Katrina

We are currently waiting for hurricane Katrina to come our way. As of right now we’re not totally sure what to expect but the storm will likely die down some as it moves further inland. Even under these circumstances, with so much going on south of us, the cooler wet weather is a great change. The last few weeks of heat have even the locals complaining of a hot summer.
Two nights ago we had a large group from New Orleans stop in and stay. They used 2 of our buildings to house their people before heading further north to Arkansas. Hotels in Jackson have been full all weekend, as people have fled from the south Mississippi coast and New Orleans.
All schools have been canceled in Jackson today so Emily will get the day off.

Back to School

Our after school program is beginning to pick up steam. I have been focusing the majority of my energy on that while Emily began working in a local elementary school this week. The after school program has about 18 students right now and is still slowly growing as word gets out. We have 5 middle school students all of whom flunked their grades last year and are very far behind where they should be. With them we have decided to do some intense vocabulary and spelling work. All of the other kids ages range from pre k through 6th grade. Its been nice to see some of the kids from our summer program return to take part in the after school program. Our main goals are tutoring and homework help. Soon we will have work-study students from Jackson State University helping with the program. Some of the kids really need one on one help with their school work so the more tutors we can recruit the better.


I'm finding that working with kids, especially the middle schoolers, isn’t an easy task. For all that I try to pour myself and my energy into them they seem to not care. I’ve had to come to the realization this week that in this type of work there is no instant gratification but rather a slow change maybe only visible upon looking back. At the end of the day I don’t feel that I’ve done a whole lot to help the kids but I must realize that real change doesn’t occur overnight. I cant expect students to show gratitude for me and my energy everyday or ever. I know that some are grateful to be in the program but have no way to express that, which is fine. Hopefully as we go through the school year the small breakthroughs, like helping a third grader understand syllables and be able to sound out words, will add up to produce a child that is better prepared to enter the world with the tools that will help them break the cycle of their poverty. So we find strength in the little breakthroughs and hope at the thought of what these kids could be.
Emily’s first week at Poindexter Elementary was very hard. The principle tore into her on the first day, saying in front of another Americorp person that she was not his top choice and adding other personal insults. We have heard more about this man as the week has gone on including stories of teachers leaving the school because they just couldn’t work with him. He runs the school like a prison. The kids don’t talk around the lunch table but instead there is an eerie silence. There in no recess, instead a Physical Ed class once a week. Emily is struggling at the thought of spending a whole year in this school but she is finding hope in the possibility of being a light of love to the prisoners, oops, I mean students. There are so many issues when a white person from out of town comes in to work in an all black school. Sadly even more issues may be raised when that person is a woman. The locals, especially the ones with power, tend to see you as someone coming to change things and to do it your way. Our hope is that with time, through a lot of pride swallowing and tears, the principle (or “the devil” as he has been called) will come to see that Emily has not come to change the system but to serve and help.

Lady

Last week we went out into the neighborhood with flyers to announce our free after school program. Our first stop was the home of the 8 kids whose father is in prison. Bo Bo and Mario led us a few blocks away from our house to their apartment, which ended up being on the back half of a lot behind another home. The building it self looked to be falling apart and the empty lot next door looked like a garbage dump. We approached the door and met the children’s mother. She spoke to us from her seat on the couch in a smoky, dark room lit in mid afternoon by the glow of the television. We gave her our flyer and several applications as she showed interest in at least the older of her kids attending. As we spoke, Emily and I both saw Lady (the oldest girl, 14) sitting on the couch, her eyes reflecting something not visible in the darkness of her home. We said goodbye and gave strong encouragement to the mother to let her kids join, they are the main reason we made the program free. As we walked down the driveway, escorted again by Mario and Bo Bo, Lady came out from the house to speak to us. In the light we could see that her eyes were completely crimson blood red where they should have been white. As she looked at us it was almost hard to look back. She looked to be in shock and her eyes showed no life, no hope, and no joy. We couldn’t help but ask her what had happened as Emily and I both began to feel very emotional at the thought of what this little girl had been through. She told us she had been attacked a few days prior when a man came through her window at six in the morning. Emily gave her a hug and told her that she was not alone and then we left. Before we made it to the street we were both weeping. I’ve never looked into to eyes so hopeless and scared. Throughout the week by talking to others as well as Lady we found out the details of what had happened. A man from around the corner came in through a window with a broken lock that the landlord won’t fix because the rent is overdue. The man put a bag over her head and attempted to or did rape her. The police were informed but wont do anything without a warrant. A couple of older guys from the street told me that everyone knew who did it and they even took me to the attackers house.

The next day Lady, her older brother Troy, and their cousin Tiny turned in applications and joined our after school program. They have been coming everyday and we have begun the slow process of earning their trust and friendship. We have been seeking advise on how to handle the situation from John Perkins and others who have been through stuff like this countless times. The whole situation is opening our eyes even further to the problems that contribute to a never-ending cycle of poverty. Hopefully we can be a voice of love in their lives.

The Return of the King

(The retired professor that is Lowell Noble. Lowell and his wife Dixie are good friends of ours who had a major part in us moving to Jackson. They have been out of town all summer but spent this past weekend here. They are 2 of the most amazing people I've met and I think they are worthy of a future posting to let you all know why we love them so much )


Things have really picked up for us here in Jackson MS, so for the first time my weekly blog posting is late. The youth conference took up all of our time last week. We had a lot fewer youth show up than expected which ended up to be a good thing. As the conference went on we noticed many areas where we were under prepared or where there had been a lack of planning. Emily and I ended up playing major roles in the conference. We got meals ready, ran the snack shack, gathered trash, and put on a 3 on 3-basketball tournament. We had groups show up from all over the country including California, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, and Virginia. We had a good time hanging out with the kids and organizing activities in the evening. You never would know how much work goes into putting something like this on until you’ve done the behind the scenes preparation and take down. We are both still recovering from the long days but found the experience very rewarding and something we we’re glad to be a part of.

( Emily and a local group of students who attended the conference )


( A blurry photo of our late night 3 on 3 tournament in which we used glow in the dark basketballs)


(Dolphus Weary speaks to students in our packed little clubhouse)

Today we began preparing for the after-school program that will begin on Thursday. We have decided to make it free of charge in an attempt to draw in the children of our immediate neighborhood. Most of the kids that hang around at our park and basketball courts can’t afford to pay for a program, so we will try to get donations from local businesses for snacks and supplies. I have been placed in charge of the program and I’m becoming increasingly excited about it. After participating in the summer program I can see the value of investing time with children who, in our community, are at a great risk of falling off the radar educationally. Tomorrow we will hit the streets of our neighborhood with flyers to get the word out about our program. There is one family in particular that I am hoping will choose to take part. They are a tribe of 8 kids whose father is in prison. There is a mom in the home but it looks as though the two oldest girls (middle school age) take care of the family. They show up most evenings at our house and we usually go out and play with them. Two of the young boys named Bo Bo and Mario always ask right away if we’ve got any drinks. After noticing this pattern every time we see them we now ask them first if they have any drinks. We want to be their friends and not people who enable them to continue in the cycle of poverty. It seems to me that if you become friends with people who are oppressed the only way you can be a true friend to them is to learn their situation and look for ways to help them help themselves so that when they overcome they will look back and see that they did it themselves. Our neighborhood is full of people who have lost their vision for what a community could be (distracted by meeting their families physical needs). John Perkins has said that to rebuild our broken communities we need to raise up leaders who will have a vision for what could be. That vision must then turn into passion and then passion must lead to action. Its hard for us as white people moving into a black community to try to initiate this process ourselves because so many people see us as outsiders coming in to help them by way of charity. Hopefully as time goes on people will come to recognize that we have not come to give a handout but to live among them and to learn their struggles making them our own. Looking around our community, it is obvious that the way to begin its development is to reach out to the young people. All this to say that I think the fact that both Emily and I will be working with kids over the next year is a good way for us to become involved as we continue to learn about these issues.

( Playing cards on the back porch of our house with Lowell, Dixie, Noah (lowell and dixie's great nephew from Seattle), and our current housemates Milton and Cheryl.)