Thursday, October 7, 2010

USC: One Month In

Wow, so much for the weekly updates huh?

Urban Servant Corps, community living, job site training and day-to-day, this is an EXPERIENCE. I don't really know how else to describe it. It is an amazing, frustrating, humbling, joyful, heartbreaking, building experience. Every day is a distinct roller coaster ride of emotions where you can be happy and excited for a person one minute and the next heartbroken and despairing about the world and society as a whole ignoring or downplaying or refusing to help our neighbors. Ok, it's not really minute to minute. It's here and there. Some days will obviously be more positive than others, some days will be more challenging.

Highlights: I've been blessed to get to know some great people. Volunteers, participants, all sorts of people. Today I heard an amazing story of a landlord who returned a check to the church not because the individual had been evicted, but because he spoke with her and decided to work with her on his own. His exact words? "Give the money to another person". That is cool.

Lowlights: It's a hard lesson to recognize that you cannot help everyone... it's impossible. I have seen for the first time a writ of restitution. How does one explain the connotations of that to someone sitting across the table?

Overall: I have been incredibly blessed to be a part of this. The community I live in, the people I serve, it's amazing. Every day I am asked to jump headfirst into whatever I am working on for the day. Some days it feels like I'm jumping into a kiddie pool, but I love it none the less.