My collective experience with the homeless and impoverished has been fairly stereotypical. I’ve always felt it fairly easy to identify someone who is struggling in life solely based on their physical appearance. It’s funny how hard life smacks you in the face when you realize how wrong you’ve been about something.

One thing I love, love, love about where I work and the people who work there is that anyone who walks through our door is treated as a friend. There are hugs and kisses and discussions of incredible depth and meaning.. and that’s all before noon! As most of you know, I work with an HIV/AIDS ministry on the prevention side of things, so we offer free testing and then connect our clients with the appropriate services when they receive their results. While our focus is the HIV testing, I’m finding there aren’t many needs that we don’t at least attempt to address, whether it be supplying bus passes or bags of food or finding people jobs and homes. Because of this, people walk through our door with some truly heartbreaking yet remarkable stories. Also, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, we all sit in one room together around a large table to work, so when clients come in, they often sit with all of us. While I’m picking up on names fairly quickly, I’m meeting so many people every day that it’s hard to keep up with who’s a pastor from this church and who’s a friend from that agency and who’s an HIV positive client and who’s a homeless woman. There isn’t anyone sitting behind a big power desk while you nervously spill your secrets. No one makes you shout through a tiny speaker in a foggy piece of bulletproof glass, so just in case you weren’t already embarrassed by your situation, you can go ahead and shout it out to a full waiting room. A lot of times, if I’m not a part of the conversations between the visitors and my coworkers, I truly wouldn’t know the difference between my coworkers family and a man living on the streets. I’m learning how truly invisible suffering can be.

A woman came in the other day and was chatting with my boss. At the time, I assumed she was a friend of hers just dropping by. My boss seems to know everyone anyway. I later find out this woman and her family have been living in her car for several months. Suffering can be invisible.

A young man came in for a meeting. He was clean and dressed normally; someone I could easily assume has all the same luxuries of life as I do. Through conversation, I soon learned he’s HIV positive and a victim of a life spent in foster care. He was drunk at the meeting. It was 10am. Suffering can be invisible.

A man comes in and spends the morning with us just talking, singing and watching YouTube videos on our computer. He was introduced as a friend of my coworker so I thought, for once this was a no brainer. Later, I find out he’s a Cuban refugee who came to the US illegally by way of Europe and is now being penalized by the US government for not fleeing Cuba properly. He’s allowed to stay in the US but is denied any assistance as a refugee for a full year. Suffering can be invisible.

One thing I hope to take from this year: removing my own masks and truly treating everyone like a friend despite theirs.

Today was a day full of surprises! Every Wednesday is our “Mission Day” at work where we close the office and work on a special project all day. Sometimes this means passing out fliers advertising our health fairs or today it meant cleaning out and setting up one of our community centers. We will be using both of our two centers for afterschool activities and clubs but they need some sprucing up before they’re ready for the kids. Our first task was to get rid of a bunch of old computers. When we were offloading them into the dumpster, we heard this shrill peeping over and over. At first I thought it was just a bird, until the most adorable little white kitten comes prancing out and straight up to my feet. I’m not sure if it was his bright blue eyes or my predisposed weakness to adorably helpless, fluffy little creatures, but I couldn’t help but snatch him right up and stow him away for the day in the bathroom at work. We’re calling him D.K., short for Dumpster Kitten. This would be treasure number one!

A few rooms in this community center have been rented out to other organizations that no longer rent from us, but we still have all of their stuff in our storage that has since become our property. I was expecting to find lots of old trash but instead found all kinds of amazing things that belonged to the Haitian church that used to rent the space. We found Haitian paintings and sculptures, tennis rackets, djembe drums, brand new school supplies, tons of yoga mats, boxes of brand new cell phones and chargers.. seriously, SO many great things! The best part is as soon as we opened the closet and found the Tracball set, my boss insisted we all stop what we were doing and play with them for 20 minutes. Anyway, we found lots of incredible things and it was such a blessing to have all this cool stuff at our disposal!

I took the little kitty home with me at the end of the day, and it’s been non-stop action ever since. I think he’s definitely too young to be away from his mom, so he’s even more needy than most of the kittens I’ve dealt with. He’s constantly meowing and he’s hard to console. The beautiful thing is, I plopped him down in my makeshift litter box once, and he immediately used it. A couple hours later while we were playing, he pranced off into the bathroom and did his business just like a grown up! I felt like a beaming proud parent. This kind of makes me wonder if his home hasn’t always consisted of the great outdoors though. This idea is also confirmed by the fact that while his ears were clearly in need of a thorough cleaning, he showed no other signs like fleas or mites that might indicate him being born in the wild. He’s adorable and I’m loving that he’s so well trained, but he’s also exhausting and I’ve only had him for a few hours. I’ve learned my roommates are quite allergic, so for the sake of my sleep and sanity and for my roommates health, one of my co-workers is going to take him until we can find a permanent home.

Perhaps both of the situations were to remind me that treasures can be blessings even when they’re not my treasures. You can find so much joy even in things that you do not own!

P.S. My room reeks of cat food.

It’s hard to believe it’s almost Friday. Then again, I say that just about every day, because every day is so different and busy it’s hard to tell my days apart. I was welcomed back to Miami by a swarm of hungry mosquitoes as soon as I stepped off the plane. My poor legs had finally healed as they had a chance to recover while I was in New York. It also wouldn’t feel like my true home away from home without the song Danza Kuduro by Don Omar blasting on the radio Tuesday morning on the way to work. It seems to have become my (and the rest of South Florida’s) theme song because it plays on the radio just about every five minutes. It truly is good to be back.

In case anyone’s been following the tally of items my house has accumulated by generous donation of our friends in the community, we are now up to 4 tables, 19 chairs, 3 complete sets of silverware and two very, very full shelves of dishes. It’s becoming quite comical. We’ve decided we’re going to have a massive dinner party in our garage once the weather cools down. We will also be converting one of the tables into a ping-pong table. Lastly, thanks to my roommates ingenious idea, I’ve put four of the chairs to good use and secured a piece of plywood under my mattresses to create the best princess bed in South Florida. The underneath doubles for a great fort too. Social media. Is. Awesome. Why buy things when you can just tweet it and watch it arrive?

My first official week at work has been really, really great. It truly is a blessing to not even be able to make it fully through the door before my boss was hugging me and asking how my vacation was. We attended a meeting to form the South Dade Drug Free Coalition with other non-profits and churches who share the common interest of preventing substance abuse in children and families. We were faced with some truly fascinating but heartbreaking statistics when one of the presenters displayed charts of the highest teen pregnancy rates, lowest birth rates and highest rate of young criminals all within the target demographic area we are serving. Another fact that continues to intrigue me is that girls who grow up in fatherless homes in communities that lack good father role models overall, have a tendency to begin puberty at much earlier ages. Besides my Master’s thesis, what IS that? It was really interesting to see how so many different interest groups with their own agendas were able to come together for one cause, but to also difficult to accept how incredibly deeply rooted and complicated the difficulties we’re facing are and will continue to be. The issues here are so much deeper than lack of education and poverty. It’s more complicated than locking up drug dealers. The issue here is that the system is so broken. Where do we even begin?

A positive of my work week is that I usually get off work around 4:30-5 but my roommates aren’t typically home until at least 7. I’ve debated what I will do with this time slot since my friend base is very small at this point but I don’t want to just go home and rot away in my room. So far, I’ve been to an adorable little farm with the cutest goats, driven to the Everglades which is minutes from my house, and popped down to the Florida Keys after work. I love exploring and I love driving so I’m excited for more adventures.

I’m baaaack! My flight miraculously stayed on schedule despite the craziness and I have arrived back in South Florida. I returned home to find that my sneaky little roommates have been very busy in my absence. They weren’t home when I arrived home from the airport and were being very vague about their whereabouts. I know them well enough to know they were definitely up to something. A little back-story on the first surprise was that we’ve had a dining room table but have been asking for friends in the community to help us by donating chairs. We’ve gotten quite the response and before we knew it, wound up with 15 chairs in our home.. all for free! Well what does one do with 15 chairs? They stack them under their roommates bed when she’s out of town to raise her bed, of course. The best part is, I’m going to leave it like that, with a slight modification. I think I’ll turn the chairs to each end so it’s like a sleigh bed, and add a piece of plywood for support since it’s a liiiittle unstable as is.The other BEST surprise is, the reason they weren’t home when I arrived is because they were out buying me my second flavor of Paleta de Frutas for my 24 Paletas while I’m 24. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see my blog titled “Community“. Ladies and gentlemen, flavor number two is Galletas de Oreos aka Oreo Cookie flavor! Yummm! I have some pretty sweet roomies I do love them!It feels great to be home after a totally wonderful and completely draining week at orientation. Let’s just say I was so tired the second day there that I accidentally used my roommates toothbrush. Anyone who knows my germophobic tendencies knows this is slightly devastating. Thankfully, I had a wonderfully adorable and forgiving little roommate who gracefully accepted my gift of a new toothbrush when I told her what happened. What a week! Back to the grind tomorrow.

This week has been so exhausting and so rewarding at the same time. Orientation has been just a crazy non-stop schedule of seminars, workshops, skits and worship separated by quick meals followed by very little sleep. There are times when I’m afraid to close my eyes during prayers knowing there’s a 100% chance I will fall asleep if it’s longer than a minute. I’ve learned so much about myself as well as my peers. We talked about the challenges of culture shock and homesickness and communal living and how we can never return home the same, and how that’s okay. It’s been an intense week of soul-searching but it’s so refreshing to hear how many people have and will struggle with all the same issues throughout the year. I’m excited to now have friends who will be as far away as Kenya and Northern Ireland. I just think that’s so cool, and maybe, just maybe, one of these far away lands will be my next stop!

Yesterday, we took the Meyers-Briggs test and I will proudly proclaim my ESFP results. It’s funny though, because prior to taking this, I would have very confidently labeled myself an introvert, however I scored 17 towards extrovert and only 4 towards introvert. I think part of this stems from people’s misunderstanding of what introvert and extrovert really mean. They don’t necessary equate to shy and quiet or loud and confident. If you’re unfamiliar with the test or want to know what my ESFP personality traits are, Google it! Having done so many of these types of evaluations as a Sociology major, I realize the danger in labels as well as flaws and inaccuracy of some of these tests, however I do feel this is a pretty solid description of my tendencies!

Something else I’ve learned this week is the official shoes of YAV are Chacos and Toms. Also to be noted, I missed this memo. Before coming to orientation, I knew ONE person who wore Chacos (shout out to Scott!) and thought they were just for people who liked outdoorsy things like camping and awkward shoe tan lines (Google “chaco tan lines”). I’ve seen at least 40 different colors and variations of these shoes this week, no exaggeration. I’m not sure I’ve seen the same pair twice. Some of my friends wear Toms and while I get why people buy them, I also have opinions on that whole concept which I’d love to discuss not on my blog. Anyway, I’ve truly never seen such shoe uniformity in one room, however I think I’ll stick to my flops.

Thanks to hurricane Irene, it doesn’t appear I’ll be flying back to Miami on Monday after all. Lots of free time with new friends soon to come!

There are many people in my life that would describe me as a control freak. I like plans, spreadsheets, color coordination and knowing what’s happening long before it happens. Somewhere between home and Miami, my brain took a turn for the worse. Since I arrived, I’m infrequently alone, which means it is rare that I’m not with someone else who doesn’t already know the plan and where I’m supposed to be and when. I have found myself at the mercy of other people’s agendas and organization that is not of my own design. The weirdest part is, I’m letting it happen and I’m liking it. I’m so relaxed about not planning to the extent that I didn’t confirm my flight itinerary and after a series of events resulting from a lack of planning on my part.. I missed my flight to orientation. In 24 years, I have never missed a flight. In 24 years, I’m not sure I’ve ever been so okay with being so out of control of a situation. I somehow knew, that even when I was one of 17 people on standby, that I was somehow getting to NY tonight, and I did. I feel so blessed to be here!

Tonight during the first worship session at orientation, the discussion was around when God calls us to fail. A Young Adult Volunteer Alumni shared his story of how prior to serving, he was good at just about everything. He excelled in his career, he did well at whatever he set his mind to, and enjoyed the praise he got from doing a good job. When he served in the Philippines, it was as though he just wasn’t meant to get it right. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t quite get that satisfaction from a job well done. I felt like he’s been reading my private thoughts. As I stated earlier, I am in touch with my inner control freak, and when it comes to school work and job performance, I’m a people pleaser to the extreme and truly thrive on the positive feedback and recognition I get from being a perfectionist at work. I know this about myself, and I recognize where this will cause frustration in ministry. Since so much of ministry is relational, it’s hard for there to be structure and concrete results. My ideal job is when my boss tells me to do A, B + C, and I’m not only able to do A, B + C better than they imagined, but I also went ahead and did D, E + F really great too without them asking. In ministry, that’s not realistic and that’s not relevant. It’s not polishing silver. It’s not stuffing 300 envelopes when I’m only asked to do 150. It’s so much deeper than that. Ministry is so much more important than that, because ministry is so much more important than me. Polishing silver and stuffing extra envelopes brings me glory. Investing in His kingdom brings Him glory, because the result points back to Him, not me. While at times I may feel ill-equipped and unqualified for the job at hand, I know that regardless, this year will result in a lifetime of change. I also know, that I may get it completely wrong all year, and I also know, that it’s okay.

Community, community, community. Where do I begin? Last night, my roommates and I invited our friends and co-workers over to splatter paint on our living room wall. Over the course of several hours, we managed to transform a boring white canvas into a beautiful wall full of color. The original plan was just splatter paint. It evolved creatively over the course of the night and really turned out cool. When we all came downstairs this morning, all four of us just couldn’t stop saying “man, I love our wall” “our wall is so cool”. We’re debating if we even want to put furniture in front of it.

Tonight I’m sleeping over at the Little Haiti house because we have mega early flights to NY in the morning for orientation and we’re all riding to the airport together. The girls in this house live on a hippie commune that was settled by some guys from California back in the 70′s, right smack dab in the middle of the city. There are about ten houses on the block and a community house in the middle that is shared by all. Anyone is allowed to come and go through the community house for cooking, bathing, or just hanging out. There are all kinds of knick knacks and pictures all over and it’s obvious that so many people have travelled through this building. Members of this community also have access to the community farm, which is right in the middle of their backyard. This farm has goats, emus, a pig and creepy turkeys that silently follow you around. I just want to reiterate that this is in the middle of a city, in a normal looking neighborhood.. in downtown Miami. So crazy. Tonight when the girls were giving me a tour of the farm, we wandered over to the community house where some guys were just hanging out and cooking. Soon hand drums appeared, and even sooner we all had instruments varying from spices doubling as maracas, pots and spoons for cymbals, cracker packages for a nice crunching sound and of course the beautiful voices of our new friends. What a blessing to experience! Sometimes I have to just stop myself and really let it sink in where I am and what I’m experiencing. It’s wonderful.

I’m off to Stony Point, NY tomorrow morning for a week of orientation with the 60-70 other Young Adult Volunteers that will be going to various sites all over the world for the next year. We will spend the week in discussion, study, worship and fellowship with each other. I don’t know what my internet situation will be like up there, so I may have to catch up on blogging when I get home! Also, internet is another community shared item here in Little Haiti, so I’ll have to update this post with painting party pictures and a video from the jam session later when my connection isn’t so spotty.

When thinking about the upcoming year, the idea of community is something that is being laid heavily on my heart. Ever since a Sociology class in college, I’ve been fascinated by the fact that the words “community” and “family” are two of the most challenging words to define. This year, I’m focusing on that. What does it mean to build community? To break it? To live in it? To facilitate it? To be it? What does it mean to be a family and who decides that? Is it people you’re related to by blood? By marriage? By association? By love? Hopefully, this year will allow me the room to intentionally explore what these words really mean and how I can be community and live as a family, in ways that may go against everything I’ve ever been taught.

Yesterday was my first day of work at Sembrando Flores. They have a health fair coming up on Tuesday, so I helped with organizing the food pantry and distributing flyers in the community where the fair will be held. The majority of the neighborhoods we walked through were government-funded housing. I drive through neighborhoods in DC like this all the time, however this was the first time I’ve travelled on foot. While much more vulnerable, I feel this is the best and possibly only way to get an accurate feel for how a neighborhood interacts. One thing that struck me was that everyone was outside. For what reason, I don’t know for sure, but I like to think of it as that’s how they do community. Kids rode around on bikes in large groups and adults were sitting in chairs in their driveways just talking with their neighbors. In this part of the world, that’s completely normal. In Alexandria, Virginia, this would be rare and unusual. That’s not to say we don’t have community back home, because that’s not the reality at all, but I feel that we somewhat have to create our own community in Virginia, whether through neighborhood block parties, church groups or recreational clubs; it usually occurs at an intentional, specific time and place. In South Dade, community happens at any time right outside their front doors. My city director, Heidi, told us community is what happens when we stumble downstairs half awake for breakfast. Community happens so differently for so many people.

Last night, My roommates and I went out for Paletas de Frutas at a juice shop in downtown Homestead. Cue the beginning of my newest obsession. They’re basically like handmade popsicles/ice cream fruit bars. I don’t know if they’re all over or just the little shop we went to, but they were fantastic and cheap and there were at least 30 flavors ranging from Strawberry & Cream, Avocado, Peanut Butter, Watermelon, Margarita, Cappuccino, and so on. I was overwhelmed by the possibilities and decided to follow in the footsteps of the great Jen James, and celebrate my birthday each year by doing a different thing for how many years I have. This year, I will try 24 different flavors of Paletas de Frutas while I am 24. This seems doable, except typically the way this deal works that I’d have the whole year to complete it, but since I started late there’s about 27 weeks between now and my birthday. Here’s to hoping these suckers aren’t packed with calories, as I’m sure they are, because that’s basically one per week. The entire store and all the flavors were completely in Spanish words I’d never learned in my 13 years of Spanish, so this could provide for a very interesting journey and lots of surprises. 

Today, I spent the morning with my boss and a volunteer driving around to the different buildings that Sembrando Flores uses for various ministries. Some of these buildings are in a time of transition due to a lack of funding and various politics so I’m really excited for the possibility to reclaim and truly utilize these spaces soon. While the main purpose of the excursion was for the other volunteer and me to see the work spaces, it also provided a lot of time for us to chat. The other volunteer is a retired doctor who is so up to date on all the craziest health issues. She also believes in following a vegan, all raw food diet. She’s got quite a wealth of knowledge and I loved just picking her brain. We discussed a test we both took years ago that predicted possible career paths and occupations. She said hers all came up leaning towards being a doctor and medicine, except for the Librarian and that while it doesn’t appear to fit with the other options, she decided it makes sense because she likes order and organization. I remembered when I took this test, mine came up with all kinds of social work type jobs, and then a farmer. I remember laughing at this, and haven’t really thought of it since. Her theory was that farming is like social work because you’re sewing seeds; not plant seeds, but seeds of love. This might sound cheesy, but I thought it was a pretty cool analysis.

Happy weekend, readers!

First and foremost, I’ve had sweet bathroom success! This picture doesn’t even begin to do justice to how relieved I am to have defeated the tension rod beast.

In other news, I’d like to give a shout out to Miami-Dade Waste Management, for showing me grace when I noticed it was trash day and frantically filled up our recycling can with trash and lugged all of our moving boxes out to the curb (at least 6 trips worth), only to watch the truck pass by our house. Apparently cardboard is strictly recycled in this city, and the trash men don’t touch recycling cans, even when tenants have faithfully filled them to the brim with trash. Makes sense. So to the sweet man who first knocked on my door then later pulled over his truck when he saw me carrying everything back inside our house.. thank you for forgiving me and for graciously breaking your rules and taking the trash out of my recycling can anyway. Love you! 

Anyway, I checked out the happenings of South Beach yesterday. My friend from home’s boyfriend is in town visiting family, so I met him at the beach to check out all the hype. I was pleasantly surprised that I saw no thongs, female body parts.. or anything crazy at all really. Partially, I realize I went at noon on a Tuesday during one of the hottest times of the year. Also, it is possible that the media exaggerates. I love, love, love the sand here. I also REALLY love the bath-like temperature crystal blue water that you can actually see through. I did not enjoy the giant jellyfish that you can very clearly see in this bath-like temperature crystal blue water. Ladies and gentlemen, I survived my first jellyfish sting. It was minor, as I think it was just one of their tentacles, not the whole globby body that got me. A right of passage, I suppose.

Another observation I made on South Beach is how many beautiful people there are around here. Men, women, young and old.. everyone is tan and in shape. They also smell really good. That probably sounds creepy like I’m awkwardly smelling people, but I seriously think people load up on perfume and cologne and it’s really hard not to enjoy it! 

The best news of all, is that I stopped by my placement site, Sembrando Flores, to meet the team and get acquainted. My knowledge of HIV/AIDS is about as basic as it gets and I’m really happy I’ll have the opportunity to learn so much. My co-workers laugh a lot – what could be better? I start a full day of work tomorrow bright and early.

Speaking of bright and early, I’m not sure that really exists in this part of the country. The early part that is. I don’t mean that in a negative way by any means. Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard people talk about Island Time/Caribbean Time/Cuban Time/Etc.. and I would equate that to being fashionably late. The beautiful thing is, you’re not really late. Late seems to be the new on time. Having lived so much of my life in the structured world of DC where on time is late and 15 minutes early is actually on time, this whole concept is definitely foreign to me. I will say though, this will take no time to adjust to, because it’s wonderful to remove the stress from being “late” when that’s not really possible!

It’s been almost a full 24 hours since I’ve taken up residence in Florida City. So far, I have three words to describe this place: Holy bugs, Batman! I knew we would almost be able to throw stones at the Everglades from our house, but for some reason I must have imagined an invisible force field that contained the swarms of swamp bugs within the confines of the state park. Apparently that’s not how it works. I’ve never seen SO many dragonflies and the mosquitoes here could pass for small birds. These suckers even bite through jeans! It’s hard to even be mad about that; it’s actually impressive. They’re vicious though. My new daily perfume: OFF Insect Repellent. Tropical Fresh scent of course, because let’s be serious, I’m only trying to repel the swarms of bugs, not the swarms of men.

 I tried not to research too much or let myself build up expectations before arriving because I wanted to go into this experience with an open mind. Even though I haven’t even been here a full day yet, things are already exceeding the few expectations I had.

Things I love so far:

• My roommates are mega sweet and want to splatter paint our walls
• Our house is amazing and cute and wonderful
• We are currently without TV and internet so I’m forced to get out of the house to be productive and social
• Starbucks seems to be the place for good looking men to congregate after the gym
• This town is a grid so it’s really hard to get lost
• 9 out of 10 stations on the radio are good Spanish stations that play fun reggaeton and poppy music
• Sweet tea everywhere – finally!

I’ve almost completely unpacked my things and gotten settled in, so it’s already feeling like home. That is, with the exception of my shower curtain. I’m determined this is the first of many seemingly trivial challenges that will attempt to defeat me. However, I will win this. I’m not much of an engineer or physicist or whoever it is that understands the inner workings of a tension rod, but I’m pretty sure it’s not necessary for them to be this tricky. After countless attempts with the first rod crashing down on me over and over, I was convinced it must be a faulty rod, because there’s no way something so simple can be so difficult. I went an bought a new rod, straddled my body over the bathtub and awkwardly wobbled and fell as I fought the same battle again and again. I don’t understand. Being all of 5’0” probably isn’t helping me succeed in this feat either. I’m beginning to wonder if someone spread Crisco all over my shower walls and hid a camera in my bathroom vent. This would make for quality television. Especially this morning when the rod came crashing down mid-shower and I was determined to finish my shower while holding up the curtain with one hand. I’m beginning to think that perhaps it’s just not meant to be. Shower curtains are just a trend, not a necessity, right? Maybe I’ll wait until my roommates get home and beg for allies to wage this war. Wish me luck.

I’m not really sure if it’s living in the DC area where so many people are successful and settled in their careers at such a young age or if it’s just our generation in society everywhere, but I can’t seem to escape the idea that we’re all obsessed with having a plan. After high school, it was easy. There were those of us who were going to college, and those of us who weren’t. We all had an answer when people asked what our plan was. In 2009, right before my graduation from college, I realized for the first time in my life, I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have an answer to the question that everyone was asking. For once, I didn’t know what was next and there was no one to answer that question for me.

Ever since graduation, I’ve been searching for the latest plan. Not just any plan, but the perfect plan. I dabbled in just about every idea I could come up with. I explored moving to Kentucky, spent countless hours with an Air Force recruiter, attempted to orchestrate a Nicholas Sparks novel worthy life in North Carolina, and travelled through six different cities in Florida in search of a new job and a new life. The common theme: all of my plans involved getting out of here. After a few fairly drastic leaps, it hit me that my “perfect plans” began looking anything but perfect. It was also then that I was reminded to “make the God choice, not the good choice”. Up until this point, I realized I was creating a life around my agenda rather than considering that maybe God had something else, something better, in mind. I can honestly say, I’m so thankful that God doesn’t give us everything we ask for.

Over the past year, it’s been a constant prayer that God would not only provide open doors, but also that I’d know an open door when I saw one. I had heard of the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program from friends that had done it, but always discounted it for one reason or another. When all my other plans were falling apart, the idea of a YAV year fell in my lap again. The program involves living in intentional community with other believers and volunteering in some form of social work full-time. This program was screaming at me. I encountered a few minor setbacks that I expected to cost me everything, including missing the application deadline by weeks. In hindsight, I continue to see how almost effortlessly things have lined up and it’s laughable that I ever doubted whether this was where God wanted me to be. It feels so good to finally have a plan that’s so much better than anything I could have orchestrated on my own.

A brief description of the program is a group of full time volunteers in our 20′s split between 4 different houses in the Miami-Dade area, volunteering at different placement sites doing anything from after school programs to bilingual tax prep to homeless outreach to campus ministry, etc. We will meet for regular worship and Bible study, and share meals and fellowship together when our schedules allow it. My placement site is at Sembrando Flores in Homestead, FL; an agency whose mission is to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS by addressing poverty, mental health, substance abuse and violence. 

I couldn’t be more excited for so many new friends and experiences! However, I know I will definitely miss so many of the comforts I’ve grown accustomed to at home. That being said, I welcome all cards, letters, emails, Skype dates, and visitors! :) I’m truly looking forward to being challenged mentally, emotionally, spiritually and culturally. I hope to break down my walls and embrace so many things I’ve shut out for no reason. Please pray for patience and flexibility as I embark on this crazy journey!

If you’re interested in learning more about the program, check out:

http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/yav/yavexperience/

http://www.doornetwork.org/index.cfm?load=page&page=251