homeless Philadelphia and a look out of the eyes of the homeless into the consumer-driven life of the city. Stripped of conveniences, we were able to gain new eyes. When we arrived at the Mission Year office …
“Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, …
Dang. I apologize. It’s been over a month since my last blog. I have a lot of catching up to do! I hope life is swell in your corner of the world. This corner is full of busy emotions and events. My teammates and I have been learning what it means to be a family and how to love each other unconditionally through the ups and downs of daily living together. Sometimes coming home to the dirty tissue someone left …
I was warned coming into this that in city culture you enter in with no respect or trust and have to earn it (as opposed to suburbia where you’re given respect and trust and have the opportunity to keep or lose it). The older camp kids are starting to trust me now. I’ve won the hearts of the younger ones more easily, but the older ones mean more. Their eyes are more sensitive to the color of my skin, and …
Last Thursday night, all four Cazland (the name we’ve dubbed the philly, camden, and wilmington teams all under the direction of Caz Tod) Mission Year teams piled into vans and drove to a camp about an hour away from us for a mini-retreat on silence and solitude. We’ve been reading a book called “The Way of the Heart” by Henry Nouwen. It’s pretty enlightening. It talks about how much we’ve undervalued quiet time away from other people to experience God …
Every morning before we leave for our respective job sites, our team rises an hour early (emphasis on early) and we have what we call “quiet hour” which starts out with a short devotion led by one of us and then an hour of solitude and quiet time with God. This morning for our devotion, the story of Jacob wrestling with the Lord was read. In case you don’t know, the story starts with Jacob moving. He sent his family …
This morning I sat on the couch and watched the sun rise through the window from across the room. The sky was steady and unmoving above the silent, forgotten treetops that framed my view. My eyes beheld brilliance. My ears heard groggy trash trucks crashing, motorcycle and car engines driving in the opposite direction of the sunset, the sound of a tired broom sweeping someone’s front porch, and the voices of many, all unaware of the radiant glory watching over …
I’m here. I figured I should announce that to the blogging world. I’ve got five crazy cool roommates that are challenging me in ways I never expected and the city is overflowing with God. We’ve been meeting a lot of people and going through a lot of trainings and my horizons have been expanded after two weeks. I’m having a really hard time figuring out what the end product of an entire year will be. Something tells me if the …
I find it mildly amusing that after my last blog, I received my city placement for Camden, NJ. How awesome. Like any good teenager, I wikipedia searched Camden to get a beginning feel for my new home. Here’s a few things I found: -Camden has a population of 79,904. -1/3 of those people live under the poverty line -The city is very ethnically diverse: 50% of the population is Black, almost 40% of the population is Hispanic, and the rest …
A few days ago, I was sitting in the car with my friend’s dad waiting for her to get out of work so we could go commiserate with our puffy faced accomplice who had just had her wisdom teeth out. As we waited, he started to inquire about my plans for next year and wondered where I might end up. As I’ve done countless times before, I began rattling off the six potential cities. “Well, there’s Wilmington, Chicago, Philly, Camden…,” …
Hey there! If you’re reading this, you deserve a massive hug for checking out my blog and being interested in what I’m up to. Thank you so much for being a part of my adventures with Mission Year! In case you didn’t know, I’m Ellen Pavlacka, and am going to be a high school graduate by the time Mission Year rolls around. The simple things in life are my thing – dancing in the rain, blowing bubbles, making music, popsicle …
