It's amazing how the time flies! It feels like I have so much more time on my hands without school, but somehow I always find ways to fill my days. I've begun to use my mornings for reflective time, working out, and trying to complete odd jobs around the house! As a house, we've decided to do what we can to make improvements to the house. It seems that in a lot of ways, people have just lived here as if they will only live here one year. Things don't get cleaned out and general chores haven't gotten completed like they should. I'm excited to try to live her like this is truly my own space and make it better for the people who live here after me. As a house, we have already replaced some of the furniture in the living room and have also begun cleaning out some cabinets that are piled with "stuff". This morning, I had some extra time to vacuum out the car that I use daily and give it a nice car wash. The beautiful weather outside this week has been a huge motivator in trying to get things done outdoors!
Work has only gotten better and better for me. Not only do I feel more comfortable with our clients (especially the youth), but I also feel like I'm really finding my niche within the project. One area in particular that I feel especially comfortable in is tutoring. Today I had the privilege of helping one our our 7th grade kids, Jaqui, with her science homework. We got through most of the questions, but some even I couldn't be quite sure of! We made sure to star those so she could ask her teacher before school tomorrow. We finished a bit early, so I was able to talk to her for a while. We talked about her brother at college and her cousin who is finishing nursing school. She was really curious about college and medical school in general. I was excited that Jaqui was comfortable enough to ask me questions about these things. It seems like her brother is really enjoying being at college, but appreciates being able to come home often. She said that her cousin is already doing clinical work in hospitals and how challenging that is. She talked about school and how it's really hard for her sometimes. It seemed like she is already thinking about her future with school which is wonderful! I assured her that if she works as hard as she is currently, she'll have no problem in high school and college. I'm also glad that she is willing to ask questions about school. A major issue we've run across with some of our youth is a sort of embarrassment when they don't know something. I encouraged Jaqui to keep asking questions to us at the project and to her teachers whenever she needs it.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Getting Used to Things...
I've now officially completed two full "normal" weeks at MFP. I say "normal" because although we have a general schedule of what what nights we offer services and how long, I can't say that this is a 9-5 job schedule. This seems like something that could really start irking some people. I've really begun to enjoy this ambiguity, however. It's safe to say I don't usually go into work earlier than 9 or 10 most days. This means that I get mornings to myself. I've found this incredibly beneficial for my own well-being. I generally set my alarm for a few hours before my start time at work; I try to read a devotional given to me by my advocates (Thanks Elvera and Bev!) and eat breakfast by myself. I then usually go for a run in either Loose Park or Mill Creek - both of which are absolutely fantastic parks for runners. My joints have appreciated the track-like path they offer at both parks and my senses have been stimulated by the friendly people and beautiful fountains and flowers. Needless to say, I'm very able to focus on myself for at least a few hours of the day. I've come to crave this most days when I wake up because the rest of my day is filled with talking to clients and my co-workers.
Because we offer so many different services, I plan on expanding on some of these more and more with each entry I write. For this entry, I'll focus only on our distribution nights. These nights are our "long" nights when most of us don't get back to Kansas City until around 9 at night. We offer youth group for 6th through 12th graders from 3-5. Right now, I and two of my co-workers are leading these. We are currently in the middle of a service project. The youth have been planning a way to collect pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. These pop tabs will eventually be given over to the organization and then traded in for money to support the services of the Ronald McDonald House. In the first leg of this project, the kids were able to hear about what the charity does (offers a home-like setting for families of children who are receiving services at Children's Mercy Hospital). They brainstormed ideas of how to collect tabs to support the organization. Then, they started decorating containers to collect pop tabs and making posters to inform people in the community about their project. I'm excited to see where they'll take this project. Next week we will finish making posters and containers and then begin distributing them to community businesses.
Later on in the evening we also provide clothing and food distributions. We get both food and clothing donations from communities groups as well as some state providers. These donations are then set out by us and by other community volunteers so that migrant farmworkers and their families have access to gently used clothing and food bags full of pasta, cereal, and canned goods. While this is all going on, clients are also able to seek legal advice from my boss, Suzanne. She is available all evening and it is basically first come first service.
I've found that these nights are a great way to meet people and stay in touch with clients that we don't see as often as others. I'm excited to see how my relationships with our clients change and progress as well as how our project adapts to new challenges and situations, as it always seems to be doing.
Prayer requests for this week:
1. I did my first transport of a client and her family from Waverly, MO to Kansas City, MO by myself and didn't get lost! I'm so excited and thankful that this went well!
2. I'm trying to stay as involved as I can with my house-mates. Because I work a lot of late evenings, this has become somewhat challenging some weeks.
Because we offer so many different services, I plan on expanding on some of these more and more with each entry I write. For this entry, I'll focus only on our distribution nights. These nights are our "long" nights when most of us don't get back to Kansas City until around 9 at night. We offer youth group for 6th through 12th graders from 3-5. Right now, I and two of my co-workers are leading these. We are currently in the middle of a service project. The youth have been planning a way to collect pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. These pop tabs will eventually be given over to the organization and then traded in for money to support the services of the Ronald McDonald House. In the first leg of this project, the kids were able to hear about what the charity does (offers a home-like setting for families of children who are receiving services at Children's Mercy Hospital). They brainstormed ideas of how to collect tabs to support the organization. Then, they started decorating containers to collect pop tabs and making posters to inform people in the community about their project. I'm excited to see where they'll take this project. Next week we will finish making posters and containers and then begin distributing them to community businesses.
Later on in the evening we also provide clothing and food distributions. We get both food and clothing donations from communities groups as well as some state providers. These donations are then set out by us and by other community volunteers so that migrant farmworkers and their families have access to gently used clothing and food bags full of pasta, cereal, and canned goods. While this is all going on, clients are also able to seek legal advice from my boss, Suzanne. She is available all evening and it is basically first come first service.
I've found that these nights are a great way to meet people and stay in touch with clients that we don't see as often as others. I'm excited to see how my relationships with our clients change and progress as well as how our project adapts to new challenges and situations, as it always seems to be doing.
Prayer requests for this week:
1. I did my first transport of a client and her family from Waverly, MO to Kansas City, MO by myself and didn't get lost! I'm so excited and thankful that this went well!
2. I'm trying to stay as involved as I can with my house-mates. Because I work a lot of late evenings, this has become somewhat challenging some weeks.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Hello Kansas City!
Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm hoping that this blog will serve as an easier way (compared to email) to keep you, my Newton Community, updated on my year of service in Kansas City. Please feel free to comment on any of the posts I leave. I'd love to hear feedback from all of you -- questions would be great!
Last Sunday, my family moved me into a fairly toasty MVS house. The toasty-ness was, unfortunately, due to a lack of electricity in the house because of an electrical fire in one of the walls that occurred the week before I moved up to Kansas City. I'm happy to say that we have been with electricity this entire week! There is some damage in two of the rooms that are needed for other MVSers. Some of the walls in these rooms were somewhat demolished in order for firefighters to find and extinguish the fire. There have been contractors here assessing the house and both rooms are supposed to be back to normal within the next three weeks. In the mean time, one of my house-mates, Brian, will be living in a downstairs office which we have made into a bedroom and Rachel, another house-mate, will be rooming with me.
Despite a few transitional set backs due to the fire, my first week in the house has been great! I'll be living with four other young adults this year. Brian and Natalie will be working at Catholic Charities as Case Workers and my other two house-mates, Rachel and John will be working in gardening positions through branches of the same agency. I started work on Monday with the Migrant Farmworkers Project (MFP). Because this last week was only my first week, I did quite a bit of shadowing and taking in new information. Since most of the services we offer at MFP begin this week, I've decided to wait until my next post to give more details about what my position actually entails. Although I will say that I'm ecstatic to have already had multiple opportunities to use Spanish! I wrote an article for the September issue of Connections, so please look for that if you're interested!
Last Sunday, my family moved me into a fairly toasty MVS house. The toasty-ness was, unfortunately, due to a lack of electricity in the house because of an electrical fire in one of the walls that occurred the week before I moved up to Kansas City. I'm happy to say that we have been with electricity this entire week! There is some damage in two of the rooms that are needed for other MVSers. Some of the walls in these rooms were somewhat demolished in order for firefighters to find and extinguish the fire. There have been contractors here assessing the house and both rooms are supposed to be back to normal within the next three weeks. In the mean time, one of my house-mates, Brian, will be living in a downstairs office which we have made into a bedroom and Rachel, another house-mate, will be rooming with me.
Despite a few transitional set backs due to the fire, my first week in the house has been great! I'll be living with four other young adults this year. Brian and Natalie will be working at Catholic Charities as Case Workers and my other two house-mates, Rachel and John will be working in gardening positions through branches of the same agency. I started work on Monday with the Migrant Farmworkers Project (MFP). Because this last week was only my first week, I did quite a bit of shadowing and taking in new information. Since most of the services we offer at MFP begin this week, I've decided to wait until my next post to give more details about what my position actually entails. Although I will say that I'm ecstatic to have already had multiple opportunities to use Spanish! I wrote an article for the September issue of Connections, so please look for that if you're interested!
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