Urban Experience

Yesterday (Thursday, July 19), 231 incoming freshmen, along with their families, arrived on Calvin’s Campus to partake in Calvin’s orientation program, PASSPORT.  I think I may be feeling some of the same things as these freshmen and their families not because I’m going to college for the first time, or because my kid is going to college for the first time (though that is a really scary thought), but because I will be leading 6 of those 231 students on a special orientation trip today through July 26.

This new orientation trip is loosely modeled after the wilderness orientation trips, but will take place in Grand Rapids’ Creston Neighborhood and has the mission to “introduce new Calvin students to the ongoing efforts of partner organizations in the Grand Rapids area to do God’s work in the word and in Grand Rapids.”  This program has been one of the main projects I have been working on at the Service-Learning Center this summer.  But I’m not the only one to work on this project.  Thankfully, other students and staff have been working on the project proposal and setting up some of the basics for the week.  I only had to pick up where they left off and carry this project through completion.

Only. It’s been a lot more work than I thought it would be.  There are so many little details and logistical points to think through.  This is the first time our office has ever done an extended orientation program and I’ve struggled with trying to remember what it’s like to be an incoming student; to not know anyone at Calvin and to be experiencing Calvin orientation.  I know the Service-Learning Center and reflection materials like the back of my hand, but orienting new students to what college life is like?  Giving them the tools they’ll need to be successful at Calvin?  I can only hope and pray that I can fulfill this part of the trip.

In the S-LC we talk a lot about experiential learning.  I even spent last semester in Thailand as part of an experiential learning study abroad.  I love it.  And I love what this experience has already taught me.  Sure the week hasn’t started, but I have spent the past 46 days meeting with agency partners, Calvin faculty and staff, brainstorming ideas for T-shirts and ordering them, going on walking tours of the neighborhood and creating a reflection/reading.  I can’t wait to see what this week has in store.

Hannah Bechtold
Urban Experience Coordinator

This Square Inch

"[T]here is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'" -Abraham Kuyper

This oft-quoted phrase around Calvin College has been ringing in my head this summer. We (Megan and I) have invested deeply in our neighborhood for the past seven years or so, because we saw a place for which Christ was crying, "Mine!" There have been days when I've seen Christ's ownership manifest, and times when I've wondered if the tenants are paying rent to a different landlord.

This Summer, with bemused joy, I watched as young women and men with hearts beating strong for God's Kingdom came out of the woodwork to set up residence on these streets. This place that for several years has felt so lonely, so barren, to us is now trod by new feet who want to garden empty plots, renovate neglected homes, share lawn and kitchen equipment, speak the gospel. And I say with confidence, "This square inc, is yours, Christ. You are claiming what is rightfully yours!"

Then I see a family from church vacate their home because of the raucous nightly noise from across the street. My neighbor's hand is broken in several places after intercepting a trespasser's jaw. I witness a half dozen drug deals go down from the stoop of the church. A girl my daughter's age pushes a wagon down the middle of the street with no parent in sight. A rock intended for someone else shatters my friend's windshield. And I say with disappointment, "This square inch is yours, Christ. Why don't you claim what is rightfully yours?"

We live in this in between. Every square inch does belong to Christ. He is claiming it. He is claiming the vacant lot, the broken metacarpals, the renewed home, the newly empty one, the drug dealer and the pusher, the little girl and me.

Who Is My Neighbor?

On Monday, I introduced the topic of community helpers to my kindergarteners with the help of my Uncle Jeff, a pilot, who came to visit. Later in the day we were discussing what a community is and how community helpers help those living within the community. We decided that our classroom is a community, as well as our school and our neighborhoods. We even defined our state, our country, and the world as larger communities.

Then, one of my students suggested that God was a community, or maybe part of one. "What do you think?" I asked. I wasn't sure how to respond. I sure wasn't sure what I thought. I wonder, as I believe my students do, Is God ever part of our human community? Does God want to be part of us, to "pitch his tent" among us, as Jewish tradition suggests? Or are we too presumptive, too bold to consider God, in some ways, as "one of us?" Perhaps we spend a disproportionately low amount of energy on the idea of God as a member, if not the most important one, in every and all of our communities. Perhaps we strive to remember and care for all of our human neighbors and we forget that God shelved his divinity to live as a person for awhile and desires the same commitment to him that we give to others. Or maybe that thought isn't differentiating enough between who is human and who is divine.

So, who has an answer for my kindergarten friends? Is God part of our community? Who is my neighbor?

The Artist

Coming up in our next S-LC newsletter will be a phone interview done by Jessica Ennis and myself with a Grand Rapids local named Reb Roberts.

Reb is cool.

Reb is collaborative.

Reb believes in community building.

And Reb is an artist.

More recently in relation the Service-Learning Center, Reb created the t-shirt design for Streetfest 2008. I don't want to spoil the interview, so I won't go into detail about what was discussed.

I just want to explore a quote that got me thinking.

"Every neighborhood has an artist." --Reb

An artist in this sense may not only be someone who is gifted with a paint brush, but someone who has vision, who can view the whole. I think an artist is also someone who can look at fragmented, seemingly disconnected things and sort of connect the dots if you will. So in light of community building, an artist may look at a rather dumpy disjointed community and see its potential of becoming a sustainable community.

I recently read an article by John McKnight entitled "Why Servanthood is Bad". This is a great thought provoker about the role of service systems in community building. McKnight believes that service systems that cause a community to be dependent tend to focus more on the community's deficiencies instead of its potential strengths . This is problematic because according to McKnight, community can only be built upon the unique capacities and capabilities of a given group. I think that artists have great potential to change community because of the unique voice they can bring, and I know Reb would agree. An artist asks questions, an artists complains, an artist is not afraid of the truth (i hope). An artist is bold, an artist heals and hurts to heals. An artist cannot see pain and suffering and go along as if it did not exist. An artist must act, and so creates.

I wanted to put out the question: who is the artist in your neighborhood?

-Is it the grandma that encourages and prays for everyone on the block?
-Is it the little girl with an amazing voice who belts out a solo in church?
-Is it the troubling teenager who voices his anger in spiraling graffiti on abandoned buildings?
-Is it the man who mutters to himself as he wanders alone at night?
-Is it the lady who always has kids coming through the house?
-Maybe it is your pastor


I think that there is greatness in Reb's idea.


Follow this link to RapidGrowth for a great article on Reb:

http://www.rapidgrowthmedia.com/features/rebrob10508.aspx

and of course check out our interview in the upcoming S-LC newsletter! Blessings!

Jocelyn

How do we "read" neighborhoods and communites?

As a media production major, I have learned to "read" films in an entirely different way than I did prior to my studies. Where once I would have payed particular attention to the dialog and actions that compose any given film, I now take special notice of camera angles and camera movement, lighting, set design, the different layers of audio track, and the list goes on. In short, media production studies have immensely enriched film viewing for me, and more especially, have given me some new and powerful tools to analyze films as I discover new meanings that were previously hidden to me. This has led me to reflect some on how people might "read" communities and neighborhoods.

When we enter a new neighborhood or community, what do our eyes travel to, our ears tune into? How do we process the information in such a way as to deduce certain conclusions about the neighborhood or community? What structures exist already in our minds that direct the information that we take in towards certain conclusions? Do we process different neighborhoods and communities differently? That is, do we ever take in less information because we already have developed certain conclusions or assumptions in our minds?

I wonder, just as my film viewing experience was limited prior to my engaging in media production studies, could the same kind of thing take place in how I interact with a community. That is, is there a simplistic way to read communities as well as an enriched way to interact with neighborhoods and communities? If so, how can I develop this enriched way to understand new communities and neighborhoods? Media production is pretty straightforward, you take a series of classes with good teachers, and you are on the way to developing an enriched view of films. But what kinds of classes are there for living well in neighborhoods and communities? If not formal classes, then what?