Summer 2010: Pre JVC

“Hope is not resignation; it is a commitment to continue to struggle even when things seem to warrant surrender, when hope flares, it allows human beings to overcome monstrous difficulties. It allows people to defy common sense and confound strategists. Hope experienced in the extreme, like faith and love, is miraculous.”

-Daniel Santiago as he writes on the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero in his book “The Harvest of Justice”

I would like to welcome you all to my new blog “This Simple American’s Life”, and say thank you for reading it and supporting me. This blog will act as a record to my own personal thoughts and experiences as I work as a Program Coordinator for the YMCA of Southwest Illinois running an after-school program at Cahokia High School in Cahokia, Illinois. I will be working through a program run by an organization called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC).

To those of you who read my travel-blog “An American Abroad” while I studied and lived in Nairobi, Kenya, I thank you for reading that blog and joining me on that experience. This blog (or first blogpost at least) serves as sort of my much promised follow-up conclusion blog that is now coming well over a year later.

First let me tell you a little bit about the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. The JVC is a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Catholic Church that provides young people with the the opportunity to live under the JVC principles of a "simple lifestyle integrated with deepening participants' faith, strengthening their sense of community, and learning about and workign towards social justice". I am looking forward to living in this environment with other Jesuit Volunteers who have similar goals, experiences, and beliefs that I do.

Now, you may ask why I would want to take a year out of my life to participate in a program like this, to forgo opportunities working at human rights organizations or attempting to seek a career starting out at the State Department or other body that does international development work?

My answer goes back to some things that I learned while studying and living abroad in Nairobi, Kenya. If you were to ask me what the best thing about that trip, I could come up with stories and examples of how that trip benefited me personally, professionally, and socially, and those answers are very much related to the answers of why I choose to become a Jesuit Volunteer for the next year.

On a personal and socially beneficial note, my Kenya trip provided me with the best opportunity that I have ever had to grow on a personal level and learn about myself; an opportunity that I would recommend every person if they have the opportunity to take: the challenging situation of living life as a minority, to live in a situation that you can never fit in no matter how hard you try. This situation fostered the chance to really analyze every situation alone, it gave me a chance to make my mark based on who I was and how I wanted to live, and strengthened myself greatly along the way. In this challenging situation that I was faced with, I discovered things about myself that I never knew before: it created a sense of being by myself and pushed out of my comfort zone and along with that a sense of freedom. For the first time in my life, I felt free and in touch with more of whom I was more than any other time in my life. In this regard I felt like I experienced real personal growth from studying abroad in Kenya. I also felt like my experience in Kenya had social growth benefits as well, as I had new friends on the trip, my other study abroad-mates, who underwent the same experiences as I. The Kenya trip created a scenario in which I was there with people with similar interests as I had, and we could play off each other to grow personally, professionally, emotionally, and every other way. Some of my favorite memories were hanging out and talking with my classmates and friends on our balconies at Njema Court (our apartment complex), and I really learned a lot and benefited immensely from this trip. Since returning to America, there are two feelings that I have wished to replicate from living abroad, and JVC fulfills both: I wish for that free feeling of being completely on my own that comes with a challenging environment that helps me to personally grow and realize the maximum of my own personal potential, and I have longed for a setting with people similar to me in beliefs and life goals to bond over these and make strong attachments with.

On a professional note, my time spent in Kenya really opened my eyes to possibilities for career paths. Spending my time working at Sarakasi Trust, both at the organization headquarters and volunteering with their Hospital Project really opened my eyes up to recreational youth development opportunities. (For more on Sarakasi Trust read these blog posts: Sarakasi Trust, and Sarakasi Trust Revisited, for more on the Hospital Project read Patch Adams in Nairobi). I really believe in that approach to youth development and believe that I work in that field for a career. I also believe in the potential that sports has to bring societies together and the possibility that sports can generate real positive good and growth within an area. (For more about this belief read Harambee Juamosi). I wish to do is to find an opportunity where I can integrate both my belief in the unifying, positive growth opportunities that sports have with my belief in recreational youth development. I also have begun to realize over the last few years that my work feels more rewarding to me when I can see its tangible benefits- something that is much more apparent doing “field work and actually being there” than it is in an office setting behind the scenes. This opportunity to work on all aspects of an afterschool program affiliated with a YMCA gives me the chance to explore all of these avenues together, and is what I believe is the best opportunity that I have for professional growth for the next year. I feel very lucky and fortunate to have this opportunity, and I hope that it will give me the experience, insight, and everything else to further what I believe is my life’s goal of working in youth development.

I know that this will be a challenging year, and at this moment I am feeling nervous excitement about the upcoming year. But, I remain hopeful. For this reason I selected the quote about Archbishop Oscar Romero to headline this blogpost. I remain hopeful that through this struggle I will gain the reward of experience, greater faith, and a miraculous time. Oscar Romero launched my interest in human rights and social justice work after studying him in Fr. Brocco’s junior year religion class, and I feel like I am coming full circle in living my next year out in the ways and teachings of Archbishop Romero’s. I would like to invite you along for the ride and thank you for reading my blogposts and supporting me.

I also wish to invite you to donate to the JVC cause. I am required to raise $500 before I start my journey on August 8, and if you feel it in your heart to donate any amount of money to this cause that I believe in so much that is giving me this opportunity, please visit my personal fundraising page through JVC.

Thank you very much for all of your love and support.