Here is the first video:
Sunday, December 12, 2010
A Tour of Camden
On of my goals in the past month or so has been to utilize the HD video capabilities of my camera. Accordingly, this update is in film form. I'm beginning to realize that digital media may be a good way for me to share my experiences, as I know I'm not the greatest writer and my blog posts tend to be a bit dry....
Friday, December 10, 2010
First Impressions
Cold.
Jim sounds like my old boss at Korry, Tim.
Left turn = Right turn = 'Jughandle'
Diner dinner menus can be overwhelming.
Cop cars everywhere.
PathMark doesn't sell individually frozen chicken breasts.
Colorful row houses. All boarded up.
Christmas lights on the porch = evidence someone lives here.
Parts of Camden feel like parts of Yakima. I wonder what Yakima's statistics are?
New Jersey has 566 municipalities and 604 school districts (WA has half as many)
There's a lot of water to cross, but none of its as beautiful as the water in Washington.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Into the Sunrise
In the morning, when I rise,
In the morning, when I rise,In the morning, when I rise,
Give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
but give me Jesus.
I am reminded of one of my favorite praise songs as we begin our journey to Camden, flying out at 6:15am this morning. For all my professed ease of sleeping on planes, this morning I was captivated by the sunrise and decided to stay awake for a while. I don't often get up early enough (actually, I don't know if I ever have!) to see the sunrise, but I was so enjoying the view that I didn't let myself close my eyes. It helped that I am sipping on a Joy tea and watching the clouds roll by under the wing. (Yes, I am typing this on the plane - who knows when I'll have enough internet to post it!)
My mom asked me last night why I was going on this trip. Honestly, I am not sure, except that I felt a unexplainable desire to go, serve, and learn. I don't know what to expect, but I'm excited to find out why I was supposed to travel to Camden. I don't expect to radically change the lives of the students and teachers that I meet, but hope that I can learn from them. I also go to serve the servants, to give them an extra set of hands and feet as they serve the students of Camden.
Don't we look lovely at 4:15am??
Also, though I think anyone reading this blog probably is friends with both Chris and I, if you haven't read through his blog, you really should. He is going on the trip with me and is an incredible writer - way more creative than my cut and dried descriptions of events and happenings. Check it out here: http://antithesisreigns.wordpress.com/
Friday, December 3, 2010
Where You're At
Recently, our team found out that we will be staying in the "Retreat" house that Urban Promise owns, for the duration of our stay. This house is georgous and was built by the Extreme Makeover Home Edition folks for a family from Camden.
Here's the house tour:
(Courtesy of Hulu)
The Marrero family consists of a dad, who worked for Urban Promise running a father's ministry, and five sons, the oldest of which was in high school during the time of the build. They were living in a cockroach-infested apartment with limited electricity and water; which, unfortunately, doesn't sound like a uncommon occurrence in this area of the US. Compare the house above with the views of Camden below:
(Images of Camden)
This house, apparently sticks out like a sore thumb in Camden - a house that belongs in the affluent suburbs in the middle of the urban poor. The saddest part of this story, however, is that the family was forced to sell the house within three years because they couldn't afford the utilites. The family lived on a fixed income and could not afford to keep with the house, even with the homeowers insurance apparently covered and frozen property taxes. They eventually sold the house back to Urban Promise (who had donated the land it sat on, next to their campus) and moved, possibly all the way to Flordia - but I can't find that article anymore...
Regardless, this story asks us - why don't we meet people where they are at? Did the Marrero's need a new house? Yes. Did they need a huge mansion? No. This house was supposed to help pull them out of their current state of poverty, but instead they found themselves even less able to put food on the table. Why do we American's hold on to the notion that bigger is always better? Or try to fit our ideas of happiness, success, and satisfaction on others? Do not take this as condoning poverty, but rather consider how meeting needs has to be done in a way that satisfies their immediate concerns and leave room for growth. Had the Marrero's house been more modest in size, maybe they would have been able to stay in Camden and flourish. On the flip side, maybe selling the house and moving out of Camden is what needed to happen to give them a boost up.
How do I serve people where they are at, yet encourage them to grow, be that academically, spiritually, financially, or emotionally? As we read recently in A Framework for Understanding Poverty, poverty is not caused just by lack of money and can't always be solved by throwing money at a situation. Beyond the financial, there are also factors such as emotions, mental state, spiritual life, physical needs, support systems, and role models that can cause poverty to persist in a situation. How do we meet those needs?
After reading this latest article, I realized even more how entirely unfamilar I am with poverty. I have never lacked one of the resources that contributes to pervading poverty, even as a 'poor' college student. I have a home, a family, friends, a job, a good mind, a Savior Jesus, caring professors, and opportunities for graduate education. I find it amazing that I can just continue to research, learn and gain new knowledge without the overhanging burden of wondering how I will put food on the table.
Jesus met people where they were at - from the woman at the well, to Nicodemus in the dark, to the Zacchaeus in his tree - ministering to each person a way germane to their needs. How can I do anything less but the same?
Here's the house tour:
(Courtesy of Hulu)
The Marrero family consists of a dad, who worked for Urban Promise running a father's ministry, and five sons, the oldest of which was in high school during the time of the build. They were living in a cockroach-infested apartment with limited electricity and water; which, unfortunately, doesn't sound like a uncommon occurrence in this area of the US. Compare the house above with the views of Camden below:
(Images of Camden)
This house, apparently sticks out like a sore thumb in Camden - a house that belongs in the affluent suburbs in the middle of the urban poor. The saddest part of this story, however, is that the family was forced to sell the house within three years because they couldn't afford the utilites. The family lived on a fixed income and could not afford to keep with the house, even with the homeowers insurance apparently covered and frozen property taxes. They eventually sold the house back to Urban Promise (who had donated the land it sat on, next to their campus) and moved, possibly all the way to Flordia - but I can't find that article anymore...
Regardless, this story asks us - why don't we meet people where they are at? Did the Marrero's need a new house? Yes. Did they need a huge mansion? No. This house was supposed to help pull them out of their current state of poverty, but instead they found themselves even less able to put food on the table. Why do we American's hold on to the notion that bigger is always better? Or try to fit our ideas of happiness, success, and satisfaction on others? Do not take this as condoning poverty, but rather consider how meeting needs has to be done in a way that satisfies their immediate concerns and leave room for growth. Had the Marrero's house been more modest in size, maybe they would have been able to stay in Camden and flourish. On the flip side, maybe selling the house and moving out of Camden is what needed to happen to give them a boost up.
How do I serve people where they are at, yet encourage them to grow, be that academically, spiritually, financially, or emotionally? As we read recently in A Framework for Understanding Poverty, poverty is not caused just by lack of money and can't always be solved by throwing money at a situation. Beyond the financial, there are also factors such as emotions, mental state, spiritual life, physical needs, support systems, and role models that can cause poverty to persist in a situation. How do we meet those needs?
After reading this latest article, I realized even more how entirely unfamilar I am with poverty. I have never lacked one of the resources that contributes to pervading poverty, even as a 'poor' college student. I have a home, a family, friends, a job, a good mind, a Savior Jesus, caring professors, and opportunities for graduate education. I find it amazing that I can just continue to research, learn and gain new knowledge without the overhanging burden of wondering how I will put food on the table.
Jesus met people where they were at - from the woman at the well, to Nicodemus in the dark, to the Zacchaeus in his tree - ministering to each person a way germane to their needs. How can I do anything less but the same?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
In preparation for Camden, NJ
What was your high school experience like? Did you go to a big school, little school, affluent school, poor school, private school or public school? I thought I went to a school with limited resources - we quickly outgrew our building, our books were old, and we didn't have a real lab space for experiments. But, after reading a chapter from Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol, I was forced to re-evaluate both the level of my education and that of my community.
I come from a 80% white community (according to the latest Wikipedia data) in Ellensburg, but I attended a private school in Yakima. Yakima is 42% Hispanic (at least from the best data I could find, number is from 2009), however my school was almost 100% white. So, I can't speak exactly to the level of public education in my community, but after reading Savage Inequalities, I can safely say that we can and do support our students more in Ellensburg than they are able to in Camden, NJ.
This Christmas break, I'll be traveling to Camden to work with a group called Urban Promise. Camden is one of the poorest areas of the country - 80,000 people live in 9 sq miles. The community is close to 98% non-white and a large portion of their community lives below the poverty line. 50% of Camden is under the age of 25 and something close to 85% of births are to unwed (presumably young) mothers. With this much stacked against them, who would expect a stellar school system? Even so, reading about their education system was devastating. Though the community taxes themselves a higher percentage of their income than the neighboring suburban areas do, they still can't provide the same resources for their students.
I haven't had to deal with much racial reconciliation in my everyday life, even at SPU, we're 80% white. While there is nothing wrong with investing in a quality high school education, there is something wrong with allowing some school systems to fail their students, just from lack of resources. I don't think the cycle of poverty can't be broken without raising the level of eduction of a community, but raising the level of education takes funding - so how can it be done in a poor community? Honestly, I don't know, and Savage Inequalities doesn't offer a solution. I think, however, any solution a book like this may offer would turn into a 'cookie cutter' solution that would probably only fit 1% of the real-world situations. There are multiple factors that need to be addressed to change a system and each situation differs from the next. I am interested in learning how Urban Promise is working towards breaking the cycle of poverty by providing a higher level of education for students, for it sounds like they have a very holistic mission that seeks to better all aspects of their students' lives. I am also interested in learning if the presence of Urban Promise has affected the education in the public school system in Camden.
There will be more thoughts on this book coming soon, possibly along with other articles and group discussions that happen. In the meantime - click on the link below and watch the clip entitled "I am not a statistic" to learn some about what Urban Promise is doing in Camden, NJ.
http://www.urbanpromiseusa.org/media
I come from a 80% white community (according to the latest Wikipedia data) in Ellensburg, but I attended a private school in Yakima. Yakima is 42% Hispanic (at least from the best data I could find, number is from 2009), however my school was almost 100% white. So, I can't speak exactly to the level of public education in my community, but after reading Savage Inequalities, I can safely say that we can and do support our students more in Ellensburg than they are able to in Camden, NJ.
This Christmas break, I'll be traveling to Camden to work with a group called Urban Promise. Camden is one of the poorest areas of the country - 80,000 people live in 9 sq miles. The community is close to 98% non-white and a large portion of their community lives below the poverty line. 50% of Camden is under the age of 25 and something close to 85% of births are to unwed (presumably young) mothers. With this much stacked against them, who would expect a stellar school system? Even so, reading about their education system was devastating. Though the community taxes themselves a higher percentage of their income than the neighboring suburban areas do, they still can't provide the same resources for their students.
I haven't had to deal with much racial reconciliation in my everyday life, even at SPU, we're 80% white. While there is nothing wrong with investing in a quality high school education, there is something wrong with allowing some school systems to fail their students, just from lack of resources. I don't think the cycle of poverty can't be broken without raising the level of eduction of a community, but raising the level of education takes funding - so how can it be done in a poor community? Honestly, I don't know, and Savage Inequalities doesn't offer a solution. I think, however, any solution a book like this may offer would turn into a 'cookie cutter' solution that would probably only fit 1% of the real-world situations. There are multiple factors that need to be addressed to change a system and each situation differs from the next. I am interested in learning how Urban Promise is working towards breaking the cycle of poverty by providing a higher level of education for students, for it sounds like they have a very holistic mission that seeks to better all aspects of their students' lives. I am also interested in learning if the presence of Urban Promise has affected the education in the public school system in Camden.
There will be more thoughts on this book coming soon, possibly along with other articles and group discussions that happen. In the meantime - click on the link below and watch the clip entitled "I am not a statistic" to learn some about what Urban Promise is doing in Camden, NJ.
http://www.urbanpromiseusa.org/media
Sunday, July 11, 2010
And in other news...
Okay, so I apologize to the few people who may watch my blog (aka Kali and Charis) about not being very good about posting. I basically don't get internet at my apartment area and when I am out at coffee shops, I am generally studying for the GRE (yuck)...which by the way, is the weirdest test. It tests basic algebra and geometry and graph interpretation, but then it test ridiculously challenging vocabulary that nobody uses in everyday life! I don't get the rationale behind the test, how it is supposed to tell if we are ready for graduate school, but I have to take it, so I will study about how to beat the test b/c there is no way I can memorize 5000 new words by September!
Besides just studying and sewing (I finished my dress and made another skirt and now am working on a pair of pants!), I have been biking...a lot. Te week before last, I biked a total of about 50 miles (!) and then hiked about 5 miles, uphill the following Saturday.
We hiked back in Big Basin, but we took the 'Buzzard's Roost' trail. It was a 2.5 mile loop trail and included at 1100ft elevation change....needless to say, it was uphill the whole way. But the view from the top was beautiful - I felt like I was back in the great northwest because all the hills were covered in dense green foliage.
Part of the trail.
The group who went hiking.
The view from the top
[Also, just an fyi, I can't seem to keep a straight timeline on all the events I want to share, so I make no claim to chronological order]
Not sure if I mentioned a new friend Hannah and I made while in the kitchen one evening, but we met a guy from Georgia Tech, named Mike, who likes to bike. He loves to bike. And somehow convinced us to go on a bike ride after work. We bike for a total of 20 miles, moving constantly. While I'd biked that much before, Hannah and I always stopped along the way, which made it not quite as challenging.
Then, later that week, we biked again to Stanford, this time to try out the first cupcake store. (this was not their first location, but they claim to be the brand that started the cupcake store trend) It is called Sprinkles and I had heard rave reviews from coworkers about their treats. I wanted to see if I could compare it to Cupcake Royale in Seattle, and I must admit, they seem pretty similar, but then, a cupcake's a cupcake, right? Sprinkles did not have anything like my favorite kind at Cupcake Royale, Dance Party (it tastes like those delicious white cookies with oodles of pink frosting and sprinkles that you buy at the grocery store) but the Dark Chocolate one that I tried was pretty good. I love sprinkles on just about anything, so this one was great!
My cupcake.
While we were there, the shopping center was hosting a summer jazz evening, so we stayed to listen to some great music and watch all the little kids running around.
One of the cute kids. I almost got one of her laughing, looking at me, but I just missed it!
And to finish this post off, here is a thought that could be one of my GRE essay questions and one that I have thought about when I walk down the halls of NASA:
"It is more important to allocate money for immediate, existing social problems than to spend it on long-term research that might help future generations."
What do you think?
Dancing and Cello Music
A few weeks ago, I found out that Ames has a ballroom dancing club (actually, Ames a large number of clubs, including a cat rescue club...) Every Tuesday night the get together and learn some form of dance, a new one every month. They also have Casino Rueda lessons every week. The beginner lessons are free, so Hannah and I decided to try one out. And it was a lot of fun! I haven't had too many ballroom classes, so this was definitely a challenge for me. The style of dance is sort of a cross between salsa and country four-square dancing, I think - is that where they change partners? Anyways, the basics moves are salsa moves, but it is done in a circle and you swich partners during the dance. There is also a caller, who calls out the next move. Unfortunately for me, they're all in Spanish....eh, at least I'm not quizzed on their meaning and have to learn to spell them....
I have learned some of the moves as a lead and some as a follow, and let me tell you, it is much eaiser being a follow! Here is a video to give you a taste for what it looks like:
The other new art-related thing I have been introduced to is an artist named Zoe Keating. She plays really sweet cello music by live layering of loops she creates via a foot pedle and computer. You should listen to the link below before watch the music video - you will never believe one woman makes the track until you watch her create it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)