Gains and Losses

This may or may not be a short post, I'm trying to sort through some recent thoughts that I've been having.

First off though... let's catch up. I'm doing well, going home for Thanksgiving was one of the best things that I could've done. Not because I was terribly homesick, but just because I needed it emotionally. The night before I left, on the 22nd of November, I was mugged a few blocks away from our house after getting some wendys. It all took place around 6 pm. There were two guys who had a knife, which was a scary thing when it happened but now is almost humorous. The reason it is kinda funny is because when I left the YAV house, I left with just my keys and credit card in my waist band. When the people mugged me they asked for all of my money, I left my wallet at home so I had no cash and I didn't mention my credit card. They then asked for my phone, however I had left my phone at the YAV house so that it could charge. Finally they asked for my car keys, but as you know from my previous post, my car had been totaled. So the muggers were quite disgusted and after patting me down, one of them hit me in the stomach and they both ran off. Again, it was scary at the time, but kinda funny now.

So like I said, it was good being home after that experience. I drove back down with my Mom and my F 150 and also a sousaphone in the back of the truck (gotta start practicing for Maryville.)

The construction on Pauger is going great. We have a group of college aged people this week which is nice. All of the work is a bunch of finish stuff, base board, window trim, caulk and spackle... things like that.

So one of the things that I had been tossing around in my head was the thought of what I left coming down here. I left my dog, my family, great friends, an awesome bible study group, and the chance to further my education. These were all ME things though... relationships and plans in my life that I thought I needed, but they weren't God's. God put those people in my life when I needed them at that time, and going through high school I had the "5 year plan" but as my roomates said tonight, "do you want to make God laugh? Then make plans." And it's true, we can make as many plans as we want, but we don't know what will happen. If you told me at the beginning of high school that I wasn't going to go to college and instead I was going to work construction for a year with below minimal wage and live in a intentional christian community with 8 other people I would've laughed in your face. And that's because I had made my own plans. Our site coordinator, Kathy, had made the comment tonight that God will put interruptions into our plans, and for New Orleans that interruption was Hurricane Katrina. I used to think "how could God be in a natural disaster, why would he send that onto us?" I'm still trying to decipher it, but Kathy had said that before the Hurricane her plan was completely different, so maybe the storm was God's way of putting people back on the right track, don't quote me on that because I'm still thinking through it.

That last paragraph wasn't meant to be a "debbie downer" passage saying that I wish I could change my choice, because I have switched my perspective recently from what I left and lost to what I have gained. I have gained a whole new set of friends who share my passion for helping others in any way possible. I have gained a new perspective in life, I have grown as a person, gotten to really experience the world and see what it's like to not be sheltered like I was in Charlotte. I have gained significant life and leadership experience as well as new skills that I wouldn't have gotten the chance to experience just by going to college.

The thing that I like about the college that I will be going to though is how service driven it is. I think that God really had a hand in my college choice and my after high school choice too. That's why I didn't take the SAT till June 4th of my senior year, why I didn't go on a single college visit until after I graduated high school, and why I didn't have a idea about a really good college until I talked to a friend of my youth pastor who is a maryville college alumni. God had and has a plan for me through all of it, I'm just along for the ride.

This year has been one of the more difficult times of my life, but it has also been the most rewarding. God planned this year for me, and He knew that I would be leaving some things behind, but as we also learned from tonight's review of our book, God sometimes calls us to dissolve our Fellowship and Community relationships for the betterment and progress of both. My North Carolina friends are still my friends, I'm just adding some New Orleans friends to the mix. I called this a gap year, but I think the YAV motto applies better, for it truly is a year of service for a lifetime of change.

-eric

ps hope the holiday season is going well for everyone, I'll be home on the 22nd!

Reaching Out For a Hand

Hey everyone, I know it has been awhile since my last post, but a lot has been going on all at once. So the house that I have been working on is on Pauger Street which is in the Gentilly area of New Orleans. My homeowner, Ms. Z (short for Zanzer), says the water was up to about 5 or 6 feet and that CNN actually showed it on tv. I can't imagine the feeling that you would get by seeing your house surrounded by water. Ms. Z evacuated to Texas near Houston when the hurricane was coming through. Her house has been.... interesting to work on. Everything from break-ins to a slightly inebriated woman coming in the house and peeing in my linen closet. Pauger has seen kittens and crime, new volunteers and old ones reminiscing about to go to a new house, and Pauger has seen what a group of volunteers and a work site manager can do.

On a different note from work, I have something else that I've been meaning to blog about, but I guess I have been thinking of the right way to put it. I went through YAV orientation hearing people talk about going to their sites thinking they were going to be the perfect YAV, and hearing others talk about conflict, troubles, and the trials that we would face during our year. I heard all of that, but I ignored it, I came and thought I was going to be the super YAV... mascot of the YAV program, the one people were going to remember, my face on cereal boxes and coffee mugs, and it would be like the Disney Hercules movie where Hercules had action figures and sandals made after him. Yeah... that was going to be me. But then God threw a wrench into that plan and made me do the one thing that I am worse at, asking for help.

When I say God threw a wrench, I really mean he put a pick-up truck in front of me that had a trailer ball. It sheared off part of my brush guard and sent the rest into my hood. The truck and car in front of it were fine, but I was sitting on the interstate with a seriously messed up car and no idea what to do. I came down here thinking I was going to be super YAV... at that time I just felt like a kid who didn't know what to do, trying to act like an adult and take care of something. Thankfully my boss Phil was driving the other way down the interstate when it happened, so he showed up soon after the other people had left and helped me to get to the gas station that was right off the exit ramp. There I waited for a flat bed to take me to the body shop. That was the longest 50 minutes of my life. It was my first week with volunteers by myself, and it was also the first day. Phil went to go tell them and I was by myself waiting for this flat bed. I tried calling my mom and my brother and then ended up calling my youth pastor Hansen, I figured that he could help to calm my nerves and help me think clearer, which he did do. So after I hung up with Hansen, I took his advice to get something to drink, and when I came back I saw the only humor in the situation which was the sign that I was parked under "loiterers" will be towed, I thought, "I actually do need to be towed, so maybe I should loiter under this for awhile..." I talked with my brother and then my Mom and Dad, and also the geico people multiple times while trying to wait for the flat bed.

The guy finally came and I told him to take me to Kehoe automotive, he had no idea how to get there, which was amazingly useful (sarcasm), but thanks to smartphones, we eventually got there. I walked in with my piece of brush guard that had broken off, and the first thing the people say is "we don't do body work..." again amazingly useful (again... sarcasm). So I have to continue my ride in the flat bed to LJ's Body Shop, the guy didn't know how to get there either... I won't even say it because we all know it would be sarcastic.

Long story short, we get to LJ's and the next day I find out that my car was totaled. At that point I realized what exactly God was about to make me do. I had to start asking for help. I quickly realized how amazing the people in my life are (that is not sarcasm). I found out that my friends are more than just the people that I laugh and watch football with, they are people who would go out of their way to take me places just because I ask. These are the trials that YAV orientation was talking about. I'm a person who literally never asks for help, I've always been the person who is helping, and even if I do need help, I don't ask because I don't want to bother anyone. But I quickly figured out that that wasn't going to fly anymore and that I would need to be on the other side of things and that I would have to ask for help. I thought I was coming to New Orleans to help the people down here but I have found out that I am being helped just as much.

I can't thank the friends that I have enough, and I can't believe that there are people like them who care this much, but there are, and it has really made me realize that everyone at some point has to reach out for a hand.

What's Up in the Wetlands

This week has been full of training. From grouting to laminate to bamboo. We did bamboo today and it was my favorite of all of the flooring types, it went down well and it looks great. This week has been really great because I get to see a change in these houses, and it's a change that I am causing. There is that phrase from Mahatma Ghandi that says "be the change that you want to see in the world." Well for the past few years I have wanted to see a change, but I haven't had the means to do so. But now with this program, I do. I have seen a change in these houses, seen the smiles of home owners who get to see that they are about to be living in a home that is their own. This work is so fantastic.

I come home each day and feel exhausted and also satisfied. I get to go out each day and use table saws and nail guns and see before my eyes a floor being made. The disappearance of concrete and a floor appearing is amazing, we go into a practically empty house and make a floor that people can build a life on, play with their children on, and after we clean it possibly eat off of... I wouldn't, but they can if they want. The other thing that I really love about Project Homecoming is the people. I have made great friends through this program, we sweat together, bleed together, build together, and sweat some more together. We make jokes like "asbestos, more like tastesbestos." And these people, despite our differences in age, are becoming my greatest friends because we all are serving for a year and we all want to give people homes to live in.

I sent a text the other day to one of my friends that said "this is where I'm meant to be." The days are hard sometimes. It takes me a little while to wake up, some days are difficult and long, but this is where I am meant to be. Our site coordinator mentioned last night that God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called. I may not be the most experienced person on our training days, but God is going to equip me to do what He has sent me down here to do. I miss my friends and my family, but this service is exactly what I need, it's time for me to make a difference, it's time for me to do the work, and maybe it's time to change and grow in my faith and help this wonderful city of New Orleans to do the same.

Wish me luck in training tomorrow, more bamboo and then some framing in the afternoon.

It's Time

I leave for New Orleans tomorrow. My boxes are packed, I have the supplies, and my tank is full. But am I ready? My mom has been telling me constantly to clean my room, do my laundry, write my thank you letters and say my goodbyes. I always said back that I have time, that I have a couple of months, there is nothing to worry about. But I don't anymore, it's tomorrow. I'm 18, my friends are either already at college, or are going soon, and I'm about to go on this brand new adventure.

The goodbyes have been hard, cleaning my room was difficult too, and I'm excited for this next chapter in my life. There will be trials, but I know that God will shepherd me through all valleys, just as He has promised.

I'm ready, it's not next year, or a couple months, it's tomorrow. It's time.

Summer Time thoughts of a YAV

So I've been reading this book, its called The Irresistible Revolution. It's by this cool guy named Shane Claiborne. It's subtitled "living as an ordinary radical." Now Shane isn't just any long-haired "radical," Shane goes all over the world for mission work. He spent months in Calcutta, India working alongside Mother Teresa, played with the children of Baghdad during the war in Iraq playing simple juggling games with them. Shane is the head of a group of Christian Activists in Philadelphia titled "The Simple Way." http://www.thesimpleway.org/about/.

So why did I just post all of that information about Shane? Shane's dedication to the book is "Dedicated to all the hypocrites, cowards, and fools... just like me." That really got to me for some reason. Just the idea that he isn't trying to portray himself as a better person than anyone else makes him feel more down to earth. He makes his own clothes, grows his food, and does everything he can to help, but he considers himself just like everyone else. He talks about radicals and martyrs and saints, and he mentions that that is why he calls it the "ordinary" radical once again because he doesn't want to be viewed as special, just another person. I was talking to one of my good friends the other day and he mentioned that I'm a good Christian, and a good person for taking a gap year for mission work. That sat with me the wrong way, I don't want to be considered better than other people just because I'm not going to college right away. My friends who are going to college are doing great things too, they are expanding their knowledge which is just as valuable, I just like to think that we are taking different paths, but we are all on the same way to what God has planned for us.



My last mission trip with my church is on Sunday. We are going to Washington, D.C. I'm excited and a little sentimental too. I knew that this summer would come, but I don't know if I was truly ready for it. My last high school mission trip, my last montreat youth conference, all of those things. I don't like thinking about it, but at the same time I know that I will try to do more in the future, try to help everyone that I can, try to do as much as I can, and try to truly live for HIM with all of my heart. I don't want to be considered a better person for what I want to do and what I do, I just want to be considered a Christian, normal, plain, ordinary.

New Info

Found out that I am leaving for New Orleans on the 18th of August, then flying up to New York with the other volunteers on the 22nd. Still trying to get my fundraising taken care of, but I'm not worried, I know that it will be given by the wonderful friends and community that I am surrounded by. Meanwhile, here is a video from youtube about Young Adult Volunteers in New Orleans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i_Allj6uhw

What I'm doing

http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/yav/

This is from the General Assembly Mission Council website, it has some info on the YAV program and a little on what YAVs do.