Nicholas Dobkowski
Why Mission Year?
God is the Man, and He deserves all of me. I pray that this is a step towards that goal. As a corollary, I am looking forward to serving people in any context possible, finding true fellowship among my housemates, enjoying my church, and loving people. PS God is good! :)
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…
Nicholas Dobkowski's Blog
Yes, this year is almost over. Yes, I need to finish strong. / Jul 21, 02:49 PM
As is my wont, I will give you the break down of just how much time I have left here. There are eight “normal” Mission Year days left (not including today). There is one Sabbath, four work days (with one evening shift), one neighborhood outreach day, and two church sessions remaining. But, if you just wait for the time left to expire, you waste the last few days in apathy and boredom. Jesus still wants to work here, and he has 10 1/2 months of stuff to build on. Now is not the time to mail it in and give up. There is work to be done (literally, at Breakthrough), relationships to be enjoyed, intentionally community to work through AND enjoy, church to engage, and so on. God is looking for some faithfulness right now. I’m going to give it to Him.
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The 4th of July / Jul 7, 01:00 PM
I get the feeling a lot of MY kids will be talking about our Fourths, so let me beat the crowd:
Three ridiculous things happened on July 4th:
1) We watched Mission Impossible 3 (which I inadvertently called Mission Year 3 at least once) at the men’s center. It was awesome and made me really happy for the rest of the day. I’m not sure why. Towards the beginning of it, I decided that I want to start learning Spanish next year.
2) After work, Lindsey, Rusty (our coworker) and I went out for a bit. When we got back, one of the steps outside of our building was broken. Our steps are made of concrete. I never, ever thought I would see something like this. There’s just a large gaping hole in our steps that you have to climb over to leave or enter the building.
3) There was an insane number of fireworks going off in Chicago. Everywhere you looked on the horizon, you could see them. It was a really peaceful experience to watch them. We’ve been hearing fireworks go off in our neighborhood for a few weeks now, and that has been very annoying. But last night was different. It was so cool to see people enjoying themselves, expressed through fireworks. I don’t think I can explain it fully here, but feel free to ask about it some other time.
Love. Peace. And prayer to E. King’s fam.
Name Dropping / Jun 17, 09:28 AM
Coming back from a relaxing weekend in Atlanta, I thought I would finally bring the noise about all the famous people we’ve met this year. Don’t act like you’re not impressed:
Chris Lahr, Mission Year. Currently, the academic guy for Mission Year, Lahr has done some pretty awesome MY-like things, and is immortalized (well, by Jesus, but also…) in Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. He was our professor for the Theology of Poverty class I took over the course of the year.
Tony Campolo. The man, the myth, the legend. He was kind enough to serve as the speaker at our Chicago fund raising banquet and each team got to take our picture with him. Cool!
Ed Chambers, Industrial Areas Foundation, Director. The MAN in community organizing. He is known for making community organizing a viable profession and bringing credibility where it previously was lacking. He also ‘invented’ the relational meeting (think of it like a “let’s do lunch” type meeting). I met him through Public Action for Change Today (PACT).
Mary Nelson, Bethel New Life. Mrs. Nelson was the founder and CEO of Bethel New Life, a community development organization in West Garfield Park. She has fought for this community longer than we’ve been alive, and has done a tremendous amount of good. We met her working together on an exhibit. She picked up our tab at a lunch meeting.
Wayne “Coach” Gordon, Pastor, Lawndale Community Church. Entered the North Lawndale Community over 25 years ago, and has made tremendous strides in improving the community (spiritually and community-development-wise). He spoke at one of our Citywide gatherings.
The First of The Month / Jun 4, 10:41 AM
So, as you may know, I often go to the local library on Saturdays to play chess with some of the homeless gentlemen there. I went this Saturday (in the morning, which is when they are there), yet no one was there. Sadly, this is because June 1st was Sunday. Because the first falls on a weekend, the social security, disability, etc. checks all get deposited the Friday before. Which explains where my friends were. They were out spending some of their newly acquired money both on good and not so good things. They will all be back within the next week or two, but for now, they spend it with no eye for the future. They are the proverbial “Kings for a day”.
I don’t really know what else to say. It stinks that many of those without a home are wasting their lives waiting each month for a check that they can spend for a few days on drugs and alcohol (and maybe some food or a place to stay) to forget about the situation they’re in, only to deepen the problem by blowing their money on a feeling that does not last. Who will love them, advocate for them, help them to see that they don’t need these things to be valuable and help them to end this cycle? Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25) May we be the ones to help.
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Yes, I Live Here / May 22, 12:55 PM
Sometimes people ask me why you need to live in the neighborhood that you serve. Especially when that neighborhood is potentially dangerous. Here are a few reasons why:
We live in a separated society. Rich apart from poor. Black apart from white (although there are exceptions, each ethnicity has a section of Chicago which they call their own). We live with little knowledge of how those who are not us live. We may read about it in the paper or a magazine, but these depictions often fall laughably short. In reality, the only way to know what’s really going on in a certain neighborhood is to live there. You experience the highs and the lows, the problems and the pain. And you build bridges.
Additionally, we receive no lack of credibility for living where we do. Often, the homeless men and women that we work with often think that we live in some suburb or on the Northside, and that we just happen to work in the neighborhood. When they here that we live on California and Madison, something changes about how they perceive us. They begin to realize that we’re not in this to feel good, but that we care about the people here. They start to understand that we live with them in order to love them and to love this place. We’re not here because we’re required to be; we’re here because we want to be. Holla :)
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