My first day at the office was fairly quiet. The traffic was very minimal and the weather was not all that hot. Don’t get me a wrong, it was very hot out but nothing that I can’t handle. I love being from Baltimore and living down in Atlanta; same problems just a different location. The working environment is very calm when in comparison to the hospital that I was working at before. At the hospital I was expected to have certain reports done on different days with no exception. If the reports were not done then I had to stay till they were done. One my first day I was given the task of looking up area churches and finding the top 12 to contact and do further research on in order that I would narrow my search down to just 4 congregations to be in contact with this summer. Unfortunately I did not finish because everyone wanted to meet me and talk with me. I was willing to stay but their attitude to the situation was to just finish my project tomorrow. Granted it is my first day but I already like the organization and the people in the organization. This might change by day day 56 but who knows.
For dinner, my host took me to an Atlanta institution called The Varsity. Its a hotdog stand that is famous for its chili dogs and onion rings. It has that old style charm to the restaurant and while the food isn’t the all that amazing (don’t get me wrong, it was very good) it’s the atmosphere there that draws people. Cross that off the list. My host family is very nice. Les has a wonderful love for trains and has a very cool train garden in the basement of his house. I seriously could spend hours down there just starring at it.
June 5, 2008
Its been a rough couple of days at the new job. I have been very frustrated with trying to figure out what I am suppose to do once I contacted these church; what is my role in the project and what kind of programs does the organization want me to start. However, today I meet with my supervisor and my mentor and they sorted a lot of my questions out. I felt a huge burden lifted off of my shoulders. I was also frustrated over the fact that it was hard to schedule time with my supervisor. However, I remembered what Chandler said at the retreat and realize she has probably the worst job in the organization. She is constantly on the phone with case workers and the state trying to figure out what is going on with different adoption cases. I have just a minor project when comparing what the organization is doing as a whole. It’s still a little annoying but I’ll get over it.
June 7th, 2008
Even though today is Saturday, I had to go to the synod assembly and represent LSG. I’m glad I went and got out of the house for a little bit. I’ve been gone for a week now and so far its been alright. I just get really lonely at night and there is nothing I can really do about it. I didn’t realize that I would miss my friends and family this much. Take for example on Wednesday. I usually go to my church at night. Before coming down here, I use to think of going to the Wednesday night service as something I had to do because I promised to help out in the service. But now that I can’t go, I realized I really did enjoy going to Christ Lutheran and talking to Pastor Fries before the service. I miss talking face to face with my parents and my brother. Don’t get me wrong, my host family is great but they are not my family. During the day I’m pretty busy but at night I just keep thinking about being at home. I’m sure I’ll get over it after a couple of weeks but right now, I’m lonely and miss home. Being homesick sucks...
June 9th, 2008
My second week at the office was about as eventful as last week. After working at a hospital and always running around putting out fires, its hard to work in such a calm environment. I find myself still rushing through many of my projects because of the previous work environment that I had worked in. Today I started contacted the pastor’s again to setup a one-on-one discussion about adoption. I got in touch with all the pastors. There are two churches I need to do a follow up phone conversations because of vacations and such. The other two congregations were very happy to meet with me. One congregation even offered to put an ad in the paper advertising our support group. Its a lot of fun seeing this all come together. I am just very inpatient and want it to happen right away.
June 11th, 2008
I finally got to get my hands dirty and go out and meet a pastor. It was just in time too because I was beginning to go a little stir crazy sitting in my office wondering why God sent me to Atlanta. This visit turned out to be very beneficial for us. We went to Emmanuel and it was one of the larger of three African American churches in that area. Ideally, I would like to have focused my attention on all three but since I only have 8 weeks, I had to choose the larger of the three, Emmanuel. Emmanuel, however, has somewhat of a partnership with Saint Mark and Atonement and the pastor said we should invite them to our social gathering on June 30th. I knocked out three churches in one day without even trying. I was thrilled. Freaking thrilled. Now I will be busy for the next few days contacting Saint Mark and Atonement along with the other three churches that I have confirmed things through already. Yippie!!
On a side note, it is amazing at how sometimes God reveals himself to us. I was at Target tonight buying a card for my dad for Father’s day and I decided to check out the DVD department. Since I usually have nothing to do at night, DVD’s have turned out to be an evening for me. At a campus ministry meeting a couple of months ago we watched part of a movie called the Ultimate Gift. They had this movie for sale in Target so I decided to buy it. It is an excellent movie and I recommend it to anyone. One scene though has been on my mind. Jason, who is searching for his gift left by his grandfather (which is really a life lesson) and Emily (a young girl who is dying from leukemia) are sitting in the chapel of the hospital. Emily is crying and Jason says “I don’t know a lot about Religion or Jesus” and pointing to the statue of Jesus he says “but I know those arms were meant for holding you.” I’ve been going back and forth with living down here and always thinking about the loneliness that really what I am doing is helping kids who are being held by the arms of Christ. The loneliness that these kids who are living in foster care is unimaginable. I know what it feels to be loved because I have been loved and I miss having love ones around me because I know what it means to have love ones around me. These kids don’t. Many of them haven’t seen their families in years and have parents that want nothing to do with them. They have been placed in foster home after foster home and never really feel a sense of love and family. I know what I miss but these kids never have felt it. What I am doing is giving these kids a chance to feel what I miss. Luckily for me, in 6 1/2 weeks, my loneliness will be gone, and I will get to see my family and friends. Many of these kids that I’m working with will not.
June 12th, 2008
Today was a very productive day. I got an action plan written up for Emmanuel and did some organizing for Noreen. I got to go on a nice walk during my lunch and had a nice dinner at this really good bar-be-que restaurant. I also got to spend some “quality time” with Les tonight. We watched a basketball game. All in all, a very good day. I need more days like these to help with getting over the loneliness of this summer. I also had a meeting with my mentor today. I find it funny that Lorraine is my spiritual advisor this summer and not the pastor who runs the organization. Even Lorraine feels it’s odd to give spiritual advice to a seminarian. Granted, I don’t have everything figured out and there are somedays where I seriously question my faith. The idea still just seems odd to me. I find it hard to open up to Lorraine. I hardly know this lady and I’m suppose to tell her things. I can barely tell myself personal things let alone a stranger. I don’t know...
On another note, I have been thinking a lot about a conversation that happen the other day in the lunch room. I typically don’t like eating lunch with other people. I sometimes like to be alone and get some Matt Day time. But at the same time would never turn down eating lunch with someone. I know its weird. Get over it. My journal, my thoughts. I was about to get up and go for a walk when the president of the organization walked in and asked if he could join me. So I decided to stay and then everyone started to file in the lunch room. Everyone was talking about the news and stuff and one lady made a comment about a recent article in the paper about a Georgia Tech student who died from Heroin overdose. She thought it was wrong that the paper published that he was a good kid because good kids don’t do drugs. Now I thought she was wrong but I had only been at this office for a little over a week so I kept my mouth shut. One lady, Traci, was very vocal in this discussion against Elizabeth’s claim that all kids who use drugs are bad kids. Elizabeth turns to me and says I’m to quiet and to chime in. I told her I didn’t think there was any good left in the world and I really believe that to be true when we think just because somebody uses drugs automatically makes them a bad person. Now I didn’t say this. I was a little more broad in my explanation. But if you think about it, we live in a time period where we can do almost anything. We can transplant organs from human to another (from one species to another even) and yet we use violence to settle difference, we lock up society’s worst offenders and do nothing to try to change their behaviors. Studies have show that if communities and governments invest in community development programs, crime will fall while good behaviors, social advancement, and overall a better environment for people will increase. But yet, we rather invest in weapons that kill and destroy and less in trying to make a permeant change in the lives of people, in the lives of our neighbors. So until we change the current path that we are on, I will stand by my claim that there is no good left in the world.
The only good person that came into this world, we hung on a cross. Luckily though, I believe God still walks with us. He reveals himself through the lowliest of people. Through our enemies and through the little children that I help place. But still, we find a way to screw it up. We shot back at our enemies rather than doing what Christ said and turn the other cheek and actually talk with our enemies. People have babies that shouldn’t have babies and these little children are placed from foster home to foster home and never know what it means to feel love. Finally when they are place in an opportunity to feel love, they have a permeant emotional scare that will never heal. Where is the good in that? I believe our society needs to do a 180 and change everything for us to see the good in our society. There is no reason that people need to live in poverty anymore in our country or in our world. My God we are all people and to see any child starve or see any individual have to make the choice of feeding their family or buy a life saving prescription drug is a sin. We could feed the entire world but yet we don’t. Bishop Hanson said it best. Hunger kills more people than terrorism does. Thats a fact. Millions die every die from hunger related illnesses. What happened to us. In the early church, people sold everything they owned and gave it to the church. Many of us have much more than we ever could need and yet only put pennies into the offering plate at church or to any charity for that matter. We complain every time a charity asks for money to help people but yet we are happy to go out and spend 100 dollars on dinner at a nice restaurant. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking treating yourself everyone once and a while. But I think we are missing the greater picture. So many of the worlds problems could be fixed if we all just worked together and stopped this craziness. If we all would elect leaders who were more concerned with the lives of the people and less on their own personal life and gains our world would be a better place. If we all took a stand and said no more to energy giants who are robbing the public blind while making record profits. Some of the highest paid CEO’s in this country are in charge of energy companies. People freeze in the winter while they collect their multi-million salary. Where is the justice in that? Where is the good in that?
We can put a stop to this. We ended slavery, we ended the oppression of women, we gave children the ability to have a voice, and we put the rights of all individuals before the rights of the social elite. We can change the state of our society and the state of the world. What we need to do is elect leaders who promote rights of all individuals and use the means of war as a last resort. Who use their power to help and who use their political power to make social change. It is only then will we see a change. It is only then will we see good. We continue to oppress the future of our world, our children. If we teach our children to love, then they will show that love when they take over this country. They will become the good we need to make a change in our world.
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