Interning with UrbanPromise in Camden, NJ

Home Sweet Home

2009-12-22T17:11:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays!! I just got back to Oregon after flight delays due to the extreme snow we received on the east coast. I bet we got at least 18 inches between Saturday and Sunday morning. I heard that this is the second worse snow conditions that the Philadelphia area has received in December since they have started keeping records. Anyway, I’m home in Salem and so glad to be able to take a break, relax, and catch up with family and friends.

The last few weeks have been busy! During the week of Thanksgiving, each after-school program organized a Thanksgiving dinner for the families of our kids. It was crazy setting up and preparing for 150 people, but it was so cool to finally meet some of the parents of my kids. For the dinners that we didn’t host, we set-up and served the food to the kids and their families. I refrained from eating turkey at each of the four dinners, so that it would still be appetizing on the real day. I spent Thanksgiving break at Jessie’s house. Although it wasn’t the same as spending it with the fam, it was a lot of fun and we ended up having 5 Urban people at the house for the day.

This weekend we had a special “Shopping Spree” where we took kids from our program to buy presents for their family members. They each received $10 and were able to choose gifts for those important to them. Then in chaos of scissors and tape, we helped them wrap all of their gifts. This past week we also decorated our classroom for Christmas. We strung lights throughout the room (which are pretty awesome and we might keep up even after Christmas) and hung snowflakes on the walls. On Wednesday we had our Camp Grace Christmas party complete with a gingerbread house building contest. The chaos of kids running around with frosting all over them and attempting to build crazy houses definitely brightened my day!
Thursday and Friday were spent gathering, organizing, and delivering Christmas gifts to our kids. Each of our kids were able to request a couple of gifts and very generous churches met our needs. We did our best to deliver the gifts to the families when the kids weren’t at home and several times I was told how awesome this is, because they didn’t have any gifts to give their kids.

Lastly, I wanted to share something that I have been challenged with recently. I have been attending a church in North Philadelphia called Epiphany Fellowship. The sermon last week focused on what it means to be culturally relevant. One of the main points was that being culturally relevant is much deeper than sharing similar backgrounds or hobbies, but that by being human we all have the desperate need for a savior. Overall we are all much more alike than we are different and Christ can penetrate much deeper than those differences. This has challenged me as I build relationships with my kids and attempt to gain respect from them, even though I grew up outside the inner city.

Since I know many of you are prayer warriors, one of my specific prayer requests is for the girls group that Jessie and I are starting for the middle school girls in our class. Our desire is for the group to be a safe place for the girls to talk, share, ask questions, and seek advice about things going on in their lives. We would love prayer for figuring out how to best structure these events and what we can plan that would be most effective for them. I personally would love prayer for my stomach and that my health would not distract me from being effective during program each day.

Thanks so much for your support and I would love to catch up while I’m in Oregon for Christmas break!

Blessings,
Lizzie

2009-11-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy busy month . . . but definitely good. My access to internet has been very limited the past few weeks, hence my lack of updates. The weather was super nice a couple of weeks ago, so we were able to take the kids to the park both days. We have some pretty awesome gymnasts and they thoroughly entertained us with crazy back and front flips off the jungle gym. Here's one of my 5th graders doing a backflip into the pool.

I've also been volunteering in the guidance office at Woodrow Wilson High School. And apparently I still look like a high school student, because on my first day I was asked 4 times if I went to the school. The statistics about Camden High Schools are heart breaking. The average SAT score in the state of New Jersey is 1030, while the average in Camden is 740. Also, as recently as a few years ago, there were more juvenile arrests in Camden than the number of students graduating from high school. However, the highlight of my first day was getting a chance to talk with Chris, a junior at Wilson, about college, sports, and his desire for a career in computer science. It was encouraging to see that there are kids who have goals and dreams and they don't have to be a statistic.

There were several special events this month including the annual UrbanPromise banquet, which is the major fundraising event for the ministry in which we invite donors and potential donors to see what Urban is doing and glimpse what life is like in Camden. During the program, the kids’ choir sang, a step-team performed, and teens shared personal testimonies about how being a part of Urban has affected their lives. The kids did a phenomenal job! I was so proud to watch my kids talk about their city and their desire to turn it into a better place, filled with hope instead of despair.

In addition to the banquet we’ve had several other special events this month. During the week before Halloween, we took our 7th and 8th graders on a special trip in Philadelphia to a Haunted House in the old state penitentiary. It was great to see our tough kids being able to just be kids and it was so funny to watch them freak out and scream when hands popped out of the walls and when actors jumped out and scared them. The following weekend we took the 5th graders from our program and the 3rd and 4th graders from other programs to Messiah College and Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. The trip gives our kids a first look at the possibility of college and we try to encourage them that college can be a reality for them. Additionally, by taking them outside Camden, they are able to experience things that would not otherwise see. One of the highlights of the trip was riding on the huge roller coasters at Hershey Park with my fellow staff members and our kids. It was definitely a great opportunity to bond with some of my kids and I know that events from the trip will be mentioned many times in the future!

Dariana, Kiara, and Moochie excited to head to Hershey Park!

James dancing on a table at Wendy's while dressed up as an old man.

Lastly, at our program, we recently started tutoring a few kids that we see need extra academic help. The first night, I was working with two 7th grade boys, Mike and Rodney. Mike was getting really frustrated with his math homework and preceded to crumple it up into a ball and give up. As I tried to encourage him to keep trying, Rodney also gave up on his homework, stating that his teacher didn’t teach them how to do it, and walking around distracting other kids. It had already been a pretty rough day at camp and I was running low on patience. I tried to convince them both to get back to work, when they suddenly started talking about how both of their dads are in jail and that they’ve both only seen their father’s a couple of times. It was such a reality check for me about why I’m really here. It is so easy to get caught up in the daily routine of trying to get kids to do their homework and be the behavior police. I’m here to be a person in their lives that cares about them, that believes in them, and that encourages them despite the challenges they are facing. We eventually got through their math homework, even though they acted like it was going to kill them. But I got such an encouraging response the following day when Rodney came into camp. He told me that he got to explain how to do the math homework to the rest of his class because he understood it better than everyone else!

Blessings,
Lizzie

Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches

2009-10-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture from the roof of our house. Our street looks almost identical.

I apologize for the delay (again) in updating my blog. It seems the weekdays keep getting busier and busier. After school program is fully in session and we just finished our 4th full week. On several of the days, we are kept busy from at least 9am - 9pm. I am slowly learning about my kids and trying to remember their names and unique things about them.
While I'd like to say there is such a thing as "a normal day at camp", that would not be the truth. However, the general schedule involves the staff getting to camp early afternoon, praying together, and preparing for the day including getting snack ready, organizing skits and games, and getting all our materials for art or science activities. We then pick up kids on Urban buses and take them to camp. We are so lucky to have a basement at our site where we can play a large group game at the beginning of the day and try to get some of the kids' energy out. Then we head to our separate classrooms for snack. Jesse and I are the 7th/8th grade teachers, but the majority of our kids are 5th/6th grade age, so we have acquired a table of 6th grade boys also. After snack, we have Opening Program. The major problem with this transition is that the church we work in is falling apart and if the kids run up the stairs, part of the ceiling below falls off. However, Opening Program is one of my favorite parts of the day. We have the boys compete against the girls for points. Points are awarded through good behavior, quietness, cheering, winning games, etc. At the end of the week, the team with the most points gets to spin the "Wheel of Fortune" (or misfortune). The good prizes include things like camp dollars, trips, camp night, etc. The misfortune part of the wheel is for the staff. If it lands of these spaces once of the staff has to do something gross or that we don't want to do. For example, my director Garrett might have to eat a cricket, or someone else gets a pie in the face. We got to choose the other peoples' punishments, and apparently my fellow staff thinks that the biggest punishment for me is to wear a prom dress for a day (they already have one picked out - its not very attractive). After Opening Program, we head to our classes for homework time. This can be the most testing yet rewarding time of the day for me. I struggle being in the leader of a classroom full of kids and commanding attention, but fortunately my fellow teacher, Jessie, is awesome at it. I love the one-on-one times when I can help a kid with homework (generally math, which I love), but it breaks my heart to see the kids being failed by the school system. Several of my 7th graders can barely read and most don't know their times tables, which hinders them as they attempt harder math problems. After homework time, we have activity time, which consists of art and science projects, or small group time when we can talk about Jesus and the Word. So far we've made slime and done some optical illusion artwork. If anyone has any art/science ideas/projects, I would love to hear them!!!

Here's the Wheel of Fortune.

I already am loving the 5th through 8th grade age, they have a crazy amount of energy, yet we can definitely connect on a deeper level than the 1st - 4th graders I had this summer. But like normal pre-teens we talk a lot about boys and I'm excited for the relationships that I will be building with them throughout the year. Last week, Jessie and I brought a couple of girls back to our house to hang out and make ice cream sandwiches. With several of these girls it is very obvious that they are seeking affirmation and love from boys and they have very skewed ideas of what a romantic relationship should look like, so this is a perfect time for us to start trying to pour into their lives.

Monday nights are Camp Nights, so this week we took all our girls, because they won the opening program competition the previous week, to play in the gym in Eastside. I got to play some basketball, which is always great, and hang out with them.
Yesterday, we took a group of kids to the mall and had a photo scavenger hunt with them. It was really fun to take crazy photos, such as finding someone with a mullet and doing "The Jerk" with a security guard. The more I get to know the kids, the more I realize the challenges they are facing to "make it." Many of their parents' are barely older than myself, most of my kids are living with a single parent, and money seems to be a constant struggle.
However, Wednesdays are a bright point in the week, when one of the guys from Urban comes and gives a mini sermon. The Lord was definitely working in the room during the first week, as the kids were super attentive and asking questions about the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.
We had a Dance Party during Opening Program this week. During part of it, Jessie and I were forced onto stage to dance - the video is on facebook - though you will see that I have no dance talent what-so-ever. But the kids loved it and we have a couple of great dancers, complete with backflips off the wall.
Being so good during homework time. :)

I have a couple of specific prayer requests. I previously mentioned that the church where we hold the after school program is across the street from a burned down crackhouse. However, the location is still commonly used for drug deals (I've seen more deals in a week here, than before in my life), which isn't the safest environment for our kids.
Additionally, all us interns have been working hard to raise support for the year and get others involved in UrbanPromise's ministry.
Lastly, prayer for health is specifically needed, as sickness is going around the intern houses.
Here's the crackhouse across the street with the cool Astrovan we get to drive around town.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers.
God bless,
Lizzie

It's all about GRACE

2009-09-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

It's crazy that I've only been back in Camden for 2 weeks. It feels like so much longer. I left Portland Tuesday early evening and arrived in Philly Wednesday morning with my two suitcases, guitar, and backpack. That night I met most of my fellow interns and we all began to get to know each other, which really means, lots of "fun" games and exercises (it actually wasn't bad - but it is definitely a blessing to have gotten past the initial get-to-know yous). There are 20 year long interns this year - the largest group that Urban has had in a while, though only 15 are here at the moment. The others will arrive throughout October from Malawi, Ireland, and New Mexico. Everyone slept at the Downtown House Wednesday night because the camps still hadn't been decided. Mom you will appreciate this - since I didn't know where I was living, I chose to sleep on the couch (which was great). Thursday provided more time for intern bonding when we played 2 truths and a lie. One of my truths was that I hate to shower (but still do), so now I am definitely teased about that :) We left Thursday night for a retreat at the foothills of the Lehigh valley. The area reminded me so much of Oregon with the extensive forest and beautiful green rolling hills, definitely a divergence from the streets of Camden. The retreat provided time for prayer, games, talking, and communicating our fears and hopes for this year. I am so excited about the group of interns - they are passionate, dedicated, and a whole bunch of fun. It has been a long time since I have laughed this much!! :)

After arriving home for the retreat, my new housemates and I set-up our stuff and got organized. I am currenly living with 7 other people (with 3 to join us soon). The girls are Vikki from London, Jessie from Northeastern NJ, Charlotte from Vancouver, BC and Rachel from Philly. The guys are Bob from Ohio who has worked at Urban for the past 4 years, Michael from pretty much everywhere in the US, and Charity from Uganda. It is definitely a mix of people, but I am so excited to live with this group for the year. They are funny, insightful, passionate about urban ministry, followers of Christ, lovers of children, and I'm looking forward to call them friends of mine. I can't believe I've only know this group for less than 2 weeks - they have already pointed out (and sometimes made fun of me for things that I didn't even know I do). For example, anytime I laugh, I squint my eyes and tilt my head back and leave it there. Also, apparently I have developed an English accent after living with Vikki and occasional phrases or words leave my mouth with this accent. :)

I am working at Camp Grace this year. Our site is in a North Camden church and Jessie and I are the 'teachers' of the 7th and 8th grade class. From what we hear, we will have quite a challenge in front of us. This past week was spent in different sessions that prepared us for working with kids, learning about classroom management, how to develop lesson plans and working furiously to clean, organize, and prepare for camp to began. It is so funny, that doing the most mundane and sometimes disguisting chores can be such a joyous experience. On Friday, I spent an hour or two cleaning the fridge and freezer that we will use to store food for the kids. In any other circumstance, I would have been bored, frustrated, and negative about this job, yet I was satisfied and encouraged when doing this task. I guarantee that this atttitude only came from the Lord and from serving Him and the time spent scrubbing mold was such a blessing. North Camden is definitely a rougher area of town. The building across the street used to be a crackhouse, until it burned down a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, that will be a blessing and that dealers will find a different place to sell. Also, our team has also already had several encounters with mice in our classroom with the count reaching 10 after we found 2 more today.

The After School Program starts tomorrow. We arrive early afternoon to prepare and set-up. Kids are bussed to our site from school where we spend time hanging out and playing games, feed them a snack, participate in crazy opening programs (much like the summer), and have homework and educational games/activity time. Monday evenings are spent at Camp Night - feeding the kids dinner and hanging out for an extended time, Tuesday nights are relational time - where I'll get to take a smaller group of kids to do something/somewhere fun, Wednesday nights we get to hang out with the Streetleaders (high school staff), and Thursday nights we have intern class. Our mornings are used for community service, large group devotations, cooking, and cleaning . Half of our community service is within UrbanPromise and the other half is external. I'm working on getting connected with one of the local high schools and volunteering in the guidence/counseling office. The more I've thought and prayed about what my future plans might look like, grad school in Public Health and Epidemiology just doesn't seem to be the best fit. So, I'm looking into Masters programs in Education - School Counseling. I don't know if this is where I'll be next year, or if being at Urban for longer is in the mix, but I am confident that the Lord will reveil and open or close doors at the appropriate times.

It was so encouraging to be reaffirmed that Urban is where I am supposed to be this year. Even on the plane ride, I was wrestling with whether I made the correct decision. But each day I have spent in Camden, has confirmed that there is no place that I would rather be. One of my housemates mentioned that he likes the person he is better when he is in Camden. And I completely agree. I like myself better here. I like being crazy busy, living in community with some awesome people, and having a distinct purpose. I love that people are real, and that the perfect Christian sign has been removed. Crazy how after only living in Camden for a couple of months, the city has captured my heart. I hope that as I continue this blog throughout the year (Laura - I'll try to update more often than I have so far) that I will be able to better understand my role as a follower of Christ and who I am as a daughter of the Almighty God.

Some current prayer requests are: for the first day of camp, for boldness in developing relationships with the kids, for continued bonding with the interns and streetleaders, and for perseverance in running the race and fighting the good fight.
Also, if anyone has any great ideas or lesson plans for math activities/games, literacy lessons, or fun games, etc. that would be exciting and keep 7th and 8th graders interested, I would love to hear them.

God bless,
Lizzie

Heading back to Camden

2009-09-08T21:44:00.001-07:00

I'm currently at the Las Vegas airport waiting for my connecting flight to Detroit and then to Philly. I'm so excited to be heading back to Camden and getting the year started. It has been such a relief after I finally made the decision to wait on grad school and come back to work with Urban. My goal is definitely to be a more consistent blogger (because I pretty much gave up halfway through the summer) this year so that I can share the challenges and highlights of Urban. God bless.

Camp, Kids, Craziness

2009-07-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I'm not sure how another week has already pasted, but it has been busy and filled with fun! Last Wednesday the older kids at our camp had a kickball tournament against the other camps. Unfortunately, our kids are pretty much the least aggressive kids ever and most of them have never played kickball before, so our team didn't do a lot of winning, but the kids did great and got treated to ice cream for playing in the hot and humid weather. I luckily got to stay with the younger kids who didn't play kickball (lucky, because I didn't have to be outside like usual) and we set up the projector and mats in the bible classroom and watched The Incredibles and served them popcorn and juice. It was a nice break from the regular days at camp. Minus the hundred of bathroom breaks I took the kids on, it was great to sit-down, watch the movie, and have several adorable kids fall asleep on me :)

Wednesday afternooons are usually our afternoons off, but we hadn't been able to do our Camp Night of the week on Monday, so Wednesday evening each of us interns got to pick 2 kids and take them to the Camden Riversharks minor league baseball game (comparable to a Salem-Keizer Volcanoes or Eugene Emeralds game). I took two of my favorite girls Kiara and Amelia. We had a blast singing camp songs on the bus to the game, they shared a funnel cake during the game, and we sat in the front row on seats down the 3rd base line. I tried explaining stuff about baseball to them, they listened a little, but I don't think either of them really cared too much, but it was really nice to hang out with a couple of kids on a more individual basis. The following day we took the kids to a park type place called Soupy Island (named after Campbell's soup which is made in Camden). We rode the carousal to Disney music and my girls thought I was crazy and I dated myself as I belted out Lion King and Beauty and the Beast songs. We then went swimming, ate lunch, and then swam again. Trips are more stressful than the average day because each of us is watching several kids and not letting them out of our sight, but overall it was a good day. Friday morning was a regular camp day. In the afternoon we had bible buddies, I took my two girls, Amelia and Jaliyah, back to our house for a bible lesson with some of the other bible buddy groups, a snack at a local bakery, a dance party, hanging out, and some guitar playing and singing on the front porch. This bible buddies time went so much better than my previous experience which I was so thankful for, since trial number 1 was a disaster. Friday nights are staff nights, so us interns and our streetleaders went out to dinner at a chinese buffet and went to the mall afterwards. The streetleaders had gotten paid earlier that day, so they were itching to spend money, while us interns are broke as a joke, but it was fun to walk around the mall and hang out. The buffet food was good, but I felt really gross afterwards (as did most of the other interns) and it didn't help that the weather was crazy humid and a huge thunderstorm erupted later that evening. Anyone that knows me well knows that I love thunderstorms, so I was super excited, so I pulled on a hoodie, and chilled on the front porch to watch the action. However, within a few minutes, branches were flying and the rain blowing sideways enough that I feared for my safety and resorted to watching the storm from inside.
Saturday is our off day, so a group of us took the bus from Camden to Philly for the day. We saw the Liberty Bell (which I thought was pretty lame, it was a lot smaller than I expected, but it was free, so I can't really complain). Then we walked around, ate lunch at a restaurant recommended to us by a local, and walked around more. The best part of the Philly trip was going to some house and hearing a glass harmonica be played. It was constructed of several crystal glasses placed inside one another and water pouring over the glasses. The blind woman who played the instrument could play most anything by ear. She started with the Harry Potter theme, continued with some Bach, and even played someone's ringtone when their phone went off. Overall - very impressive. then we went to south street for a while, so I didn't really accomplish anything, but it was nice to have a chill day. Sunday, I didn't feel so great, so I skipped church and bummed around for a bit, then walked to Urban (about 20 minutes) and practiced music with several other interns for leading worship that night. I haven't played much guitar this summer, so it was fun playing a bit and worshiping together. Sunday nights are fun because all the interns and directors get together and it is kinda like open mike night and people share stories from their week. I have to get ready to leave for intern night right now, so I update soon about this week, which went by super fast, but was one of the best weeks here so far!

The Past 2 Weeks

2009-07-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

So, I'll try to cover all the important events of the past two weeks here at UrbanPromise. We are in the middle of our 3rd week of camp. Since my camp, Camp Hope, is a new camp this year, we worked hard recruiting kids from an area in East Camden called Kramer Hill. Our first day we had 22 kids attend and we are currently up to about 50 kids per day! . . . definitely a huge blessing! But with more kids, definitely comes more craziness! We were originally supposed to hold camp at the area church that is right behind the house we live in. However, some logicistal problems occurred, so we now bus most of the kids to camp from the area church to a building next to Urban. The building we are using is a school during the school year, so it is clean and well equipped for our use. After feeding the kids breakfast which is supplied by the state of New Jersey, we jump into opening program. The kids are divided into 1st and 4th grade vs. the 2nd and 3rd graders and win points throughout the week for things like winning games, enthusiasm, being quiet first, etc. The team that wins gets a surprise at the end of the week or gets invited to camp night to hang out with us in the evening. The main purpose of opening program is to get the kids excited for the day and so far it has been hilarious. Some of the skits we have done include "Throwing Pebbles in the Lake" in which kids come late into school and the teacher asks where they have been and the students reply, "I was throwing Pebbles in the lake." At the end, a student comes in soaking wet and the teacher asks where she has been and she replies, "I'm Pebbles and they were throwing me into the lake." We also did a tv show type skit where guys dressed up like girls and visa versa and we are currently doing a wrestling series with a long storyline. In addition to skits, the games are a highlight. On Friday, we hold Greg's (our director) Crazy Challenges. We have made ice cream sundaes on people faces, another day I had to eat an onion as fast as I could, some 1st graders held hot sauce in their mouth for as long as possible.... just fun stuff like that :)
After opening program, we head the different classes. As interns we are responsible for creating lesson plans, getting supplies, and being the teacher of the class. I have definitely improved my classroom managements skills during the past two weeks. One of the challenges is that 40% of our camp is 1st graders and about 90% of the 1st graders are boys. They are adorable and I love that they still enjoy cuddling and holding hands (I'll try to post pictures next time), but they are wild and their attention span is very short. So more recently, I have been doing different activities with the different age groups, but their is such a variety of physical ability between 1st and 4th graders. We have played kickball (in preparation of the kickball tournament tomorrow against the other younger kids' camps), done some basketball games and drills, played soccer, and played lots of tag games. One day I had the kids get into small groups (a feat in and of itself) and had them lay on the ground and spell letters with their bodies - I orginially thought the group would fail, but I was pleasently surprised when all the kids raved about it, so we'll have to play it again. I'm amazed how warm Camden gets by 10 in the morning. It hasn't been unbearable, but being outside for a couple of hours each morning is very draining, and I am exhausted by lunch. On Thursdays, our camp goes swimming at a pool in Philly. We are each assigned a couple of kids to watch during the swim day and I think I've felt a little like a freaked out parent, when I couldn't find where one of my kids went to -however, we haven't lost anyone yet :)
Monday (and sometimes Friday) afternoons are basketball practice. Coming into the summer, I was so excited about coaching basketball, but so far it has been a dreaded couple of hours. I forgot how spacy and distracted little girls get when doing anything, especially playing sports. Within the first 5 minutes, I have girls asking for water, sitting down on the court during a drill, and asking when practice will be over . . . so it is definitely a challenge, but they are improving and I can see some progress occurring. Tuesdays are the basketball games. The first week we played Camp Peace and got demolished - our team had a lot of trouble just getting the ball past half-court, I had one girl, Kania, run of the court and get some water because "she was thirsty" and 3 of my 7 girls cried at some point during the game . . . but for never playing before they had great attitude and where commended for their sportsmanship. Today's game was against Camp Grace and while we scored more points this team, we were still beaten pretty badly - we didn't have quite as many tries this time, so that's a plus. Another challenge of working at Urban, is learning all the kids' names. We have the occasional, Sarah or Brian, but most of the names are ones that I've never heard of such as Quadir, Rasheem, Naseem, Jaliyah, Somiya, etc.
On non-basketball afternoons, we do small group time with a select group of kids called Bible Buddies. My first Bible Buddies time was quite an experience. Due to complications with busing, we had the kids for much longer than we would have liked. I took 5 of my first graders to the park. The 2 girls in my group and twins and they are two of the biggest trouble-makers I have ever seen, yet, I somehow love them and they are two of my favorites. During the walk to the park, one refused to walk, one refused to talk, and they all fought with each other . . . things got a little better at the park and we played for a while. After the park, I took them to 7-11 to get slurpies and tried to talked to them about the Lord for a bit. My attempt failed pretty bad, but I have some better ideas for next time.
As for our weekends, Friday night is staff night out, which is really fun to hang out and spend time with our crew. On Sat. the 4th we had a BBQ at the president's house and watched fireworks in Philly along National Street?? (the downtown street with all the flags). Last week we spent all Saturday in NYC, which was fun, but exhausting. On Sundays, we go to the local church (which by my standards is very bland, so hopefully I'll get to try other churches thoughout the summer) and everyone meets together Saturday for a service, worship, and to connect with other interns and pray.
I have to head out now, sorry the post was so long! I would love prayer for energy, health (stomach and a sore throat), and the ability to love the kids as Christ loves us.
I would love to hear from all of you :) Night.

I'm Here . . . and life is Whilin'

2009-06-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has taken me a week to update you about my time in New Jersey. The week has been crazy busy, but oh so good! In regards to the title of my post, whilin' means: great, awesome, sweet, etc. and all the kids, and most of the adults add it in their everyday conversation. I also apologize that this post will probably be pretty scattered, as I attempt to recount the events of the past week.

Anyways, I flew overnight on Monday from Portland, had a layover in Denver, and landed in Philly at 6am (which I thought was 3am), but the flying was easy and I even got to have some sweet conversation with the people sitting next to me on the first flight. Since I arrived early in the morning, I had most of the day to kill with which I slept, met lots of people, hung out, and moved into my house. I am living with 4 other interns and our director at a house about a mile from the main UrbanPromise buildings. I share the attic with 3 other girls: Amanda, a sophomore from Kentucky, Carly, a junior that goes to Asuza Pacific, and Stephanie, a senior from Kansas. The boys live on the second floor, Donatus from D.C. who goes to school in West virgina and our director Greg, from Camden and who goes to Azusa Pacific. We have already bonded really well and I'm excited to work with them all summer. Training started Wednesday morning and continued through Friday evening. We were given a listroy lesson about Camden and how it has changed from being the 2nd largest city in NJ in the late 1800s to currently being the 3rd most dangerous city in the U.S. (it was number 1 a couple of years ago, so it's moving up). Camden's population is about 90,000 people and current statistics estimate that 10,000 people come into the city each day to buy drugs. Anyway, learning about Camden's history helped me to think about the root causes of the current problems affecting the city. Fifty percent of the population is under the age of 18 and the lack of money in Camden, has diminished the opportunities for kids to have anything to do when they are out of school for the summer. So, UrbanPromise has stepped in and over the past 21 years has become a presence in the city and provided both summer camps and after-school programs to kids free of charge, while also providing jobs as "StreetLeaders" to high school students who love the program and want to continue working with kids.
Training continued with lots of sessions, including discipline, working with kids, and how to lead our individual classrooms. We also had a progressive dinner/bus tour of Camden and Philadephia in which they showed us interesting places. The tour also included a fake bus-jacking (however, we didn't know it was fake, and it definitely raised my heartrate). UrbanPromise has 7 camps during the summer and I am working at the camp that is new this year, so we spent a lot of time recruiting kids to come to camp. We have 1st - 4th graders and they are so cute!
During a regular camp day, pick-up kids on a bus, serve them breakfast at the school we are using for camp, do opening program which includes skits, songs, and games, then we split into the 4 different classes which include Bible, Art, Hodgepodge, and Rec. Hodgepodge can be anything the teacher wants to teach such as cooking, games, etc. I am the rec teacher (go figure . . . the first day our director pretty much tells me that I'm athletic, so I should do it . . . which is totally fine, especially since the other girl interns are really into sports). So, I plan each day and then lead recreation to each of the grades one at a time. In the afternoons, I will be coaching the girls basketball team and spending time developing relationships with the kids during Bible Buddies.
The rest of our time has been spent decorating the classrooms and main santuary room, playing lots of baskeball, having super great conversations with people with various backgrounds, singing in a choir at church, and having a picnic at Bruce Main's home (the President of UrbanPromise).
I'm sorry this is such an scattered overview of my week, hopefully I will be able to blog more often in the future. It has been amazing to live without the normal comforts of home and it is so evident that God is doing a great work in this city through the hand and feet of the people working at Urban. It is so cool to work side by side with others who desire to be Jesus to these inner-city children who were born into a much harder life and family circumstance than I can imagine, by loving them recklessly and by putting their needs above our own.

I hope all is well wherever you may be and I would love to hear from you all!

Blessings,
Lizzie

Airplanes

2009-06-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving this evening from the Portland Airport. I'm a little nervous, but definitely excited to begin this adventure!