IT IS SO HOT.

If I say that around any of the HFS participants, they snicker and tell me gleefully how much worse it's going to get.

Great CDV Article by Aaron Ausland

Dr. Mask just passed along this article to all of the CDV interns. If you're interested in hearing more of what community development is all about, it's definitely a worthwhile read.

Another update to come soon.

"There's nothing here to run from" (Coldplay, Don't Panic)

      There's a community development catchphrase for how to build enthusiasm for a project: "start small and succeed." That's important when you're starting a development initiative anywhere, so that you don't try to take on too much, and so that everyone involved slowly gains trust in the process instead of starting out with high expectations and becoming burned out and disappointed. That idea is just as important for a research project.

      I'd really appreciate your prayers in the coming week. I'm beginning to really dive in to my research on what works and what doesn't for development work with the disabled, and to be honest, I'm a little freaked out. This is starting to feel like a big project for a little person over a short summer. Please pray that I would be able to take it one day at a time. I need to be able to keep my own personality in check, with my tendency to try to take tomorrow's burdens today and get it all done at once. My mind has been working way too fast and I need to be able to calm down, be patient, take a breath-- and start small.

CAPS meeting

Last week I attended a meeting of the Coalition Against Poverty in Suffolk (CAPS). CAPS is a partnership that was formed between area churches both to respond to immediate needs and to address the underlying causes of poverty in Suffolk. A coalition prevents too much duplication of resources as each partner church brings their particular strengths to the table and communicates with the others about those they serve and work with. So far, 22 Suffolk churches have joined the coalition. Here's a picture of everyone who was present at the meeting on Tuesday: I'm in the front with the black skirt, and my internship supervisor, Hayden, is to the left.

The Suffolk News-Herald recently published an article about CAPS which you can read here if you'd like to find out more about the coalition. You can also check out the CAPS Facebook page at facebook.com/CAPSuffolk.

Ten and a half to go

      Okay, time for a real update.
      I've been here for nearly a week and a half. The first few days in an unfamiliar place are unlike anything else one can experience, with every sense heightened by unfamiliarity, and this time the newness is highlighted further by the fact that there is not a single person or place here that I have seen before. Even during freshman year at college or May term in Uganda there were a few familiar faces, but not here. It is at once exhilarating and lonely, and I am riding the waves back and forth between the two. I knew to expect that, though, and even the loneliness has its attraction as part of the experience. Overall I'd say I'm adjusting very well and I really like it here.
      I held the preparation for this internship lightly, knowing that things might change at any moment. One weekend I thought my internship had fallen through, and I've watched it happen to a couple of friends this year. So I arrived in Suffolk with few expectations, and my only nervousness was to hope that Lizzie Dorschel, the 19-year-old daughter of the family I am staying with, would like me and that my internship supervisor would be nice.
      Here are my first impressions of the Dorschels: Lizzie running to greet me from the front step of the house. Discovering that my room has a door in it that leads to the roof. A cookout with family and conversations around the fire pit until after dark. A room above the garage, with wisteria-climbed stairs leading up to it. Talking about community development, disability, and the hospital stays and chemo that Lizzie and I have in common from our childhoods. Hayden accidentally knocking a picture frame off the wall as she carried a bag upstairs for me when I first arrived and Mary Alice's stern but smiling response to her apology, "Things like this do NOT bother me, Hayden!" Mary Alice's garden and the way that its beauty and comfort reflects what the whole house is like-- tasteful and full of personality, but not in a way that makes you feel like you can't touch anything. In fact, "you can touch everything," she said. Jay teaching me how to drive the Vespa, and praying for me the first night I was here. They couldn't have possibly known what Lizzie's quick conversation, Jay's prayer, Mary Alice's response to the cracked picture frame, and funny little things like the fire pit and the room above the garage and the roof door meant to me. But it all delighted me and set me immediately at ease.
      At work I've planted onions and melons in the garden with Hope for Suffolk participants and they've taught me how to make recycled paper with ground-up church bulletins, dye, and flowers or string. (You can buy HFS products here, by the way.) I've done some office work, gone to meetings, met a lot of people, and asked Hayden lots of questions as I've followed her around, watching her in her role as director of HFS.
      Suffolk itself charms me. I've driven my big pickup truck and rode Mary Alice's bike around town to get to know the place, and I love the small town Southern dynamic and being less than a mile from the calm center of downtown and Rosa's coffeeshop. We're also right next to a river and I can see it from my window. In my attempt to become a part of this place, even for just a short time, I've joined the 20-something Sunday school at Westminster and attended the youth group on Wednesday night. I'm getting a library card and yesterday I joined the rec center in East Suffolk. It's two and a half miles from the Dorschels' house, so to ride my bike there I cut through the middle of downtown, which is full of signs telling bikers to stay off the sidewalks. That made the ride a little more exciting than I was anticipating.
      Now that I've gotten my feet wet, I'm beginning to set up interviews and meetings. Next week, the research will hopefully begin in earnest.

The Atlantic!

On Thursday night Hayden invited me to go to a Carbon Leaf concert with her at Neptune Park in Virginia Beach. It was a) the first time I'd seen the Atlantic and b), more dorkily, the first time I'd ever been to a real concert. (I really don't know how I managed that. Twenty-one years… the last three living between Nashville and Atlanta… I don't know.) Here's the report on the ocean: it looks exactly like Lake Michigan, but tastes different (I tested it), and has things in it that can kill you.

CDV480

      I've been avoiding this post because I don't like introductions. They feel unfamiliar and strained, and I'd rather just jump in and tell you about what has actually been happening around here for the past few days as if you already know all the background. Plus, much of the information in this post won't be new to most anyone who would be reading this blog in the first place. Nonetheless, I feel that I must, having been in Suffolk for almost a week now, explain what it is exactly that I am doing here.

      I have been a community development major at Covenant College for three years. Microeconomics was enough to frighten me into very nearly becoming an English major for one whole semester, but my friends just rolled their eyes and waited for me to return to the fold, and here I am. I'm glad that I pressed on. I'm in community development because I believe that the church has a unique calling to care about the poor and oppressed, but that it also has some unique obstacles. Even the churches who feel their calling don't know what to do about it sometimes.

      For my required community development internship, I am here in Suffolk at Westminster Reformed PCA to watch church-based community development done well through Hope for Suffolk. I'm participating in the community garden and paper making business, helping around the office, going to meetings, getting involved with the church in a variety of ways, and especially doing research. I'll be writing papers, conducting interviews, and meeting with organizations on the topic of development work and disability. Disabilities or the receipt of disability payments lends special complications to poverty, and I will be trying to discover the best practices of community development in assisting people in these circumstances to live sustainably. Once I find out what local organizations and community members who are in this situation have to say about it, I will present my findings to Hope for Suffolk and to my professors at Covenant.

      Those are the basics. There's a lot I've left out, but if you have questions about community development or my internship, please ask away. They're things I love to talk about. If you're from my church, stop me in the hallway when I come back home in August. Thank you for your interest, your support, and your prayers.

Little Inconveniences

   Two weeks ago as the clock approached midnight I was huddled over a computer in the stuffy Kresge Memorial Library at Covenant College, putting the finishing touches on a 34-page research design (the taxing precursor to the summer research internship), when the computer unplugged itself and ate my executive summary. I fled to a nearby desk where a friend of mine, a year ahead of me in the Community Development major, sat studying. He was appropriately pitying, but also pulled me a little bit out of my tizzy as he firmly told me, "You need to pray. Now. I'm serious."

   I've thought about that scenario several times since, like yesterday-- t-minus two days to departure for my internship location-- when I left my purse, complete with driver's license, all my money, my flash drive, and my keys in an unfamiliar and very packed Panera. And today, when my big plans to see all of Washington, D.C. with Anna were obscured, along with my vision, by an ill-timed migraine.

   None of these things turned out to be a major disaster, though they were all inconvenient when they happened. I got my research design in on time and my host and my professor both liked it; a friend of a friend who happened to be at Panera picked up my purse and returned it to me; and my migraine parted earlier than usual and I was able to see parts of D.C. after all.

   I don't think that a little string of inconveniences automatically translates into spiritual attack, although at times it could. But I do think that my friend's solemn reminder two weeks ago is something to take very seriously as I leave tomorrow for my internship. God is Lord over great and small, and I have to be reminded of that daily. Sometimes it takes a loose computer cord, a lost purse, or a headache to remind me that I am not in control. When nothing goes amiss, I get cocky and forget how fragile and dependent I am. To be honest, I was pretty fed up when I realized this morning over my frosted mini wheats that I could only see half of Anna's face and a migraine was coming on just when I least wanted it to, but I am thankful for the little dose of humility and reminder of who I must depend on just in time to send me off to Suffolk.