"..lovers bold in broken places."

Sunday, March 16, 2014; 12:54pm

I’m struggling with how to begin summarizing this trip into a couple paragraphs, but I think it only makes sense because most things that we experienced this week could only be felt. Words cannot even do the stories we heard, service we participated in, and people we met justice. To encompass everything I personally felt and was a part of would require a novel, so I hope to reiterate the lessons and message I received from this experience to the best of my ability.

If I had to title the story of the prison justice scene in Texas that was played out for me this week I’d call it Breaking Down the Walls. The stories we heard had commonalities through cycles of brokenness, pain, mistakes, loss, regrets, abandonment, rejection, but there was still light from a combination of joy, forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, and most importantly: hope. One of the speakers we heard, Jim Brazzil, was a Chaplain for the prison executions in a few different states. Throughout his career, he had witnessed and did his best to comfort 155 people as their lives ended on death row. He compared the way we do things as a society to putting up walls. We separate good and bad, prisoners and free men, us and them. With that, we allow ourselves to only recognize what we see in front of us, and what we see is what (and who) is on our side of the wall- all others are forgotten. As an execution chaplain, Jim’s job was to see all sides to the story and bring others together to potentially form an understanding of “the other side” and open eyes to the fact that we’re still dealing with real people here. Far too often when we are allowed to forget about the other side, we view our side as the only side. This rings true not only in the criminal justice system, but also in everyday life for you and me. And it starts small with lowering expectations for kids graduating high school, women and the wage gap, people struggling with mental illnesses who only see suicide as a way out, racial minorities in predominantly white or “higher status” professions, and so many more social justice issues. We have been raised and conditioned into “our place in society” and typically know that as the only way- never believing that we could join people on the other side of our wall. Naturally, I cannot speak for each and every individual, but I do know that there is hope beyond what we have been told. There are bigger and better things out there for us. We are both the victims and the heroes of our own and our neighbors’ realities. Unless we can see past the one-sided picture painted for us, we will not be able to build up a world and foster a global community that values every human being created in it.

This Texas ASB trip for me was the first of many to come, as I know that I will be applying to participate in future trips. I met an incredible group of students who break for the broken, have a thirst for knowledge, a hunger for adventure, and a passion for people like I’ve never seen before. And this is what I truly feel we are here for.

It’s about those taken-for-granted moments getting to know the little things about each other like Molly’s obsession with purple or how much Lydia loves Jesus, sitting around until midnight answering conversation cards laughing at Kate Wehby tell us all how she’d love to join a family of whales or how Chris imagines heaven would be a pretty chill place, rolling our eyes at Abby’s #hashtagTrinity moments, spiritually connecting over the painfully difficult desire to throw our toilet paper in the toilet when we know we can’t due to the church’s plumbing issues, listening to Johannah talk about her 5 year old daughter Jolie and how she wants to take her fishing when Johannah gets out of recovery, begging Jim to play guitar for us and turning it into a concert entitled “Jim Jams”, or sitting in a circle with our eyes closed feeling taps, pokes, and sometimes unnecessarily extensive massages from people giving us silent affirmations for influencing them, being a leader, making them laugh, or giving others hope. Texas ASB was an experience, to say the least. I could go on forever, but you guys get the point. I think we accomplished what we came to accomplish this time, but there is a world of service yet to be tackled. I have faith in everyone I met to be those hands and feet of love, to touch those who’ve never been hugged, to plant seeds of hope, and shine light in places of darkness. This is the bittersweet end of our weeklong adventure in Huntsville, Texas, but for most of us… this is only just the beginning of a life dedicated to changing things.

#ISUAB_MTO

“We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we are called home.”

Jim(s)

Thursday, March 13, 2014; 11:44pm

The amount of “Jim”s we’ve met here in Texas is absurd. What’s even more absurd is the impact each of them has had on us as a group, and definitely me personally. We had two speakers this morning: Jim Brazzil, a chaplain for inmate executions and Jim Irwin, the chair of Kairos Prison Ministry. The day finished with a mini concert from Jim Helms who lives next door in a trailer owned by the church. The theme of today seemed to be people (as it always should be) and their individual stories. It was about being present, being vulnerable, and being honest with one another. Right now as I type this I’m missing out on what I emphasize so much when I talk in our reflection: community. So the rest of my typing must be finished later…a night full of Mafia, Spoons, and crazy college students loving each other and trying to change the world awaits.

Johannah; more than a Bible and a thrift shop

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

So I choked up in our reflection group today. I did my best to fight back tears, but some kept flooding my eyes regardless of how hard I tried to hold in emotions due to the fact that there were simply too many. My heart was breaking again. I met a woman today with a story that seemed scripted with chaos and hurt, like God wouldn’t let her catch a break no matter how much she tried to escape from her past. Sure, she had made mistakes, but who doesn’t? But now, even if she wanted to change-even if she wanted a second chance- she was stuck. She worked at the House of Hope’s resale shop, a little building right across from where our group was staying and across the street from the actual house she had been living in. The House of Hope is technically a “recovery facility” that is “Faith Based, Bible Directed, and Christ Centered” with a vision statement being: “to see women who have been in bondage to drug and/or alcohol addiction set free from addiction and restored to self control, reconciled with family and able to function in society as a contributing member of their community.” It is a small “dorm” facility with a “family” lifestyle and a weekly schedule including spiritual development, daily group devotionals, Bible reading and quiet time alone with God, family meals 3 times per day with emphasis on healthy eating, exercise, house chores, one-on-one meetings with administrator, SAAFE House counselor, Christ centered 12 step meetings, emotional well-being classes, working the resale shop, and working at the local soup kitchen.

I thought it sounded like progress! Here I am, a sophomore social work major looking to work in a different type of treatment or recovery center because of my passion for people struggling with mental health issues such as depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide, and I’m presented with this concept of a “House of Hope” with a pamphlet that lays out the blueprint of an ideal program. Ironically though, after talking with the only woman currently in the program, Johannah, she seemed to be almost completely hopeless. She casually told her story to anyone who would ask, knowing she had nothing to lose and nothing else to be afraid of. To her, we’re just service-loving, bleeding-heart college students who had never experienced anything as real as prison or extreme poverty, so still thinking we can change the world. She’d never see us again, but maybe she was thankful to have new faces around. The thing about Johannah is that she has so much potential, but she just doesn’t know it. Johannah is beautiful, she works hard, has a five-year-old daughter that she talks about all the time, a great sense of humor, and an air of young rebellion and adventure still about her. Understandably, none of us students know her whole story; those of us who talked with her only got a few minutes at a time while we were sweeping, folding linens, or cleaning shelves in the resale shop. Yet we all got a chance to feel a bit of what she goes through on a daily basis. It makes me question so many things: this sickening cycle of poverty in America, grossly inhumane aspects of the criminal justice system that breaks apart families and ruins lives, the destruction of addiction, alcoholism, drug abuse, or domestic abuse that can take over homes, the inability of administrators, preachers, counselors, even AA/NA meeting leaders to connect with people who are hurting. The truth is people need other people. We don’t need others who think they know the right way to do things, the right things to believe. We don’t need others telling us what to give up and who to listen to. We don’t need to be isolated, abandoned, rejected, shamed, and stigmatized, treated like prisoners in our own bodies, let alone jailed to the system. What we need is a hope for the future, not a longing for the past. Instead of trying to stick to old books and rituals, why not try seeing people for who they are? Is it too much to ask for someone to listen to the person sitting across from them without analyzing things that aren’t even there? We need to open our eyes to the world, and, more importantly, the people, around us and try figuring this all out together. I’m not saying that I have all the answers; I’m simply questioning how to make things better. It’s stories like Johannah that get to me like hers did tonight. That kind of pain needs a little more than a Bible and a job at a thrift shop. That kind of pain needs love.

Service Day

Tuesday, March 11, 2014; 12:35am

First day of service. Today was a lot to take in. I underestimated the work we had to do at the Hospitality House. After waking up to another Texas morning, we departed from the Burning Hope Church to travel about 20 minutes into Huntsville to a beautiful house named the Hospitality House, a simple building transformed into a place to serve as a temporary home for inmates’ families to stay so that they have a safe, comfortable, and welcoming place to stay for the time they visit their loved ones in prison. The tasks included weeding, tilling, shoveling, washing windows, raking leaves, and more.

because we were here.

Sunday, March 9, 2014; 10:38pm

This day has been an adventure in itself and the service part of the trip has not even begun! My day started before sunrise at 6:45am (okay, 6:55, ten minutes after I hit my snooze button a couple times like I told myself I wouldn’t do) with a shower and a quick breakfast in the church’s kitchen with the other 38 sleepy students before boarding our Peoria charter bus at 9am with the destination being an unclaimed inmate body and prisoner execution cemetery. It was a cloudy, rainy morning and we got dropped off at a deserted looking cemetery with hundreds of blank stone crosses and headstones. This wasn’t your typical cemetery with magnificent looking headstones, fresh flowers and elaborate statues adorning the gravesites of those deceased. The lives laid to rest here were, and we can only assume continue to be, forgotten. These are bodies abandoned, rejected by their families (if they even had one), refused to be acknowledged by anyone. These are lost stories; criminal offenders found guilty, yet never given a second chance at innocence. The experience walking through the cemetery while reading the names on only a couple of the headstones was overwhelming, but it was just the start of the day that was ahead of us. After we rode the bus back for lunch, our next stop was Ellis Prison. At Ellis, (or “the farm” as the people there refer to it as) we met a couple lieutenants, officers, guards, and the warden. Much to our surprise, the prison staff respected the inmates as human beings and allowed them to keep their dignity. Yes, this was an all male facility with most inmates facing sentences for extended amounts of time, some facing life in prison for unthinkable crimes, but never once did a staff member allude to an inmate as being worthless. Even Warden Morris firmly believed that we are all, regardless of background or circumstance, God’s children and worthy of love.

As I sit typing this after reflection group tonight I am reminded again that I am a part of something so much bigger than myself. I cannot say that I know what exactly I’m doing here in this metal shed of a church called Burning Hope in the middle of Trinity, Texas working with prison justice of all things, nor do I claim to know precisely what I plan on doing with this incredible opportunity I’ve been blessed with. But what I do know for sure is this: we are all in this thing together and each of us has the potential to change things. Getting to know everyone has broken my heart for the issues they are passionate about. We bleed hope and compassion here and it is evident in the way we intently listen to one another, talk about our fears and dreams even when it makes us feel vulnerable, ramble about our wide range of interests, and encourage one another to be honest in the places that hurt the most and bring us the most joy. All these things are what make us who we are.

So maybe it won’t happen in one day, maybe not even in one week like this, but maybe this really is all worth it. Maybe the world will be a better place simply because we were here.