12.26.07
Posted in AV Alumni at 10:11 pm by jcoito
Merry Christmas! We didn’t end up having much of a fourth week of Advent this year since Christmas was on a Tuesday, so this fourth Advent reflection is really a Christmas reflection. This Christmas, two ideas are at the forefront of my thoughts: Incarnation and Posadas. As I began to reflect on the mystery of Christmas, the Incarnation of God, I remembered an answer given by one of my high school students four years ago. Teaching them about the Incarnation and the etymology of the word, we talked about how, in Jesus, God was made flesh. Somewhere along the line, notes were either copied or re-read incorrectly and, on the test, my student wrote that the Incarnation was “when God was made fresh”. At the time, it was one of those amusing responses that gave me a chuckle while I was grading, but as I recalled this response this week, reflecting for this blog post, I saw a deeper insight in it.
God “was made fresh” by entering into human history, in a human life, to share the entire spectrum of human experience and to walk with us as a friend and brother, as well as our God. I feel called during this Christmas to think again about what that means. It really is an amazing thing that we proclaim and celebrate every year at Christmas time, and yet I find it’s easy to take it for granted, because it is so familiar. During this season, we celebrate the fact that through the yes of a young, engaged but unmarried, Jewish girl from Judea, God was born into the world, as a baby named Jesus, who was God, and who was also fully human. So God is made fresh for me this Christmas in the remembrance of just how new and special it was that God came to humanity, humbly, without fanfare, as a helpless infant, and lived a life full of all of the pains and joys that mark our lives. God is also made fresh for me as I recognize an opportunity to think more deeply about this aspect of my faith.
I had an opportunity to look with a new perspective on the familiar story of Christmas just two weeks ago, on a service trip to Tijuana with undergraduates at the university in L.A. where I work and am pursuing my M.A. In the celebration of las Posadas I experienced the mystery of Incarnation, God made both flesh and fresh for me. “Posadas” is Spanish for “inns”. During las Posadas, participants reenact Mary’s and Joseph’s search for a place to stay in Bethlehem. Our group participated in Las Posadas sin Fronteras (The Posadas without borders). Participants gathered on both sides of the fence separating the US and Mexico between San Diego and Tijuana. We sang the songs of las Posadas and prayed together across the fence, and afterward we threw candy back and forth to each other and celebrated, passing warm tamales across to the US side, despite the metal fence that separated us. What touched me most about this celebration was that families were gathered, some members on the American side, and the rest on the Mexican side. The entire family was not able to come to the US together, and so they were separated. Las Posadas usually end with a celebration when the last “innkeeper” welcomes the “travelers” into their home. This wasn’t possible at the border. So what did we accomplish? In my view, what we gathered to do was to reflect on the reality of the border that divides two counties and on the mystery of Jesus’ birth.
Las Posadas normally end with a celebration of the welcome of the Holy Family. We symbolically celebrate during Advent and Christmas how we, in like fashion, welcome Jesus into our lives, as the innkeeper welcomed the Holy Family. Though even those of us who are American citizens could not even legally cross where we were that day, since it was not a border checkpoint, we welcomed one another and took one another in, if only in a small and incomplete way. We didn’t solve any of the problems that contribute to issues of injustice across nations, but we prayed about them, learned more about them and perhaps planted seeds that will bear fruit in months and years to come. Learning to welcome in the stranger that we can see, and to see the love of real families seeking shelter in the face of adversity, separated by fences at Christmas time, put a human face on the story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. It helps me continue to understand more deeply how to welcome the stranger, so that I might welcome in the God that I cannot see in the same way as I try to welcome those I can. In the experience of las Posadas, God was made fresh and flesh for me in the faces of those who I stood with at the border fence and in the way those faces connected me to two pilgrims seeking shelter among strangers a couple of millennia ago.
Jason Coito
Lawrence, MA 2002-2003
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12.23.07
Posted in AV 2007-08 Domestic at 6:38 pm by lclark
Dressed in her Christmas finest, Dr. Estelle Moffa, our sprightly principle, went from teacher to teacher handing out presents and giving everyone a kiss on the cheek at the St. Nicholas of Tolentine faculty luncheon. Father Joe Girone, pastor of St. Nick’s, had just grabbed a big handful of black olives and Mr. Galarza, 7th grade teacher, and Sean sat discussing how happy they were to be rid of the students while finishing a bottle of wine. Kenny G Christmas music tinkled on the radio in the background of the festively decorated faculty room. Everyone seemed happy and relaxed for a change at St. Nick’s, teachers were smiling and laughing instead of screaming and scolding. When Dr. Moffa got to me she whispered in my ear, “Thanks for putting up with us.” In those small words I knew that I was appreciated and what I was doing at St. Nick’s was important.
Flash back about a month ago and you would find me crying to my mother one evening after an especially trying day of school. “I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” I said. I knew that coming into this year that teaching in an urban school setting in the Bronx would be difficult, but I didn’t know just how difficult. This year I have been faced with limited resources, lack of respect from students, a feuding faculty and an eccentric principle. Some days Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Catholic School has seemed more like a zoo than a primary school, especially with its four rabbits and hamster in the library. But I feel like through the challenges of the year and challenges to come, I have been able to stick to the purpose of why I’m here, to enrich the lives of the students through teaching art and Spanish and to grow in spirituality. My teaching philosophy that I try to implement everyday is that all students need to feel loved, respected and should have an outlet to express themselves. I feel that I have learned so much from some of the veteran teachers at St. Nick’s, after so many years of teaching you can tell that they picked the profession for the right reasons. I am going to highlight a teacher whose kindness and joy for teaching has inspired me during this Advent season.
The teacher that inspired me the most is Sr. Bernadette. Sr. Bernadette, God bless her, has been teaching 1st grade for 50 years, she just had her jubilee this year, and has been teaching at St. Nick’s for 37 years. I can only imagine the changes she has seen over the years, from a thriving Irish community to more diverse populations moving in and out. Today the school is predominately Dominican, Puerto Rican, African-American and Vietnamese and the primary school is in what used to be the high school. She confessed to me that every year teaching is a challenge, and you never stop learning as a teacher. She said that last years’ class “almost broke her”. Imagine 41 students all crammed in little desks in one classroom. One night as she walked home to the convent, which is adjacent to our apartment, she stopped to have a conversation about some of the troubles I was having. She reassured me that I was doing a great job and that if you get through to just one student that is all that matters.
A couple of weeks ago I stopped in her classroom to tell her to bring pencils to art class, and paused in amazement to admire her vast Christmas decorations that covered her room. The array of decorations accumulated from the past 50 years include a Christmas tree, snow globes, animatronic singing dolls, a train, lights and more covering every nook and cranny of the room. Sr. Bernadette said, “You want to hear something?” I said sure and she proceeded to stop her math lesson, turn off the lights in the room, and turn on all the Christmas lights. It looked magical, like something out of a story book. Sister starts her decorating for Christmas at the beginning of November and it takes about a month to complete, she feels it brings something special to the classroom. All the students excitedly stood up on her command, one student, who usually is a bit ornery, whispered to me in a serious tone “My parents are going to cry when they come see this,” Sr. Bernadette hit play and the students sung along to Josh Groban’s “You raise me up”, with much fervor and pre-rehearsed hand motions. I looked at Sr. Bernadette and saw the sparkle in her eye of a much younger woman. I felt like I was watching little angels sing their hearts out, and it’s moments like this that you realize that all your hard work is worth it. Even though sometimes Sr. Bernadette’s discipline methods are a little old school, and she has been known on occasion to grab a student by the scruff of his neck and say, “go write the reader!” you can tell that in her 50 years she has not lost the joy of teaching and that she cares if each one of her students learns and does well.
I feel honored to be in the presence of teachers that have such great experience their hearts in the right places. I have come to realize that no matter how difficult the situation is, how strapped for resources, exhausting it is, it is all worth it if you’re effecting just one student for the better, it’s all worth it.
Lauren Clark
Bronx, NY
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12.22.07
Posted in AV Alumni at 3:04 pm by Eileen King
Last year, my sister gave me a daily Advent reflection book with excerpts from Henri Nouwen. The front cover of the book has the best depiction of the birth of Jesus that I have ever seen. It’s a painting called The Nativity by Gari Melchers (you can see it if you google it.) It shows the Holy family it what appears to be an old clay shack that reminds me of something I would see in Latin America. Joseph is sitting on a chair gazing down at Jesus lying in a manger. It’s Mary, though, that catches my eye. She’s sitting on the floor with her head resting on Joseph’s side. She looks completely exhausted and depleted, like she doesn’t even have the energy to pick Jesus up or get up from the floor.
What about Mary? She did all the hard work necessary to bring Jesus into the world, and yet, in all the Jesus-celebrating that goes on at Christmas, her vital role in that event seems overlooked. She doesn’t get the recognition she rightly deserves. I find myself always drawn to the Christmas song Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant, perhaps because it’s one of the few Christmas reflections that stops to consider the event from Mary’s perspective. My favorite line goes like this: “Do you wonder when you watch my face, If a wiser one should have had my place? But I offer all I am for the mercy of Your plan.” It ends with an almost desperate pleading that God give her strength. “Help me be strong, help me be.” And finally, she just gives in, “Help me.”
I have recognized a change in myself in recent years. My relationship to my faith is at a restless, sometimes adversarial place. As I try to settle into an adult faith with which I feel at home and a part, I frequently push up against apparent inconsistencies of faith that I witness among the faithful, myself included—abuse of power, violence, apathy, oppression, intolerance. Mike Scuderi, an Augustinian who worked at the parish when I worked in the AV office, used to joke that I couldn’t get through lunch without pontificating about this thing or that being an example of misogyny.
Perhaps this fight in me comes from an underlying desire to feel like my faith is relevant–to find a part of faith to which I can relate. The image of Mary in that picture and the lyrics of that song resonate; I can relate to feeling exhausted and depleted as Mary looks in that picture. Although not a mother, I can imagine as a woman how it must feel to give up your whole life–and your body for 9 months–as a sacrifice for your new child as Mary did for Jesus. I can relate to the desire to live my life according to God’s plan yet feeling like I have no idea how to do that. I can relate to thinking that, if I’m going to do God’s work on earth, I’m going to need her help in doing so.
In addition to preparing for Jesus’s birth this advent, I’m focussing on Mary as an example of service, humility and faith. I hope that, by connecting with and relating to the struggles she may have felt in her life, I will learn how I can better serve God and others, and live humbly and faithfully as she did.
Eileen King, San Diego ‘02-’03
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12.13.07
Posted in AV Alumni at 3:18 pm by jmpowers
Advent is a time of big promises and expectations. From the very beginning, as God is handing down His curse on Adam and Eve after their disobedience, He promises them a savior. The promise happens so fast most people miss it. But in case anyone missed it the first time, God gives the promise over and over telling Abraham that his descendants will be a blessed people, telling David that the savior will be of his line, and having the Messiah foretold by the prophets. And what a promise it is. Before the fall, man was in full communion with the deepest desire of his heart: God. To lose that is an incredible blow. Like losing a family member, the separation is overwhelming when we let our souls consider it. Imagine if there was no hope of reuniting with God. How fearful and empty our lives would be.
Isaiah 35:4 says, “…say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come… He will come to save you.’” Just read that verse again. Say it out loud. Consider how powerful that is. Your God is coming. He’s coming to save you. It’s a powerful promise, and it’s the promise of Advent (at least part of it). There’s a lot to expect from a promise like that. It’s enough to get excited about.
Consider now that the people who heard those words when they were spoken, and many generations after them, never lived to see them fulfilled. But they waited in faith, as Hebrews 11:13 says, and welcomed what was promised from a distance.
Since Advent started two Sundays ago, that’s what I’ve been wondering about. We all know Christ was born. We all know for sure that Christmas is coming. But before Jesus was born, those who hung their hopes on the God of Abraham didn’t know when this Savior would come. They didn’t know when Christmas was coming. All they really had to go on was that the Lord said it was going to happen. If I’d been one of those people, I wonder if I would have believed the promise, if I would have lived in hope that a Savior would come.
Let’s add to that, that when the Savior did finally come, he could be found laying in a trough for animal food, being attended to by a man and woman of no worldly note, with shepherds (a class of people commonly despised for not being able to keep the ceremonial law) milling about. It’s certainly not the scene that the promise conjures. I would think more along the lines of a nice dignified birth indoors, a proper bed for the baby, perhaps some trumpets and harps playing. I wonder if I’d been one of the shepherds that night, would I have accepted that this was the Savior my God had promised me. Would I look on the baby and know that I was looking at the Christ?
Aside from the group gathered on the night of His birth, there were three people, the Magi, who did accept that this was the great king that was promised. They weren’t even Jews, the people to which this Savior had been promised. Nonetheless, these gentile specialists of the supernatural saw the star, believed that it heralded the birth of the king, and traveled to see Him. It’s not as if the Magi simply wanted to visit Jesus out of curiosity. No, as Matthew 2 reports they were overjoyed when they found the child and immediately they bowed down and worshiped Him. And rightly so. As we all know, Jesus grew up and became the ultimate sacrifice, paying our ransom so that we can one day live in eternity with the Father.
Because that has happened - Christ was born and His earthly mission accomplished - does not mean that Advent is only a time of thinking back to the expectation of the Savior’s birth. As Christians, we live in a constant Advent season because Christ is promised to return once more. In this season, we find ourselves also looking forward to the second coming of Christ.
Advent to me, among other things, is about the promise, the anticipation of its fulfillment, and what I do when I see how the promise is fulfilled. I want to be the person who hears the promise, who lives in faithful anticipation of its fulfillment, and the person who is overjoyed and on my knees worshipping when I meet Christ.
So, if I’ve heard the promise, and I believe it will be kept, what do I do until He comes again? How do I make straight His path? I must love Him and be about the business of the Kingdom. But how do I do that?
During my volunteer year in the Bronx (2001-2002), Fr. Joe challenged us to spend part of each week doing something that was outside our comfort zone. In those early days of my volunteer year, I was on fire and ready to change the world, so I decided to accept the challenge by spending some time each week at the Tolentine Soup Kitchen (which is now, sadly, closed). I’d never been comfortable around the homeless. I was never sure how to act, and, looking back, my reactions to them were usually something shameful. But I wanted to give it a go and really spread some love.
The first three weeks were the worst. I went to the soup kitchen three days a week to serve lunch and from day one, I wondered how I would ever love the people I served. Human wreckage was the only way I could describe them. There were drunks, drug addicts, the mentally disturbed, smelly ones, dirty ones, and those that looked on the verge of violence. And a lot of them in my first weeks didn’t seem to be thankful. I waited for a feeling of love, or even just good will, but it escaped me. Had it not been for Brother Michael Duffy, who ran the soup kitchen, I probably would have stopped going. Eventually I decided I would never feel any special affection for the guests in the soup kitchen so I resolved to simply go in, serve soup, and leave.
It took a few months of doing that until one day it suddenly occurred to me that I loved our guests at the soup kitchen very much. I looked forward to going to work at the soup kitchen more than any of my other jobs. I looked forward to seeing the guests, serving them some soup, and making sure they got their fill. My love for them didn’t arise because they’d suddenly become more desirable sorts of people or had been courteous and said thank you. All that foolishness had melted away when I gave up my expectations and desires — the way I thought it was supposed to be — and just decided to love them. I loved them by giving them something they needed. I expected that I’d be the one bringing Christ into the soup kitchen. Instead, He met me in the soup kitchen and all I needed to do to see Him was to stop searching for a feeling and do His good work. True Love opens our eyes to the ways Christ appears in our lives. It seems so simple to me now, but I have to confess that I was ignorant when I started my volunteer year.
The promise during my volunteer year was that I would be an instrument of God’s love to the community I served. I anticipated that to be accomplished in a certain way. If I’d waited for a feeling or something else that looked more like what I expected, I would still be waiting.
Christ never comes in the way we expect Him. He didn’t when he was born. He was not the one many people were expecting, but He was the One that was promised.
Looking back in this season, I thank the Father that He sent the Son for our benefit. Looking at what is promised from a distance, I pray that we will be open to seeing the ways in which Christ reveals Himself to us. I pray that we will be guided by the star to the place where He is. And when we get there, we will be overjoyed and we will worship.
It is Advent. Our Lord is coming. Let us have the ears to hear and the eyes to see Him.
John M. Powers, Bronx AV Community 2001-2002
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Posted in AV 2007-08 Domestic at 1:45 pm by amcmillin
“I, Andrew McMillin, commit myself to be an Augustinian Volunteer because I have been given so much in my life and I want to give back to God’s people through service and living simply.”
These were the words that I spoke in St. Augustine’s on that August day in front of alumni, parishioners, and my fellow volunteers. These were words that I thought sounded good and summed up what I thought I wanted to do with this year of volunteering. These were ideals to live by that seemed to glorify what I was getting myself into. I had no real connection to these words, until I arrived in Lawrence and began my journey.
These words have penetrated my day to day. These words speak to the depths of what I am doing. I have thought about these words continually, and everyday they seem to spring new life and meaning. I always say that I am blessed and have been given so much, but it was only until I started work that I realized how much I am blessed. I remember one day I was sitting in one of the offices, doing some grading and there was a student in there who had in-house suspension. It was around lunchtime, and they were getting lunch for him. He had a reduced lunch, so he only had to pay $0.70. Sadly he didn’t even have $0.70. I almost died inside. It is a tragedy that what we lose in the couch, another person doesn’t have for lunch. At that moment, I had a better idea of the people I was serving. But I realized also that I am not only blessed in what I have been given (although it is a lot), but I am blessed because my students are allowing me to enter into their lives in a personal way. I have daily conversations with them in class and outside of class. My best conversations are the one-on-ones near the microwave in the cafeteria. This is the time when I can interact with a student in a more meaningful way. There are no distractions, and better yet they have to stay around at least 2 minutes because that’s how long their food takes to heat up. I look for those moments to find out something new about the students. Some information is depressing to hear, but others reveal sunshine amidst the darkness.
Service has taken on a new meaning. When I thought about service, it was always in the direct way. It was doing a food drive, helping at a soup kitchen, or anything else that would reveal its result in a timely manner. Teaching at Notre Dame High School has proved otherwise. Teaching is a tricky field because the results are not seen immediately, but instead are revealed in the years to come. That has been difficult for me to grasp. Not seeing the product frustrates me at times because I am unsure if I am making any difference. Religion, especially Morality, is tough to teach to juniors. Most of the time they are talking about other topics, napping, standing up and walking around the room. And so it is discouraging at times, but then there is a glimmer of hope because in passing they will mention something about morality and how they are learning. Those are the times when I realize that I am doing some good for them. Just being there and showing that I am dedicated to them for that year has strengthened the bonds of our relationship. There is one student I have named Gio. He is one of my juniors. He is one funny kid. He can be loud and wild at times, but he knows when to sit and listen as well. Every day before class starts he walks up to me and shakes my hand, and makes the comment, “New shirt, new tie!” He gets me every time. I think about those times and I can’t do anything but smile and realize that God is doing great things in my life. He has brought so many wonderful people into my life, and will continue to bring new faces and new stories.
When work seems to be too much, I always have my community to depend on. I have Nort, Tessa, Lindsay, and Jane to turn to when I just need to get it out. Whether it was a fight I had to break up between two of my girl students, or realizing that I love my students so much, but I am not a huge fan of teaching. They are always there. It really doesn’t matter what time of the day it is. Nort gets up before the rooster, and I know Tessa gets into bed just as Nort is waking up. (Exaggeration) But seriously, they have been a great help for me to digest and reflect on all of the things that are going on at once. Our prayer nights are times to reveal more layers about us, and it seems like everyday I learn something new about at least one of my roommates at the dinner table. The dinner table is the heart of the house. It is where we eat our meals, have conversations and prayer, as well as a place where most of our games are invented. It is the anchor of the house because it is there that everything comes to the fore and we are able to work through it to the best of our abilities. Community life has been a challenge, but in a good way. Living with four others who have different styles of living has made me aware of how I live and made me more considerate of others. I would love to watch TV at times throughout the day, but I know others would too, so I choose not to watch it. I know that doesn’t make me a saint, but it is those little things that are happening to me and are contributing to me as a whole.
So that is my life as of now. It has its good times, and its not so good times, but it is something that I am thankful to have at this time in my life. It has given me new perspectives on life, and its only December! I am looking forward to the second half of the year, and I hope to continue to be present to both my students and my community.
Andrew McMillin
Lawrence, MA
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12.04.07
Posted in AV Alumni at 11:16 am by osavolor
I remember that, at one point in my life, I seemed to be in a constant state of waiting. Waiting to finish school, waiting to meet that “special someone”, waiting for my volunteer year to start, and eventually, waiting to marry that someone I’d eventually met. After that, it was waiting for our first child and consequently our second. It was annoying to me; I’m not an inherently patient person, and this constant holding pattern grated on my nerves. Would I ever get where I was going? And by the way, where WAS it that I was headed? What I’ve come to realize, and what Advent reminds me, is not simply the art and beauty of “waiting”, but the action of anticipation, and what that truly means.
Advent, to me, is a time of preparation; of anticipation for the birth of our Lord. Anticipation seems to be a word that conveys excitement and joy in its very meaning, an attitude that I work hard to cultivate during this holy season. I try to use the few weeks to renew things in my life that need sprucing up: maybe a greater commitment to my morning prayer, a more patient attitude, or time set aside for quiet reflection. I try to receive the sacrament of reconciliation so that I can even renew my own conscience and my outlook on things. And finally, I rejoice because this truly is such a joyful time of year in our faith. I find that I rejoice in my own, simple ways counting my blessings, working on an Advent calendar with my daughters, taking them to visit the life-size Nativity at city hall, and just being joyful. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the season, there is that joy that even the crankiest scrooge can’t deny. And it comes, of all things, from the joy of waiting for our Lord. Who knew?! The very thing I loathe actually enhances and strengthens my faith.
As Advent gets into full swing, I encourage all of us to savor the moment; to develop a more “stop and smell the roses” (er, poinsettias?) attitude, and to stop worrying about where we’re going, but to worry more about our attitude while we’re getting there. Advent is a time to take joy in the process of that getting where we are going; not simply to rush through until we’ve arrived. I remember working at Hogar Infantil in La Gloria, Mexico during my volunteer year, and running into one of the little boys sitting on the front steps. He was watching a soccer game take shape and I asked him, “Don’t you want to play?”
“No,” he said, with an air of tranquility. “I’m waiting.”
Confused, I pressed, “What are you waiting for?”
“For nothing,” he shrugged. “I’m just waiting.”
I wish that for all of us this Advent. May we see joy in the details and be at peace with “just waiting”.
Jess (Burgess) Smith
San Diego AV Community, 2000-2001
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Posted in AV Alumni at 8:36 am by April Gagne
Hello All,
Just a quick note to make you aware of something special happening on the AV blog during this advent season. We have four great alumni who have agreed to write advent reflections, one for each week of advent. We encourage you to take a few minutes and read the great insights that some of our AV alumni have to share with us.
We wish you all a joyful and reflective advent season!
Peace,
Fr. Joe, Pat & April
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12.03.07
Posted in AV 2007-08 Domestic at 5:54 pm by Msdamon2
“I’m moving to Chicago for a year to Volunteer.” I said that statement hundreds of times in the months before my departure and I don’t think I really knew what it meant until Father Joe left me in the basement office of Catholic Charities in the not so nice or safe neighborhood of Chicago.
The first person I met at work was Hot Dog; yes his name is Hot Dog because he eats them for dinner at least four nights a week. He was vacuuming the waiting room and immediately greeted me with a warm hug. I’m not sure I had ever been hugged by a stranger so closely before, let alone a middle aged African American man. At that moment I had no idea that he would become my best friend in the office and help me with every problem from being afraid to walk to my car to needing food for a client who hadn’t eaten in a couple days.
I have my own cubicle at work with pictures of my family, my friends back home and of course my five new best friends and house mates. I have a computer that only has one program on it and my drawers are filled with paperwork that at first I had no clue what to do with. My first few weeks in the office were filled with sitting around waiting for my boss to give me direction, which still takes awhile to get. The women I work with are all African American and except for my direct boss, they are all mothers. Telling them I was a nanny for two years really doesn’t impress them I soon realized. Informing them I’m working for no money just confuses them and asking them for help makes me just look stupid to them. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.
Now here I am in my fourth month working as a case manager for Teen Parenting Services, which is just one of the programs offered to adolescents at Catholic Charities, and like I constantly say to my Mom on our brief early morning phone calls before work, I feel like a social worker and I love it. My mornings are spent chatting with Ms. Givens, Ms. Tyson and Ms. Cooper who have their cubicles right next to me. We prepare for our afternoons which will be filled with scheduled clients and those clients who just decide to show up. I’ve conquered the confusing computer program and the paperwork is like second nature to me now. Everyone in the office knows me as the white girl who is always smiling. They think my first name is Angel so whenever a client comes in to see me “Angel” is yelled over the intercom system. Then I walk to the front hoping that I’ll recognize one of the dozens of girls and babies that fill our small waiting room. Sometimes it’s a new client with a new set of problems and sometimes it’s a client who I’ve met with several times just coming in for more bus cards or advice on something. Some days I travel to their homes or to their high schools and wear my name tag that states I’m a volunteer, my new identity, which I’ve become proud of.
I love all my 54 clients and their born or soon to be born babies so much. The girls who just come in to get bus cards, the clients who come in because their baby needs diapers, the ones who don’t know who the father of their baby is and need advice, the ones whose parents have kicked them out and they’re sleeping on a relatives couch. All of them smile and thank me and know that if they need me to be a reference for a job or to call their mother for them I will. I’m probably a little to eager to save all the pregnant teens in the all black neighborhood of the Southside, but I figure if I can help them even a little bit then it’s worth all the stress and anxiety that come along with working in this atmosphere.
Of course my job is great and I love being there, but the best part of my day is pulling into our driveway at 104th and Maplewood. My house mates are always home already and I know that they’ll be inside waiting for me before we have dinner. I run up the back ramp in my black stilettos that have now become part of my feet and pour through the door to yell that I’m home. Brett, Claire, Jeannie, Pat and Susan are the reasons that I get through my day at work. Knowing that I have such a wonderful community to come home to and share everything with makes the struggle at work completely worth it. We’ve had the most unbelievable experience so far and I’m just genuinely happier when we’re together and that’s something that I hope won’t change as the year continues.
I’d be crazy to say that I don’t miss home, but I’d also be crazy to say that I ever want to leave. I’m happy here and I’m trying so hard in everything I do, which hasn’t been easy. I’ve always been a passionate person, but I’ve never been so passionate about helping people. This experience has taught me to not always put my own silly needs first. I guess you could say that a flame as been lit within me since the minute I stepped off the plane in Philly for orientation and I hope and pray that that fire continues to burn long after my year here is through.
Amanda Angell
Chicago, IL
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