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.