Jordan Leahy
My plans for next year...
The first time I heard of Mission Year was from a friend who did MY Oakland in 03-04. She kept telling me how great of an experience it was for her and strongly encouraged that I do it myself. The more she told me, the more I wanted to be a part of it. After much prayer about direction after college, I felt that God was leading me to MY. I applied, and here I am. I can’t wait for this year to start and look forward to meeting people and share (and receive) God’s love.
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…
Jordan Leahy's Blog
Guilty of being white. / Jul 21, 02:48 PM
So Mission Year ends in like 2.5 weeks.
There are all sorts of feelings related to that.
The one that stands out the most at this point is guilt.
The people I’m leaving don’t get a chance to pick up and leave for somewhere else. They’re stuck. They ask questions like “why are you leaving?” I’m like, “well, Chicago’s not home. God’s calling me to other things.”
And both of those things are true. But that doesn’t always make sense to people. There’s a mix of responses you get. They say “you’re going back to your home,” which has many implications of wealth and comfort. I even heard one woman say “you’re going back to rich town” to Lindsey.
I’m associated with places and things that I don’t necessarily want to be. I don’t know how to handle that. Very few people have any idea about me and what I value.
It’s hard to chew on.
Peace.
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My Name is Jordan. / Jul 10, 09:42 AM
So a terribly common theme this year is people forgetting my name. It certainly doesn’t help that one of my teammates looks remotely like me and has a name that sounds remotely like mine. When trying to get my attention, people almost more often than not say “Hey Joe!”
I understand all that when people are from different cultures it’s easier to mix up names, but it’s getting to be a bit much. At first it was funny. Then it was really annoying. Then I got over it. Now I’m really tired of it. I’ve been her almost a year. My name is not Joe. We don’t even look that much alike. And even if we did, I was born first, so Joe looks like me. I don’t look like him (no offense Joe).
Yesterday one guy even went as far as to call me “Joey.” I was thinking “you gotta be kiddin’ me.” No one calls Joe “Joey.” And I’m not Joe.
Jordan. Like Michael. I’m in Chicago. It shouldn’t be that hard to remember, right?
My name is Jordan.
Peace.
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Cornerstone and Stuff. / Jul 10, 09:41 AM
Oh dear. It’s been far too long since I updated. Apologies all around.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend Cornerstone Fest in Bushnell Illinois to do recruiting for Mission Year. I’d wanted to go to Cornerstone since I was like 15 so I was more than excited to go. There was much recruiting. There were great bands (Revolution Radio, mewithoutYou, the psalters, The Last Hope, O.C.D., Flatfoot 56, Sleeping Giant) and good times in general. I got to hang with swell folks like Samantha Herod and Chris Lahr and meet all kinds of stellar people.
Sam and I got a ride back and had quite a time once we got back into the city. We dropped off our newfound Australian friend, Belinda at the hostel downtown. As we were pulling away our car scratched against a parked car. There were police “stationed” on the corner for Taste of Chicago and they saw the whole mess.
We backed up and they said they’d have to call for a car because none of them had any reports one them. No sweat. After about 15 minutes the one officer comes over and says “it’s gonna take a while, they’re real busy. This is not a big deal though. Seriously.” The same thing happened another 20 minutes or so later. One of the officers even went as far to hit on the driver of our car…
Long story short, we ended up driving to the station to file our info there and get a report. The officer at the station said “just leave a note on the car.” So we go back to leave the note and the guys say “we didn’t think you were coming back.” I’d venture to suggest that Jesus would sit and put up with all the running around and come and go back to wherever he was told even when it wasn’t necessary. I was pretty stoked when I thought of it, as I’d been praying throughout the whole ordeal as to how I could be like Jesus when I was getting played by cops. Thanks you Jesus.
Interesting developments in my life: I don’t think I’ve ever been too good at having “vision” or whatever. Knowing this has prevented me from doing things I want to do and am good at doing and kept me in places where I don’t feel useful because I’m not good at whatever it is I’m doing. I now know this and am going to work against it. More on that in the coming weeks…
Peace.
Wednesday night devotions. / May 29, 12:14 PM
On Wednesday nights I get to lead devotions with the guys right before dinner. The first time I went to do it I felt like I got stuck with it and wasn’t really interested. I mean, it’s just like any other new experience. We don’t know what it’s going to be like so our first reaction is to fear it rather than embrace it. Well. That’s what I tend to do. I don’t mean to generalize. I don’t think it’s an unfounded claim though. Which is why I said it. Oh dear.
Anyway. I’ve come to really enjoy doing it. The guests are going through Matthew, so it’s a great chance to go through it with them and talk it through. The other night read chapter 10:24-31. We got talking about having a sort of reckless faith in God and not worrying. It was great seeing the confused looks on the guys faces. They’re looking at me thinking and saying “isn’t that hard?” as if I know something they don’t, some sort of secret that makes living with a reckless faith easy.
So I responded “heck yeah! It’s damn near impossible.” I mean, it is but it isn’t. It’s so simple. Don’t worry. But when we can’t see what’s ahead of us (the unknown, see first paragraph) we stick to being afraid.
I was reading a work by Leonard Schiemer soon afterwards…
“Now if we are no longer to love any creature that we have loved before there is only one thing for God to do and that is to prune our branches… gives us his Spirit and teaches us to know and love him. This however does not take place without pain, suffering, and anguish… it is our unbelief that gives us pain. We cannot firmly believe that it happens for our good and that something better awaits us in the future… But there is an even greater unbelief that tortures us, namely godless thoughts such as: God will forget me. He will not remain faithful to me. He is a respecter of persons and will not help me as he has helped others. Unbelief cannot be more stupid than to think: if I surrender to God I surrender security. I will perish… Since he is the greatest good it is impossible not to love him alone and above all things if one knows him.”
That sort of spells out how it’s easy and why we’re wack enough to not believe it.
Just give it up already.
Peace.
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Tandy. / May 22, 01:11 PM
There was a guy who stayed at Breakthrough until just about a month ago named Tandy Tryon (“as in ‘Try-On some clothes’” he’d say). He had been in the program since I started working here in October. He was one of “our” guys. Coming into work was great because you knew Tandy was going to be there and you could look forward to hanging out with him. Breakthrough did a focus on him a few months back. Read it here.
Tandy was one of my boys. He’d moved out of Breakthrough and was struggling a bit. He stopped into the day center from time to time and was in the process of getting by in here.
This past Monday morning I got a text message from Rusty at around 9 o’clock that informed me that Tandy had died in his room over the weekend. That was it. I don’t remember the last time I talked to him, but it was just that. The last time.
Tandy certainly had his struggles. He was an alcoholic, a very visible addiction. He fought it until his last day. It helped bring him to Jesus. He found nowhere else to go but to Him. It helped him understand love and grace. I am in no way advocating for alcoholism as a means of evangelism, but Jesus goes for the throat. He gets at what will get us. This is what got Tandy, and he knew God’s grace and loved Jesus for it. Tandy got “it.” He loved Jesus.
I love you Tandy. See you at the gates. Can’t wait to hug you.
Peace.
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