Matthew Fowler
Why Mission Year
Over the last year, as I prepared to graduate from college, I thought a great deal about what God had been doing in my life and what I could with my life. In college God grew in me a passion and an excitement for caring for people; for being a friend who encourages people towards a deeper and more meaningful life in Jesus. And I wrestled with how I could construct my post-college life to be about these things.
Preparing to graduate from college I also looked intently at my weaknesses and where I needed to grow in my faith. It became apparent to me, and those around me, that while I knew what it meant to serve others I was really bad at letting others serve me. As a consequence, I missed out on many of the blessings of Christian community.
So in considering my passions and areas I hoped and needed to grew in my faith I started looking at different options and came across Mission Year. From the beginning Mission Year seemed like a good fit for me. Through Mission Year I will be living with a group of other Christians in an inner-city and working to advance God’s kingdom amongst our neighborhood there. I believe Mission Year will provide me with a plethora of opportunities to grow deeper in my passion of serving and caring for others as well a chance to learn about and engage in Christian community.
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…
Matthew Fowler's Blog
God Surprises-being a fruit basket / Jul 7, 02:18 PM
God has surprised me a lot this year. I’ve almost, but my roommates will tell you not quite, gotten more use to surprises then things going the way I expected. Today was one of those days.
Saturdays are the days with have set aside to foster relationships that we’ve built through our service sites or in our neighborhood. I’ve spent a lot of Saturday’s with kids from my youth group or school. This Saturday though, I planned to visit some of the adults I’ve built relationships with and some a little bit of time playing in the neighborhood pool with some of the community kids I haven’t seen for a while.
God I guess had other plans though, because the city drained our local pool and both adults I wanted to spend time with weren’t around. So with my plans completely thrown off I would expect my day to not go well but God put before me some pretty amazing opportunities. My and my teammate got to babysit one of neighbors children and give the parents some time to themselves. I got to play in a inflatable pool with our neighbors grand children, visit a bunch of other neighbors, and be the personal play structure for a neighborhood kid who can’t go to the local park. It was all pretty sweet and totally unplanned by me.
Today God reminded me that he has his own plan for my life and often it is better then my plan. That reality is humbling but it is also really exciting and good when I allow myself to be used in ways I wasn’t intending or ever thought possible. I’m learning it is just about being flexible and being okay that today while I expected to be a mixing bowl for cookies, God is calling me to be a fruit basket. I can defy him and miss out on whatever he had for me in that or I can embrace the unfamiliarity or discomfort of being a fruit basket.
Getting back into blogging / Jun 5, 09:33 AM
So among many things I have been really exceptionally bad at blogging. So in an attempt to get better at sharing stories about my mission year experience and using this wonderful resource I thought I would share a quick humorous story.
The school that I work at use a company called Foss to supply kits for all their science experiments. At the end of a unit the collect the big cardboard draws that all the supplies come in and send another for the next unit. Because the year is ending the school is collecting any remaining Foss kits in their building. So Last week I got to carry a bunch of the cardboard Foss kits that have sat stacked at the back of our room for months down to the office. When I went to lift the kits closest to the floor up I couldn’t lift them. Turns out the cleaning ladies when they waxed the floors didn’t move the kits and essentially waxed them to the floor. So after talking to the principal and being told I need to get the kits down to office at all costs I went to see about pulling these kits up. I was initially worried about breaking the kits (they are essentially glorified cardboard boxes) but when I pulled up the second kit I got a surprise; the floor tiles came up with it. I was pretty much dying in laughter in the back of the room and the kids for some reason couldn’t understand what was so funny. Hopefully you are more amused by the story then they were. If not, hey at least I’m blogging again.
Blessings from New Orleans
Matt
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Lessons from the hood part 2 / Feb 21, 01:01 PM
warning this entry probably won’t make sense without reading Lessons from the Hood part 1
As if God hadn’t already taught me enough from my experience with the police…
After dealing with the police officers I called our city director to let him know what had just happened. One of the first questions he asked me was if I had thanked them for doing their job. Inside my head I was screaming “Thank them, they were belligerent, demeaning, racist jerks, why would I thank them. More over I’m hoping they get fired because they aren’t doing their job and the “job” they are doing isn’t helping anyone.” But long after our conversation that question haunted me.
As I reflected on the incident and gained some distance and prospective my anger changed into something different. I thought about what it was to be these cops, to be working in 12 hour shifts and making very little money, to only be called when bad things happen so therefore only get to experience the bad side of the community, to know everyone around them hates them and isn’t appreciative of what they do, and with every call to fear being shot and killed. And in thinking about that I began to pity the police officers more than be mad at them. They would never get to know the sweet old lady behind our house that constantly makes us food. Or the neighbor two houses down that lets us borrow everything from baking supplies to movies. They never get to see God working in this neighborhood.
In that realization my city director’s question made sense. Did you thank them for doing their job, because unless you act different towards them, unless you shock them with a flagrant act of kindness they will never see the good, they will never see God’s work and they’ll never change their approach. It’s simply a question of what will we choose to do when others hurt us, when they insult us, when they treat us like something we aren’t. Will we respond out of our pain, anger, and even hate, perpetuating the cycle of pain, anger, and hate? Or will we respond out of Jesus’ love, and through doing so show God’s love?
Just a couple nights ago I gave a talk to the high school youth group kids at my church based on my experiences with the police and Jesus’ experience with his hometown (Mark 6: 1-13). I asked them to think about how they respond when people try to say they are something their not? I asked them if they were grounded enough in who God had created them to be that they didn’t let it bother them? I had them look at Jesus response how even though he was upset and hurt, he chooses to react in love, instead of anger or pride or sadness or vengefulness. I asked them to compare that to their own responses and see how it measured up. And finally I challenged them to find a way to do the uncommon thing; to not only avoid swinging back with words, fists, or gestures, but to respond in love. Because, like with my police officers, if we don’t respond with the outrageous love of God they may never experience it. And so those are the challenges I issue to you who are reading this as well.
It is amazing when I think about it how God took a bad situation and not only taught me so much from it but also equipped me with a story to teach others.
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Lessons from the hood part 1 / Feb 21, 01:01 PM
A couple weeks after returning from Christmas break me and one of my roommates were walking home from the school we work at when we ran into a neighbor we had become friendly with. We stopped and chatted for a couple minutes. Before parting ways and heading home I shook his hand and said goodbye. Before I had could process what had happened a police car had pulled up and police offers were yelling for me to get on the hood of their car.
They thought they had just witnessed a drug exchange. Very few white people venture into our neighborhood except to buy drugs and I’ve been told it is common practice to exchange drugs in a handshake. Considering all this it didn’t bother me that the police came to check what was going on, in actuality they probably had more cause to search us then 90% of the people they stop. What bothered me was how the police officers pre-judged us, they had already decided we were guilty and they let us know it in their every action. When we did as they told us and put our hands on the hood of their car they felt like they needed to threaten us, when we told them what we were doing there they said “yeah right”, and they kept asking “Do you want to change your story before we find anything?”. Even more upsetting was the flagrant racism that under ran the whole encounter, the questions of “Have you ever been arrested?” to me and my white teammate and questions of “When was the last time you were arrested?” to our black friend.
As we walked away a half an hour later I wasn’t sure what to think about these cops. On the one hand they were trying to make the neighborhood safer and cut down the drug activity, on the other the way they treated us was reprehensible, inexcusable and caused more harm then good. We live in an area where there is no trust in the police. That crimes often go unsolved because witnesses lack faith in the police to do their job. After this experience I can understand why. When the police are making snap judgments about who you are, when the default is to assume your doing something wrong, when they don’t seem to care about you, why would you trust them?
And as I sat in the realization of how detrimental police encounters just like mine are for this neighborhood I started to think about my relationships with people down here and especially of my students. In about every class I help out in there is at least one or two kids who generally refuse to do any work. They will sit there and doodle or sleep and they won’t cause waves if you leave them alone. And I was struck with how little effort I, having been there 4 months already, had invested in them. One I couldn’t even recall what his voice sounded like. I had made snap judgments about them, that they would refuse to work even if I offered to help them, and that they weren’t worth investing in. And when I stuck myself in the position of that kid I had to ask why would they try. No one expects anything of them, no one shows the believe in them, so why when school already seems completely useless would they put in any effort? And in that moment when I was angry and frustrated and upset by someone else’s assumptions, I was humbled in the realization I was unintentionally doing the exact same thing every day.
A Nest Chair for the Nest / Nov 26, 10:03 AM
So I have to say I am not one that is good at sharing the nice fluffy “hurray God” stories. As you can probably see from going through my blog that entries tend to be a little weighty.
This however is just a really fun cool story about God finding away to bless and dote on me and my roommates.
So last Thursday I was accompanying the youth director in dropping off the Sr. High kids after youth group. As we somewhat busted through a police blockade and drove down this one street we passed a nest chair that was un-ordinarily close to the street. As we drove past I thought to myself that the owners should move their chair or someone would probably take it but then out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign posted in front of it that I didn’t quite have time to make out but it looked like it might have said free. I got really excited (for those of you who don’t know I’m obsessed with nest chairs). As soon as I got home I told my teammates and tried to convince them that we needed to walk a mile to go see if this chair really was free and pick it up and carry it a mile back home if it was still there. As I was trying to encourage less than enthused teammates one of the staff overheard me and offered to take me in her car.
So we hop in her car and head to check out this chair. As we approach the street there our still a couple of police cars blocking it off. (Turns out there had been a somewhat serious car accident they were cleaning up.) So we parked the car a block away and walk to where I saw the chair. Sure enough the chair was still there with a free sign in front of it. The chair was in great condition and right next to the chair was something I hadn’t see before, a matching foot rest. As we were carrying both back to her car (I am really glad I didn’t have to carry this chair for a mile) Ms. Deb pointed out that the chair probably wouldn’t have still been there Neshad the street not been blocked off. And while I would never say God caused to people to have a moderately serious accident so I could have a chair, he definitely use the circumstances to bless me.
So God thank you for our nest chair and all the things that needed to happen for us to get it. I look forward to setting it up in our new apartment, lounging in it, using it to make what I hope will be our many guests feel comfortable (I had a nest chair in college that I bought for a similar purpose), and maybe even occasionally being generous and letting me teammates sit in it.
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