Linnea Barklund
Hi, Linnea here! This is my first blog entry, and I am REALLY behind with everything, but I suppose since I’m doing stuff now, it still works. Or something. Basically, why I want to do Mission Year is because I heard about it when I went to Chicago (fitting that I’m going back for this year!) with my youth group and it sounded cool. At first I wasn’t as excited about me actually doing it, but it sounded cool as an idea. But then I learned more about it and I talked to people and it just seemed that God was opening the doors for me to do this and I kept getting really excited about it. And that’s my story. Not terribly exciting, but that’s ok. I guess that’s about it that I can come up with off the top of my head. A little about me is that I live in Idaho, am 19 years old, am really looking forward to serving God and other people this year. I don’t feel very interesting right now, so I guess you’ll have to find out more about me as I continue to do this…
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…
Linnea Barklund's Blog
Buy Nothing Day / Jan 1, 07:26 PM
So on Buy Nothing Day (day after Thanksgiving, more commonly known as Black Friday) Ashley, Andrea, Sam, Melissa, Shawn (city director), Joe (from the East Garfield Park team), and I went down to Michigan Ave. early the morning to demonstrate against mindless consumerism that so often happens during this time of year (well, really anytime). We had had a meeting detailing what we were going to do a few days earlier, and had all these great ideas. First, we were going to get lots of nickels and draw hearts on them and give them to people to pass on to somebody else, and to try to get people thinking about the power of their money. And we were going to form a human chain and get everyone who would, to latch on and spread all the way down the street as far as we could. And last, we all got bright yellow shirts and wrote statistics on debt, consumption, poverty, whatever, and wore them over all our sweatshirts. Well, the only thing that happened like we thought it would, was the shirts. We did get the nickels, but most people didn’t take them, and the human chain never happened at all. We actually ended up splitting up because we felt that people might be less intimidated if there were smaller groups. And people were a lot less receptive than I was thinking they might be. But I did have a nice conversation with an older gentleman, who asked what we were doing and then we just started chatting, and then when he turned to go, he thanked me for being out there. And we met a street musician and his dog, Reba, who was quite cute. And there was another group of BNDers who were taking a very different approach. Pretty much telling people to stop shopping now and being kind of abrasive with a bullhorn, etc. But whatever. It was cool. And there were some people who just didn’t get it and didn’t understand what we were trying to do, etc. But that’s ok. We had fun just talking to people and handing out nickels and just doing what we wanted to do. But that’s just one example of something that turned out to be really different than what I was expecting, but still a great experience!
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Whirlwind of Activity / Sep 25, 11:50 AM
After we arrived back from Atlanta, our city director, Shawn, has had us going non-stop. I’m at the library right now enjoying my first Sabbath day of Mission Year. My teammates and I have either just finished, or are about to finish September’s newsletters. Melissa especially got really into it and handwrote hers and everything. And we’ve also been going to trainings as a city two times a week (we have our third session tomorrow) and doing cirriculum reading, which is really interesting and will help with the whole experience, so I’m glad we have to do it, and we’re also investigating around our neighbourhoods looking for service site projects. We’re hearing from some possible sites tomorrow at training, so more choices for us! And last night we had our first Citywide, which is where all the teams get together and worship and discuss things that have been going on and Shawn leads a devotional, etc. The music was really good and it was nice to see everyone again. And so afterwards some of us played hackey sack in the entryway of the apartment and ran into the walls and stuff trying to keep it going. And Melissa and I went out onto the back porch and looked out at the city, which actually was a pretty good view. —I like hot tea and my hair is all over the place— Anyway…thanks for reading. But I want to leave you all with one last thought, from my good friend, Jack Handey: “Sometimes the beauty of the world just overwhelms me. And all I can do is just throw my head back and gargle, gargle and gargle and gargle…and I don’t care who hears me because I am beautiful.” Love and peace!
Yay! / Aug 13, 01:10 AM
Wow! First of all, I apologise to anyone who may have gotten on here to read about me and have found nothing, when I promised that it would be interesting! But that’s ok. I am feeling so encouraged right now, even though it’s probably not as cool as I think it is. Anyway, I finally got all my letters out, so that’s a good thing that I don’t have to think about as a huge thing I have to get done, just something to maintain, etc. And I have been talking to a few people (not as many as I should be, but again, I’m working on that) about this in the context of actually supporting me and not just in the general “this is what I’m doing this year” sense. And I talked with my youth pastor this afternoon at church and the community outreach group there is going to officially adopt me to support, so that is very cool! And I only have two weeks left of work, and I’m really glad about that. I mean, I like it, but I’m not terribly broken up about it ending. :) So that’s basically what’s been happening these past couple weeks of silence, and I am getting very stoked about leaving! Idaho’s great and everything, but it’s time to go! This is all for now, but I couldn’t go to sleep without getting it out tonight. Hopefully from now on I’m a little more consistent with this, so it’s not so boring! God bless!
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Chicago, here I come! / Jul 30, 02:28 PM
Hello! I found out the other day that my city assignment is Chicago and I am sooo excited! I love it there and it’s slightly ironic that that’s where I’m going for the year because I heard about it when I was serving there with my youth group a couple years back. Maybe ironic isn’t the right word, because God does indeed have a plan for everyone involved with Mission Year and a lot of prayer and thought goes into the assignments, so really it’s just…fitting. However, I am still a little anxious about what’s going to happen, because it’s so big and everything is happening so fast, and I’m excited, but the unknown can be very intimidating as well. I have just jumped into things without knowing anything before, but those weren’t for a whole year and they were totally different than I expect this will be. And also I’m trying not to expect too much about what Mission Year will be like, because so far everything I’ve done hasn’t been anything like what I thought. So I guess just a lot of prayer for peace about this and no fear and for a willingness in my heart to do what God wants me to do for Him this year. That’s one of the hardest parts about this, because I can be really set on what I want that nothing happens. Well, this has been fun, and those are my thoughts from a month beforehand. Brilliant.
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