Thanks for checking my blog! I know it’s been a while since my last post, my apologies. I feel like a whirlwind of things have happened since the last time i posted. Five of us have started to help a Hispanic church pass out food to Hispanic families in one of the neighborhoods near our house. It is very laborious work, but soooo rewarding! We all love it!

I have also done some painting around the church, and helped out different organizations with fall festivals, banquets, etc. Lately there’s barely been enough time to breath. Fortunately God has provided me with awesome teammates. It’s been cool to see how we’ve been coming together and bonding over the first two weeks.
Well that’s all for now. Take care everyone!
:)

As a team, we do devotions every morning and take turns leading them. Earlier this week, Jordan chose this passage for us to think about. It’s been something I haven’t been able to escape. Is that not all of us – “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” ? I find myself in that place all the time. I DO believe, so why do I so often choose to listen to voices that would tell me I’m throwing my life away for something I don’t really care about, for things/people that are never going to change? It reminds me of a sermon I heard from Bryan Lorritz at home at Fellowship. He was preaching that our sins, our doubts, our hesitations, have been nailed to the cross with Jesus. However, he also made the point that crucifixion is by no means an immediate death…it’s certain death, but it takes a long time. The point was and is that everything broken in us has been put to death by what Jesus did on the cross, but in this life, it’s only in the process of dying, as he put it “the old man still wiggles sometimes.” I’m beginning to see my life as a process of asking God to teach me how to not listen to the voices, how to cling to what I know to be true, how to follow blindly when I can’t always find my belief, how to keep my eyes and heart open to what He’s trying to show me. It’s been liberating to think of it that way – to recognize that the ultimate battle for my heart is over and done with, to recognize that in this life I’m always going to struggle -that I’m a Christian because I struggle with my sin, not because I’m perfect.

I also like the simplicity of his prayer. I’ve always seen my faith as a complicated mess of theology – I liked that because I enjoy debating and arguing points. But I’m seeing that in many ways it has been my biggest stumbling block. I concern myself with making sure everybody believes correctly (i.e. how I believe) rather than making my first goal to love people the way Jesus has loved me. I suppose for most of my life I haven’t really believed that that would really change anyone, but being here, I can’t help but see that I’ve had things entirely backwards.

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

James 1:27

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Peace

It was nice to spend time talking with her about her experiences as a first year music teacher. While walking around millennium park, she mentioned her personal struggle with teaching music and what the true benefits are. This led to a discussion of how important music is in general, and how much I missed playing. We walked by the Symphony and I noticed a few of the upcoming performances and remembered how much I missed hearing quality music.

I hadn’t really thought about classical music much until Solitude Day last week when I listened to some as I was journeying. I realized that when I was in college, and even in part when I was in high school, music was a huge part of my identity. Most of my close friends were in the music program, most of my time was spent in the music building, and some of my greatest memories involve musical performances/gatherings. And yet, this identity is something that the people I’m living with now have no concept of. I hadn’t realized I missed it so much until I expressed that part of my identity again when Bekah came to visit.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about race and racial or ethnic identity. A question was asked last night at our discussion about whether or not it was important for minorities to find their identity in race or ethnicity. As a white female, that particular identification may not be so important to me, but to a black female, it is completely different. It is a more obvious part of who she is because it is different from the mainstream. In the same way (even if it’s not to the same extent), my identity as a musician is extremely important to me because it’s what separates me from others, though it’s taken me a while to realize it. It’s part of who I am, and in not being able to express it, I feel like I might be losing part of myself.

If my mom (or anyone who knows my identity as a musician) is reading this, she’s probably laughing to herself because I was always the one who NEVER practiced. I was always in groups, playing every day anyway, so the desire to practice more was never there. But now that I don’t have it, I miss it. I would love to be in a group somewhere, but there’s simply no time for it. Bekah mentioned getting involved with a school group, so I suppose that’s an option I need to look into. We shall see…

So mom, you were right. I should have brought Henrietta (my bassoon) with me. Maybe I’ll be more inclined to practice when I get home…

:-)

“So, why are you here?” he finally asked me.

I went on to explain Mission Year, that it was a program that sent people my age into urban areas most affected by poverty and injustice. I told him that I was living with five other girls and that we were all trying to build relationships in the neighborhood and volunteer at different places in the community. I told him that it was for a year, and that we were raising support from back home so that we could be here doing this. I probably talked for about five or ten minutes trying to explain exactly what we were doing.

“Oh,” he said when I was finished. “I thought it might have been for the love of Christ.”

Oh… right.

“Oh. Right,” I said. “No… yeah, that’s it.” I felt very foolish.

That was a few weeks ago. I laugh about that story because it was something that I so needed to hear – but it was rather humbling to hear it! Somehow, Jesus got lost in the shuffle of Mission Year – in the work of service sites, in the monotony I let sink into my morning time with God, in the chore I made of neighborhood outreach on Saturdays. Mission Year became my job, like the military or a summer camp.

I forgot about Jesus.

I talked to the man at the library again today. He talked a little about his background, about his family, and about India. He proudly told me he was a born-again Pentecostal, from a family of Christians as far back as his grandparents.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget about the purpose of Mission Year when I’m at the library. I can breathe in books and lose myself in the work that is often tedious and mindless (and that I really love, for some strange reason). I hope my new friend will continue to remind me of Jesus – and why I’m here.

Since I’ve been busy and kept putting off writing another blog, I will have to sum up the past couple weeks with a nice little list of things pulled from my journal entries.

THE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT LIFE, NEW REALIZATIONS, AND OTHER RANDOM FACTS ABOUT LIFE:

-The Smelly Cat Coffeehouse, it is a cozy little coffee shop located in the art district of Charlotte called NoDa. It was recommended by these awesome people from our church Katie and Adam, here is your shout out! I love the place, I’m glad to have found a place that gives me the same cozy and relaxed feeling as Back To THe Grind back home. I will be spending many a Sabbath day there. Beth you would love it. Beth is my little sister, and Back To The Grind was our favorite place, we would go there more than once a week it seems. Anyways I took the team there for teamnight, and Becky spilled her carmel apple cider. Then we played Scrabble.

-The last step at the top of our stairs squeaks everytime you step on it, so I remember to skip over it everytime.

-We have neighbors name Princess and Puddin. enough said.

-I’ve been working at two different elementary schools the past couple weeks cause my background check cleared, and I LOVE IT. I work for an organization called A Child’s Place, which I think is one of THE coolest programs eva! They help homeless children in the school system. By providing pretty much everything you need for school and MORE. They also help out the parents by finding them places that can help them with further needs and holding seminars once a month. What I do is tutor kids one on one and just befriend them and check up on their lives and love them as much as I can! One boy I’ve been working with is named Phillip and he is in kindergarten. He is only five but seriously I swear he has the mind of a much older human being. He is just hilarious and I can already see his character and personality coming through. Here is Phillip’s problem because of the circumstances of his life he is very disruptive in class, and behind all the other students. So I tutor him for LONG periods of time, and its hard because he is making SLOW progress. But I can tell what a difference individual time and love is making in his life. He is a beautiful person. The other day I was sick of tutoring him, and Im sure he was sick of repetative letter and number games, so I just decided we could talk and chill for a bit, little did his teacher know hah. We began with the usual kid banter.. you know the various random stories that don’t seem important to you at all, but for kids its the most important thing ever. EX: “Yesterday i played football with my cousin and blabblablaba.” Its cute don’t get me wrong. But as our conversation progressed I began to learn new and sad things about his life. I gave him five cards for his five years of life, and I set out 18 for myself. As we looked at each others years we were both hit with crazy realizations. I was hit with this sad thought that I’ve already lived a good deal of my life, and it went by really fast. He was hit with the fact that he still has his whole life to live. These are his exact words “I still have my WHOLE life!” Then we began talking about the future and what he would be doing when he was my age. I had to hold back my tears when I realized how dim his future is. I started imagine him getting involved in a gang, selling drugs, doing drugs, living on the streets, this beautiful soul. I want the best for him, I want him to flourish in life and discover God’s love. I realized how important it is for me to love him, and I’ve decided that I’ll be praying for this kid my entire life. I have to trust that God will put more people into his life and really watch over him. Its hard that I’ll have no idea where he ends up, or who he becomes. Im just really priviledged to be a light for him this year, and I pray that each year God uses someone else in his life. It breaks my heart how many children out there have such sucky childhoods and dim futures.

-A while ago Shannon from Right Moves For Youth, another nonprofit that helps kids in school, took our team on a tour of Charlotte. She told us stories of students who were in her program who had been shot and killed on the streets we were driving, of the segregation in the school systems here in Charlotte, unequal education, there are so MANY problems with this world. Especially Charlotte. We drove through tons and tons of poor neighborhoods and there was always this common denominator: Charlotte hides their poor. Along all the busy streets the homes of the ghettos have been bought, remade to look beautiful, and sold to wealthier families. Who knows where the previous families went. But if you travel past these main roads into the neighborhoods, past the facade these pretty homes, you discover blocks of poor run down homes. It was a really weird feeling, because I’m not kidding, this was everywhere not just in one spot of Charlotte, I felt like it was this huge conspiracy. Hiding the poor deep back into the neighborhoods where they will have no voice and won’t disrupt anyones “conscience”. We then drove through the North side of Charlotte, where I saw some of the most BEAUTIFUL homes I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a shock to see how wide the gap between rich and poor is here. And it is also hard to see how alive segregation has remained. It was eye opening and discouraging. But at the same time I feel it was a pivotal moment in my life, I will never be satisfied in life unless I am living THIS life. The one God has called all of us to live, helping those who need help. And this looks different in each and everyones life, but for me I think it will mean relating with the poor and living among them. We shall see.

-Waffles with Becky and Jaimee at 1 in the morning. Yum. Then waking up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache, an inner battle in my mind, whether or not I was going to vomit.

-Finding Barak downstairs talking to himself.

-Getting ready for bed, about to turn off the lights when I hear unfamiliar voices downstairs. Going downstairs to find Spider and Darius over at 10 in the night with ice cream they had bought for us, they just watched us eat. Sugar is bad for your teeth they say. This was last week, and you dont know how much I needed it. I had had the worst day, and that made my night, I was seriously overwhelmed with joy.

-Jaimee and I’s community group. They are small groups from the church, and ours is with a whole bunch of college age girls, who are THE nicest people ever! After our small group that met at a coffeeshop we went to one of the girls dorm room and played video games and learned the stanky leg and laughed. It felt so good hangin out with girls our age, and I can see us becoming really good friends. God has been soooo GOOD in providing friends and relationships for us!

-Helping out at the seminars at ACP on thursday, entertaining 70 kids, and them teaching me how to do the JERK. Yep Im gonna be coming home with ghetto dance moves.

-Jaimee and I getting our ears pieced at some shadey shop in atlanta last weekend.

-Meeting so many awesome missionyear kids in Atlanta, Ashley and Caleb’s beautiful kitchen, washing south Atlanta team’s dishes because they were so great and hospitable to us! We also watched Crash with them, that was one intense movie. Staying up late with Kirsten and Brando talking and getting to know them a little, you guys are AWESOME! PLEASE atlanta teams visit us, we miss you guys.

-Walking to work in the rain, leaves falling from trees like rain, therapeutic late night swinging with Becky.

-A halloween care package sent from Jordyn Ferrarro, full of candy and halloween socks! YES!

-Art crawls in NoDa, being sad I can’t support these aspiring artist, their stuff is too expenSIVE.

-Three way phone calls with mom and ash

-God being wonderful and taking good care of us, showing His love, and teaching us wonderful things everyday.

Now its time to go hang out in the neighborhood, then its off to church for a halloween festival, and then perhaps scary movies with our new friends!

Where does one begin? How does one not feel overwhelmed? I know it’s not up to just one person nor one group of people to change these issues and i know one shouldnt feel like “it’s up to me” and i know many people don’t feel like that but maybe we should? thats not the answer either though….i dunno. sometimes it’s literally too much.

5:57 am-Wake up and wander out into the living room for team devotions. No matter who is working in the morning at Breakthrough, everyone wakes up and joins in for devotions and prayer. Pedro, Jeff, Ashleigh, and Carrie are all pretty pleasant morning people and all wake up before me. We take turns leading devotions with a passage from the Bible and praying before we finish getting ready. We ask God to guide us in our day, to give us wisdom, and for love and patience to give to the people we will see at work.

6:30am-Whoever is working (usually 4 of us) leaves the apartment to walk to the bus stop. It is still pitch black outside, but the skyline is a beautiful site as we stand and wait for the bus. Sometimes we meet new people, sometimes we get splashed by a passing car, and sometimes we are just quiet (rarely). We get off and transfer to another bus, we hope for the “Homey Homan” bus, because it is extra comfy. We pass a man who pretends to be a police officer and likes to tweet his whistle and direct traffic. It makes us laugh every time!

7:00am-3pm-Carrie, Ashleigh and I arrive at the Joshua Center and are greeted by some of the women. I report to the kitchen to make breakfast and the other girls station themselves for a crazy day at the front desk or running around the center.

After breakfast, I usually walk down to the men’s center to get lunch ready. Pedro or Jeff are the one’s sitting at the desk there and they let me in, or make weird faces at me and then let me in  It is fun to have them around during the day.

I have made some friends in the kitchen and I enjoy spending time talking to them. Learning about their families, classes they are taking, chatting, or just being silly as we make food for 100 people. I am growing to love them and learn how to be a better friend.

Adventures are always had in the kitchen. I have learned how to make many new dishes, pluck chickens, and make mass quantities of mac n’ cheese.
I am usually back at the Joshua Center to serve lunch, which I enjoy. The ladies tease and ask how I am and are always extremely grateful for the food that we work to make. It is the small conversations with ladies at the center that make my day.
In the afternoon, I help to answer phones, lead Bible study, help with supplies, run errands for the ladies, and enjoy wonderful wisdom and laughs with them. When three o’clock hits we are headed out the door, feeling like we have just been in a whirlwind of activity ( the good kind). A sign posted on a tree outside says “ we are all good people” . It’s not completely true, but it is a reminder of God’s love for us no matter what we do.

3pm-We meet up with the guys at the bus stop for the journey home and share stories of our days and what God is teaching us.

3:30-When we get home the after work, the afternoon is spent reading curriculum, having personal devotions, napping, playing with neighbor kids and getting ready for dinner.

Around 6pm-My team makes actual meals for dinner everyday! I haven’t eaten this well since I started college. We work together to make meals and clean up as well.

Nighttime- After dinner around our house is church activities, fun and ridiculousness. Depending on the day, there is Bible study or choir at church. It is really great to connect with people from church during the week in a more informal setting and learn from pastor Cy at Bible study.

When we are all home on work nights, there is football throwing, lots of laughing, playing games and being silly. It is a great stress reliever to laugh together. We also like to discuss our curriculum books or what we are reading in the Bible. God has truly blessed me with an awesome group of believers who challenge each other to grow and love each other.

9:30pm-BEDTIME!!

God willing-Then we start again.

The older camp kids are starting to trust me now. I’ve won the hearts of the younger ones more easily, but the older ones mean more. Their eyes are more sensitive to the color of my skin, and in their experience white is not a color that normally cares about black. They’ve built a process out of earning trust, and its main component is time. There’s a large aspect of it that is the genuineness of unconditional love and authenticity as well; not viewing them as “trouble,” but just kids, and more importantly, kids that need building up, not tearing down.

Anywho, I’ve proved myself somehow, and it’s just been in this past week that they’ve made an unspoken agreement to let me know because a handful of them have all started trading physical proximity and interest in me for their previous distance and skeptical, dismissive looks that they use as a tool to intimidate most unfamiliar white folk away. (I only say this because I used to be one of those white people.)

Those white people miss out, assuming the body language they just received was the essence of all black kids from the ghetto, allowing stereotypes to rule them and never getting to see the beautiful children behind their masks.

Something that I have been thinking about a lot lately is the idea of truly needing God. Many times when we encounter the poor we have the cliché comment that sounds something like “they are so happy yet they have so little”. While that statement usually irks me, it does hold some truth. Why is it that those with so little seem to be so connected to God? Is it because they have nothing else to rely on besides Him? I often shudder at the number of “safety nets” that I have in my life that help ME stay in control. All of those things that are built in my life to secure personal success inhibit God from taking control. If we always have these comforts and securities around us, we will never truly need God and therefore never truly understand His grace and love for us. No wonder the poor are so “happy”; they actually have to have faith! I am not saying we all have to be poor to experience God, but we should pay attention to the safety nets in our lives that are just our meager attempts to control our lives instead of letting God intervene. When we try too hard to protect our own lives, we are in turn negatively affecting those who are already suffering and marginalized. What we do affects others.

God repeatedly reminds the Israelites to remember their time of oppression in Egypt. He reminds them of their time as slaves to keep them humble. The theme that seems to stick out the most to me in these passages is God’s call to not get too comfortable. After God frees the Israelites from the wrath of Egypt, they soon forget to rely on God. It seems to me that so many people (including myself) only call upon God when we need something or when times are tough. If we call on God to save us from our troubles but then fail to recognize that it was truly Him who saved us, then we are unable to have compassion on others who are oppressed. God rebukes His people for mistreating other aliens and reminds them that they were just like those aliens when they were in Egypt. Pride was allowed to take control. When we start to believe that we have any control in saving ourselves, then we limit God’s love and power and thus make it more difficult for us to see his love in others.

Just some thoughts I have been having recently… I am taking a graduate course through Eastern University this year in “The Theology of Poverty.” This blog came from one of my journals I wrote for the course.

Love you all!

-Matt

Hello family and friends (and family friends and friends that are like family)!

It’s now been over a month since we left home for LaGrange, Georgia. We’re missing home, family, friends and familiarity tremendously, but we are so thankful for the opportunity to be here and have so much to tell you about what we’ve learned. As you know, we spent a week of orientation in Guatemala to better understand why some of our neighbors migrated to the United States. We never thought we’d experience a trip so heartbreaking yet so inspiring.

Our journey began in Guatemala City. We immediately noticed the harsh distinction between the affluent and the poor as we passed tin shacks neighbored by gated mansions. We spent the first two nights in the dormitory of a beautiful seminary and awoke with guilt to the cries of children from the orphanage next door. Our initial questions about the country’s history, people and social/political problems were answered by Hector, a Guatemalan professor and pastor, with much passion for the deliverance of the poor in his country. In Guatemala, there is almost no middle class, and 80% of the people live in poverty. Most of these people are honest and hard working. The problem is that 86% of the land, the incredibly clean water and fertile soil, is lying idle in the hands of an elite 10%. They refuse to have it worked by the poor farmers, claiming that God has blessed them with this land to enjoy it for themselves. Struggling to provide for their families, many poor Guatemalans risk their lives to come to the United States, legally or illegally. Then, they risk their lives working in our factories and confinements in order to send money back home. Often, lives are taken. And as we saw on our flight there, the large boxes of human remains are sent back in the full bellies of airplanes to be buried by their still impoverished families.

The Cemetario General is like a city for the dead, where bodies are stacked up in walls (for the poor) or mausoleums (for the rich). As we walked through the streets of this mini-city, vendors were lined up with their soda and snacks, close to death themselves, trying to make money however they could. On one side of the cemetery, the stench was atrocious. As we walked on, hundreds of vultures appeared, then a ravine filled with decaying garbage, huge machines pushing and pulling at the waste, and people. Hundreds of people were scattered through the dump, sifting through the waste, searching for food and valuables, for anything that would keep their family alive. It was as if we were exiting the land of the dead only to enter the valley of the dying. This brief encounter with the repercussions of our waste has been on our minds ever since. It has changed the way we live and walk on this land that provides so much for us.

The rest of the trip was spent in the beautiful highlands of southwestern Guatemala on our way to the rural and indigenous communities, driving along the narrowest, steepest and most winding roads we have ever seen. Our director and guide, Anton Flores, knows many families of the immigrants he’s helping in LaGrange. One dark and rainy night, we were to stay with one of the families in the mountains. We quickly threw our luggage into the back of the 4-wheel-drive truck and piled into the truck bed. Margareta was lucky enough to be chosen by matriarch of the family to ride with her in the cab! The half-hour ride up the dark, steep, muddy mountain was by far one of the most fun (and terrifying) parts of the trip. Numerous times, Zach would peer over the edge of the truck only to see the tire spinning around in the mud, inches from the edge of the steep cliff. Thankfully, we made it safely to our family’s house, where we stayed for two days. The hospitality we experienced in this rural mountain community was far greater and more passionate than any we’ve ever experienced before. They gave up their beds, spent a great deal of the day cooking for us, and spent every spare second they had in our company. The children blessed us with flowers and gifts, hugs and hair-dos. The Spanish/English language barrier was difficult, but we knew enough to get by. They were so thankful to spend time with friends of their son, who lives here in LaGrange. On our way back down, we took a different route, only to see that the steep, muddy road we had traveled on just a couple days before had been wiped out by a mudslide!

There is so much more we could tell you about our trip: the little girls who stole our hearts in the mudslide red-zone, the sickness we all experienced from the food/water, the volcano we climbed and much more. Soon, we hope to expand on these things in our blog: www.missionyear.org/blog/maxon.

We’re fitting in well at our service sites back in LaGrange. I (Zach) have been working in the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which recycles materials and appliances by selling them back to the community, in turn making money to build more houses. Each day is different and goes by pretty fast. I’m doing a lot of manual labor and organizing in the store. The work environment is great and I really like the people I work with. We will start building a Habitat house in Alabama within the next month, and I will soon begin working in family development with the Habitat community in town. Also, I’ve begun volunteering one day a week with Margareta at the Jenny Jack Farm.

I (Margareta) am so thankful that Zach and I are able to work in the dirt, sun and fresh air together every Monday! I’m learning so much from the owners of the farm and Zach and I will help them start a garden at one of the LaGrange schools this year through the Farm to School program. In the Circle of Care at Twin Cedars, I’ve been mostly job-shadowing my boss, hoping to start home visits on my own soon and one-on-one life-skills sessions to teach the girls their choice of sewing, cooking, baking, financial planning, and anything else that piques their interest.

Many of you have asked about the flooding in Georgia. We are safe here in LaGrange, appreciating the heavy rains to cool down the hot days. Yet, Atlanta is still recovering from the damaging effects of the storms.

Relationships with our neighbors are growing strong. An Iraqi refugee family next door invited us to enjoy an Iraqi feast with them on their living room floor last Friday night! The kids are over often for backyard soccer games and help with homework.

We’re slowly acclimating to all of the changes and appreciating the challenges of living with a group of people. Our schedules are busy with our service sites, neighborhood meals, Mission Year curriculum discussion, Bible study, hospitality night(s), church, morning prayers and house meetings. As a house, we discuss cooking, cleaning, transportation, groceries, budget, neighborhood needs and more. We’re also in the process of writing a house covenant for the year. Because of all this, we have had little time to write or call home, and limited Internet access makes it difficult to catch up on our emails and blog. Luckily, the technology fast is over and although our busy schedule will limit when we can receive and make calls, we’ll hopefully be able to communicate in this way more often.

Thank you for all of your emails, calls, letters, pictures, gifts and prayers from home! They have comforted us. Thank you also for your patience. Even if we have not yet contacted you outside of the monthly newsletter, please know that we miss and love you all. Please continue to consider supporting us financially through this year at www.missionyear.org/launch/maxon. We are already so thankful for your generous support—we couldn’t do this without you!

Love,
Zach and Margareta