Charity v. Service... v. Change

Hey All

Today we are out at two worksites, but all day we seem to still be processing the discussion that followed the presentation last evening by our host, J.P.   A native of Chicago, J.P. told us that he found himself in social work with chemically addicted youth as after going through challenges of his own. He did, and still does, live in the next neighborhood over from ours, traditionally a Puerto Rican and Mexican immigrant community.

It is now gentrifying like mad, and J.P. talked about how mostly white group like ours visiting and living in the community does not reinforce stereotypes of white people.  Most people in his neighborhood see white people as affluent, with money and material wealth and not needing things like churches or community organizations, or they come into the neighborhood to do "charity."  And "charity" in this context meant that it was not coming inside to meet people and understand how they live, but to give stuff away and then leave.

As he talked he held his hands up, showing the white people doing charity as up on a higher level, and all involved saw it that way.

So that framed our discussion. What are we doing in Chicago, charity or service? We generally liked the term service, that felt to us like the kind of thing J.P. was talking about, meeting people and sleeping here and taking the bus. (And oh did we ever take the bus.  To get to the community center garden jobsite today Lee, Norm, Emma, Liam, Sophia, Max, Rosalie, Stephanie, Sam, Nick, Max and Grace took the Blue Line subway to the J14 bus, to the 71 bus. It was 16 miles one way in all.)

And we are doing service, not giving away something that we could spare. We are meeting people face to face to provide a little help, working alongside people in the  centers.

Then there was another idea brought forward by one of the youth. What we do on mission trips isn't charity or service. We are the project. Learning more of what we need to learn to see people as people just like us, occasionally in need kind of like we are. And the point is to change from the experience, learn when we find out the situation on the ground isn't as we expected, and to become less self-centered and find a place for service in our lives.

So there we have it:  Charity v. Service v. Change.  Maybe there isn't a best answer, but it's great that we are here all together, asking the question. It's a very good start to this year's mission trip.