Kristen Fabick
Having just graduated from the University of Alabama in Huntsville with my Bachelor’s of Science degree in Mathematics and my Middle and Secondary Education Teaching Certificates, I decided to dedicate a year of my life to Mission Year.
I have several purposes in doing Mission Year. First, I want to gain a better understanding of the world as a whole—not just the world I have grown up in. I want to learn how to love people, all people, in a more effective and meaningful way. I want to help people learn and grow, and in return I want to learn and grow from their help. Most of all, I want to serve God and carry out the work He has for my life.
Fresh out of college seemed like a great time in my life for this type of experience. I am not used to a regular job or schedule yet. I am not used to having much money. I am not used to living in one place for more than 6 months. And I am ready to learn about the world by living in it instead of reading books and discussing them in class.
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…
Kristen Fabick's Blog
values and lessons learned...(a.k.a....last blog!) / Jul 14, 02:48 PM
our city director, caz, had us reflect on some of the lessons we have learned throughout the year and some of the values that have become important to us or that we have been made more aware of this year. i thought this would be an appropriate way to end my blogging for my mission year. thank you for journeying with me this year. i have truly enjoyed your support, and i hope you enjoy and can learn from my experiences.
MY Values and Lessons of Importance
1. The Christian life is full of beautiful, often confusing, paradoxes. It is in the balance of the contradiction that you find God.
2. Continue to learn about and try to live out of biblical principals of economics and justice (i.e. Jubilee, redistribution of goods, etc.).
3. Words are often insufficient; sometimes you must quit trying to justify yourself (in words or actions) and let God be your justifier.
4. It is good to study movements, cultures, ideas, values, etc., but you get a more complete understanding and experience if you “come and see”.
5. Everyone has a story; ask questions to learn people’s stories. Then try to learn from their stories—everyone has wisdom to offer.
6. Watch your words; the tongue is both a powerful weapon of destruction and a powerful life-builder (but it can’t be both simultaneously).
7. Life is a process to enjoy, not a task to be achieved
8. A joyful life is obtained by seeking the appropriate balance of life’s opposites.
9. I am not called to change people or to save people; I am only called to love people as much as possible.
10. Sharing life/journeying with someone makes life meaningful.
11. Love should be used as a magnet, not a commodity.
12. Ask hard questions
13. Explore and embrace your emotions (and validate others’)
14. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
15. There is a God, and you are not Him.
16. Look beyond the surface; always try to see people’s hearts. Find something to love about them.
17. Challenge traditions and the status quo. Who makes these “rules” anyway?
18. Seek first the Kingdom of God; He will take care of all the rest.
19. Choose joy.
20. Celebrate life and other people (and celebrate with them).
21. “Waste time” with people—this is valuable and kingdom-building.
22. You have to be the change you want to see in the world.
23. As far as possible, live in peace with everyone.
24. Be intentional about relationships; don’t worry about convention.
25. Live. Love. Laugh. Learn.
26. Be able to laugh at yourself.
27. Learn, embrace, and enjoy the cycles of life.
28. Celebrate people’s differences. Differences make life interesting.
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beer and pants... / Jun 9, 12:26 PM
this past weekend, lorens parents and a friend were in town visiting for our “come and see weekend”. they stayed at our house from thursday night until sunday afternoon. tiara, lorens friend, slept in my bed, and her parents slept in the mattresses in the quiet room. i slept downstairs on the couch….and its a good thing…
we went to bed relatively late (relative to my habits anyway) around 12:30. since we’ve been having record heat for the past couple days (and unfortunately it is to continue for a few more days) i had some trouble sleeping (we have no a/c, and our house traps heat quite efficiently). i heard loud and deliberate pounding on our front door around 6:45 am. i quickly got up and answered the door. it was a couple from our block. they asked “is that red car down the street yours?”. i said “its my roommates, yeah”. then they told me it had been broken into last night.
we went outside (i dumbly went out barefoot…apparently not considering that there would be broken glass all over) to inspect the damage. someone had used a screwdriver to break out the entire drivers side window and steal haleys car stereo. i know they used a screwdriver because they left it in the passengers seat. as we were talking about the car, another lady (i later learned her name is veronica) came up and joined us. i thanked the couple and they went on their way. as i was getting ready to go inside veronica said “do you have i beer? i could really use a beer.” i said “no, sorry, i cant help you with that.” (who wants a beer at 6:45 in the morning anyway?!) i told her we had a cookout last night and i could get her some food if she was hungry. she agreed so we went inside for a strange breakfast.
at her request, i heated up some mac n’cheese and a hamburger from the night before. she ate and we had a nice discussion about cigarettes (she asked—hoping she could bum a cigarette off me—if i smoked) and grandmothers. i told her in fact did not smoke. then i told her about how my grandmother died of lung cancer and made an early impression on me of the dangers of smoking. i also asked her about why she was in the neighborhood. she said she did not live around here (though i think she looks familiar..maybe from Franks Place—the homeless day shelter down the road). so naturally i asked why she was in the area. she said “oh, i have a honey who lives out this way.” i said “oh, ok” and that was the end of that conversation. though i must admit that in my head i though “wow, he kicks you out early, huh?” (remember..its still on 6:45 am!)
as i packed up a hamburger for her for the road, she asked what size pants i wear. i told her and she said she really needed some new pants. i tried hard not to laugh, thinking of her wearing my shoddy pants, and told her that i dont really have a lot of pants myself. i asked her if she knew about Franks Place (they have a huge clothing distribution room, among other things to help the poor and homeless). she said “yeah, im gonna get over there tomorrow”. and with that settled, i sent her on her way.i didnt think it was really that important to wake everyone in the house up at 7am, so i kept quiet about the car until about 9. then i woke up haley and told her i was going to call the police but that she would have to get up to give them her information and file the report. we would be leaving for church around 10:30, so i wanted to try to get the report filed before then.
throughout the day, our neighbors kept giving us advice about what to do with haleys car—where we should park it overnight, where we should get it fixed, how we could fix it cheap (by taking one of our neighbors who does car repairs to the junkyard to rip a window out of on old car himself and install it instead of getting it professionally done), and so on. they all seemed genuinely angry that someone would do this to us (and do it on their block…no one wants crime to happen close to their families). it was cool to see how the neighborhood acted like family and wanted to defend us and even avenge us (though we discouraged anyone to take avenging action.
we figure they targeted haleys car because she has out of state tags (missouri) and her car is an old dodge shadow that obviously looks like it does NOT have a car alarm. (and it doesnt.) also, that night there was an all day concert at the susquehanna bank center at the waterfront (2 blocks from our house). the guy that stole the stereo probably thought we were at the concert. that same night, i heard that 7 or 8 CARS got stolen from the concert’s parking lot. at least we have the car…
i say the “guy” that stole the stereo, because our new neighbor jack (hes actually homeless—though living with his brother merv just across the street from us—because he has cancer and cant work, but the government has been denying him disability checks for about a year) took it upon himself to do some investigating yesterday. i talked to him several times throughout the day about various things, from where we should park the car, his struggles with cancer, grilling hotdogs (he borrowed some charcoal to get his grill going), and how to get the car fixed. he sort of treated me like his daughter about the whole car thing. he knocked on our door around 8:30pm and simply said “i know who did it”. he told me he had done some investigating and heard that a crack fiend was bragging about stealing a car stereo on our street to some of his buddies. he said the guy is called conan and “hangs on benson st. in the empty lot”. he didn’t know the guys real name. i said “thanks for looking out for us, i don’t really think we are going to do anything about it.” he said we could call the police and give them a description of the guy. i said “yeah, i guess we could,” but i don’t think we will. at the end of the conversation, in reference to a conversation we had earlier in the day about parking the car right in front of our house for the night, he said “oh…and uh…now would be a good time…” and he looked from where our car was parked down the road to the empty spot right in front of our door. haha…i almost laughed, but instead i just said “you’re right. ill get right on that.”
there were so many positives to this event. yeah…i mean haley lost her cd player (it wasnt that spectacular in the first place). and yeah…it is a hassle to get the window fixed. and yeah…it will cost some money. but we really got to feel the neighborhood rally behind us. they treated us as family. it also gave me a lot of opportunities to meet some new neighbors and engage in conversation/build deeper relationships with neighbors we were already acquainted with. it also gave us an opportunity to respond to the situation with love. i could open our home to veronica and offer her food (though i think she would have rather had beer and pants). we could take the advice and guidance of our neighbors.
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cancer walks and street festivals / Jun 2, 11:21 AM
despite the spotty patches of rain, Saturday was a beautiful day of celebration here in Camden. our church was holding their 4th (?) annual Alberta Wright Cancer Walk at a park in Cherry Hill (a Camden suburb). My roommates and I all went to the walk and had a great time watching some church-league softball (totally unrelated to our walk….it just happened to be at the park), getting our blood pressure and glucose levels and cholesterol checked, eating food (after we got everything checked!), and fellowshipping with our friends from church.
it was a great opportunity to develop deeper relationships and connect with people from church in a more relaxed setting. we even saw George in an athletic suit instead of the full suit, tie, and jacket that he has been wearing every other time i have seen him! outside of church, it is easier to see people’s real personalities shine—to see their passions and gifts that go beyond serving communion and acting as ushers.
after the cancer walk, Haley and i went to south Camden (where a lot of our Urban Promise kids live) and attended the 14th annual Sacred Heart Catholic Church and School’s Street Festival. Sacred Heart is (as you can see) a catholic church that has done more than any other organization or government agency to help better the neighborhood of south Camden. they operate a housing agency that helps Camden residents own their homes as well as refurbishes abandoned homes. they operate a community garden and greenhouse. they are opening a stage theater in the neighborhood and hope to have it open for all of the residents at no (or very little) cost. these things may seem simple, but they are the difference between a neighborhood that brings kids down with drugs and crime and a neighborhood with hope for the future that can give kids a chance for a life above “the street”. sacred heart is helping to build leaders from and in the neighborhood through their investment in the lives of its residents.
at the street festival, we watched some of the elementary school kids (almost all of whom Haley knows since she volunteers at the school in the mornings) perform a dance to honor a teacher that passed away earlier this spring. there was lots of live music, cheap food, t-shirts being made on site and sold for $4, pony rides, sunflower seed planting and painting of flower pots, girl scout sign-ups, face-painting, button-making, and lots of people to talk with and laugh with. no one even noticed the rain that occasionally swept in. a few people had umbrellas, but those that didn’t just kept on enjoying the festival wet or dry. My favorite part of the day was seeing my kids from camp. I love being able to be a part of their neighborhood and seeing them unexpectedly….especially when they give me a hug and are excited to see me too!
25 kids/leaders...16 seats...$10 each....1 skybox / May 7, 03:03 PM
every-so-often..maybe once a month, urban promise gets donated some type of sporting event tickets. sometimes these tickets are used by the urban trekkers (a club for high school kids), sometimes they are used by the after-school program camp directors to take out camp kids (grades 5-8), and sometimes they are used by the street leaders (high school kids that work at the after-school program). sometimes people from the community buy tickets and donate them to UP, and other times the sporting teams and/or venues simply donate a certain number of tickets. in any case, it is great to see the local community supporting the ministry of urban promise and the value that people place on providing opportunities for inner-city kids to see what possibilities lie beyond their block and neighborhood.
a couple months ago, i went with the urban trekkers to a philadelphia soul (indoor football team) game. the tickets had been bough by a corporation called monarch plastics and donated to the trekker program. (monarch plastic also sponsors numerous other events for the trekkers and several of the employees of monarch plastics serve as mentors/sponsors to individual students at urban promise academy.) in addition to the tickets, monarch plastics also provided $20 for each person to spend on food/souveniers/etc. i know prices are ridiculously high at such events ($2.75 for a bottle of water?), but still….$20 is a generous donation.
more recently, urban promise was given 25 tickets to a camden riversharks (minor league baseball team) game for this past friday night—see picture below.
these tickets were not just general admission…they were tickets for the delaware river port authority’s skybox—complete with indoor couches, indoor bar to eat at while watching the game, outdoor patio seating, and a tv on which some of the guys watched the celtics basketball game. why you go to a baseball game to watch a basketball game i don’t know…but they enjoyed both games immensely so that’s all that really matters i suppose. i guess the delaware river port authority donated the tickets…i’m not sure. anyway, each ticketholder was also given $10 in rivershark money (paper coupons that could only be spent at the stadium but were treated just like dollar bills). the prices at this game were slightly lower than at the football game, but you could get a decent dinner (chicken fingers, fries, and a drink) for just under $10.
on friday night, 2 camp directors, 6 interns, a couple street leaders, and 15 kids (25 people total) loaded onto the urban promise bus and headed to the stadium. the skybox only had 16 seats, but that was hardly a problem since most of the time at least 6-10 people were out of the box getting food, playing in the fun zone area for kids, or walking around the stadium taking in all the sights. besides enjoying being at a sporting event where i had room to stand up and walk around and sit down without being in other people’s seats, i think the highlight of my evening was when finley (the riversharks mascot) came into our skybox for a visit. the kids went absolutely nuts (yes…8th graders going nuts over a guy or girl dressed in a shark costume…it was beautiful). one of the kids pulled out his phone and started playing the soulja boy song “crank that”. (if you don’t know the song…that’s ok…it was really, really popular in the fall, and soulja boy does a pretty neat dance that all the kids have learned.) so the song started playing and finley started doing the dance! at least as best as he/she could in a shark suit. the kids totally lost it then. i think some of them were on the floor laughing.
every friday night, the riversharks have a fireworks show at the end of their game. the amount and quality of the fireworks really surprised me. i think the show lasted for about 10 minutes. here is a picture.
i really enjoyed watching the baseball game, but more than that, i enjoyed watching the kids enjoy the game and the atmosphere. i hope that i have more opportunities to take kids to events like this in the summer.
math dare / Apr 17, 12:12 PM
last friday all 6 of the urban promise after-school programs gathered together at the campus in east camden (where the up schools—the k-8 forward school and the 9-12 academy—are located) to participate in the 15th (?) annual math dare competition.
this event is based of the popular 90’s tv show double dare in which two teams—red and blue, usually two families) answered trivia questions to earn points and to earn opportunities to compete in physical challenges to earn more points.
we created teams by pairing a younger kids program (grades 1-4) with an older kids program (grades 5-8) based on geographical location in the city. the teams were South (my team), East, and North/Downtown. each team was represented by a different color. for every math question, two people from each team sat in the “hot seats” in front of the rest of their teams (who were cheering them on). So three teams…two people from each team….so six people total were working on the same math problem. whoever finished correctly first would wave a flag. their team would win points. each grade had 2 math problems to complete. after every two grades, there was a physical challenge.
the physical challenges included an intern smearing peanut butter all over their face and trying to “catch” various food items (sunflower seeds, cheesy puffs, popcorn, etc.) on their face. in the physical challenge i partook in, kids used only their mouths to fill a pitcher halfway with pasta salad. the pasta salad was in a large bowl across the gym, and i had a piece of paper wrapped in a circle to put on top of my head to “catch” the past salad. then i would dump the pasta from my “head bucket” to the pitcher. other physical challenges included making a human pizza (an intern got flour, water, pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperonis scattered on them) and kids spinning around a bat (with their head on the bat and the bat on the ground) 10 times and then running across a 2×4×10 laid on the ground. the catch was that there was shaving cream all around the board, so if you slipped off…you really SLIPPED off.
there were two big highlights of the evening for me. first, though east side has won this competition 12 out of the 15 years it has been held, south (my team) won this year!!! not only did we win…we totally blew out the other two teams. the real competition was for second place. i was so proud of our kids who competed, and i know that winning an academic type competition really boosted their self-esteem and self-concepts of their abilities to excel academically. (east is notorious for having “better students”.)
the second, and best, highlight for me was when the emcees reminded the students of urban promise’s “as one” philosophy (see recent newsletter about the urban promise olympics) in which the leadership at urban promise is trying to get the students to embrace kids from all over camden, instead of just their immediate neighborhood, as their friends and partners. in keeping with this philosophy, the emcees started giving out points to teams that were cheering loudest for OTHER teams. it was so heart-warming and awesome to see kids that usually just crack jokes on other camps and try to compete with other neighborhoods for “who goes hardest” actually cheering those same kids. i know they just wanted the points, but it was an awesome picture of the body working together to spur one another on to good works.
