It has just been made official: I am headed back to New Orleans to manage the Olive Tree Volunteer Village with the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance for the second time. Since I slacked so much on updating this blog while I was in AmeriCorps I have decided to start a new one that will be dedicated to another stint in New Orleans. Hopefully I will be able to tie some stories in from AmeriCorps that will be entertaining and relevant to the work that I will be doing. This time I'll be there from April (Easter weekend) through mid-to-late July. You can find the new blog "Crescent City Chronicles Take 2" at www.crescentcitychronicles2.blogspot.com. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I will. Thanks for all of your support.

Camden Children's Garden

My team is currently serving at the Camden Children's Garden in Camden, NJ. We are really enjoying it so far and have already started getting one of the community gardens ready for planting. I will try to write more when I have some down time but pictures will have to do for now.




This wonderful woman made lunch for us while we were working in the garden at her housing complex.

Oops...

I can't believe that I have let this go so long without updating... sorry. Really quickly, just to start things back up again, I thought I would add a few pictures of my new crew. The first picture is the whole WOLF unit... there are three units at my campus for AmeriCorps*NCCC. The next two pictures are of my team: Wolf 4, The Funky Bunch. I will update with more about my first project and the last two months soon.

Hearin' the call y'all

Awhile back when I was in NOLA working with PDA we had a group of volunteers who used the song "Everyday People" as part of their devotion time. If you haven't heard this song it's about everyday people making miracles and changing lives. I remember sitting there listening to the song and watching many of the volunteers start to cry. Of course it was a Thursday night when everyone has their ah-ha moments and the team had put a lot of effort into planning their devotions. As the song went on, the woman next to me looked me in the eyes--yes, she was teary-eyed--and said "I guess I never really listened to the words before." That's what we constantly miss. We just don't listen well enough. I know I even go through phases where I am a really good listener and then at other times I don't hear a thing people are saying around me unless I know they're talking directly to me. Sometimes this skill can be really helpful in situations where there are 60-70 people who all have a question for you ;) but for the most part it's really unfortunate.

The beginning of this blog is filled with me answering the call to serve with PDA on the Gulf during the fall. Now this blog is shifting into my service with AmeriCorps*NCCC. As time goes on we are called to new, different, and familiar adventures. But we have to start by hearing the call. No two callings are the same so we really have to pay attention. Listen to the people and world around you; you may be interested in what you'll learn if you simply pay attention.

I am making it a priority for me to be truly present at all times, pay as much attention as possible and to seriously listen to the clues. When I was a co-chaplain at Skyline the other year Matt planned a simple excercise that asked us to pay attention to a single block of earth and to notice as much as we possibly could. We noticed the ants at work and everything else that happens on what we think of as a small patch of dirt. If we take the time to notice things then we realize that nearly everything is more complex than we realize on the initial assessment.

My words of wisdom for the day... Listen carefully and notice everything that you can.

Hear the call y'all.


I will upload a few pictures of my new "home" soon.

Update

I'm writing this from a "computer lab" on the campus of AmeriCorps NCCC in Perry Point, MD. The winter has been hectic so far; I'm not sure if I can truly wrap up the last month in one post so I don't think that I'll even try right now.

I am in the beginning of training at my new post as team leader for the NCCC. For those of you who may not know what that is, it's a full-time government sponsored service program. This program is one of the first responding agencies in disaster situations. So far everything is going well and I am looking forward to spending more time getting to know my coworkers before the corps members arrive in February.

I will update more later.

Costa Rica Adventure!

Hey all,
I just got back from Costa Rica and had an amazing time with my best friend Jeanine! We spent our week of vacation stumbling through our spanish, whitewater rafting, rappelling waterfalls, hiking and ziplining through the jungle. It was Awesome! I promised to share pictures so... here they are. The picture above was taken at a class IV rapid on the Pacuare River - one of the top five most beautiful rivers in the world according to National Geographic. The picture below was taken after rappelling a waterfall. This is the pool that you get to jump in at the "bottom."


Rappelling the waterfall.


Another waterfall.

Again.

Our Jungle accomodations during our overnight rafting trip.

Our friend Vanessa whose family kindly let us stay with them for a few nights.
Hammocks!
Jeanine and me.
Best vacation ever!

A Fastforward Kind of Winter

As many of you know this winter is a big time of transition for me and my schedule has filled up very quickly. I am off to explore Costa Rica next week with my best friend Jeanine :) Not only is this exciting because we'll be whitewater rafting and ziplining through the rainforest but we are staying with an old friend of mine from my first few years of college. I haven't seen Vanessa in about three years so I am very excited to get a visit with her. I'm also really looking forward to spending time with Jeanine. We haven't seen much of each other since she moved up to the U.P (upper peninsula) and I moved to the absolute opposite end of the country, New Orleans, this fall. We have done a lot of exciting things together--studying the Holocaust in Poland included--and I'm really excited to share this adventure with her :)

We get back from CR in the afternoon of the 23rd which means that I have to hurry home from Detroit so I can get some sleep before all of the Christmas Eve activities take up the day. Pray for good driving conditions. After being home for about three days my parents and I are heading down to Alabama to visit with some relatives. My grandparents go down that way for the winter-they're called snowbirds where I'm from-and this may be one of the last times they go so we have decided to visit them. We'll also get to see my Aunt, Uncle, and two younger cousins from Georgia while we're there.

We'll either get back from AL on the 2nd or 3rd. I have to be in Maryland on the 8th by 10am to start my new position as a Team Leader for AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). I'm in a crunch already--not sure how I'm going to get the packing done. Yikes.
I think that most of you--whoever you are that reads this--know what NCCC is but if not... it's a government program modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930's. It's a team based service program for 18-24 yr. olds who travel in 15 passenger vans and do service projects across the country. One of the main focuses of NCCC is disaster relief... seeing the connections now? I served with NCCC for a year between my sophomore and junior years in college and spent about 5-6 mos down south doing Disaster relief work.

I'm looking forward to a "new" experience doing something very familiar: leading people in service. Wish me luck for the packing situation, the tight schedule, and travel conditions. I'll surely post pictures after I enjoy the warmth of the sun and the rapids of Pacuare River :)