I had perfect attendance in eighth grade. It was kinda like once i had gone a few months without missing a day i just decided i might as well tough out the rest of hte year no matter how sick i got. because how often can you say you were perfect at something for a whole year?
sadly my eighth grade habits have not been able to transfer over to this trip. I missed a second day of camp today. and i feel like a bum. pray for a time of rest. (i feel like i have been napping or the past for days but i still feel exhausted.
i am going to take this free time to post some of my discoveries so far.
- I expected my whiteness to be a much bigger deal thank it seems to be. It turns out there is color segregation within the black community. The first thing a lot of people say when they describe another black person is something about how black they are, “oh she is the real light skinned girl” or “she must have yellow bones” or “he looks like he came straight from the motherland.” I didn’t used to pay attention to what shade of black people were.
- Its weird to me that there are only white and black people here (for the most part). I am missing my Asians and Mexicans. It just seems like California is way more diverse.
- I have heard that Sunday mornings are the most segregated time of the week and I think a picture of the church should be diverse. Pastor Alfred heads two very different churches. they are so different yet they are also the same in so many ways. Couldn’t they grow together to better serve the community? (i have been here three weeks and i am still struggeling with this, but i also see how the different churches are able to reach out to a different group of people. I guess im just excited to have three more weeks to learn and observe.
I have been learning that there is no way I can fully understand anything. God is so complex and my mind cannot comprehend justice the way He can. I think sometimes I over think things when I just need to accept the fact that there are things I will not know in this lifetime and that’s alright.
some funny things from our kids:- the campers are fascinated by our veins. They think it is so cool that you can see our veins through our skin.
- The younger campers seem to think we must all be related becuase we are all white
- I was walking to my classroom and Pastor Nathan's son, Emery, lifted up his hands like he wanted to be held and the kid next to him asked me, "is that your son?" i said no so he asked "where are your kids?" i told him i didn't have any, so he said, "oh, they all died?"
3 comments:
I'm sorry all your children died... :) he he.
It's funny, when I was in Philly the kids all thought me and my roomies were sisters even though one was asian and one was really dark... I guess we've been guilty of false assumptions like that too :)
man, you better get well soon! I'm sad you've both been so sick!
Well, I'm sure you'll be back and better than ever in no time!!
talk to you all later tonight,
Sarah
Shucks, I still thought you were perfect. No need to put it all over the internet for all to see. And what's that about having kids? I am not sure about all this confessing in person.
And Jane- your READ poster standing in front of the Ella Enchanted still hangs in the Gage Library. Your sister smiled when she walked through a week or so again with a bunch of gators following her (what in the world do you call a group of gators, anyway? You guys should be able to find that out for us!)
I'm praying that all of you recover in speedy form so that you'll be up to snuff for the rest of the experience. Lots of love from the Weinstein home :)
I'm just now catching up on my reading. I hope that you are feeling better now.
You know, there is a black community in Riverside not to far from your home. I worked at a predominately black infant care center on Victoria and Cridge for several years. There is a black church there that does a lot of good work, and I know that the former pastor, Elder Wall, (who has passed away now) did a lot for the black community in Riverside.
In fact, the day care center was in the remaining wing of the old Lowell school. The rest of the school was burned down in the 60's . The community belief is that it was burned so that the little black children would have to be sent to a better school. There was racial segregation in Riverside. School boundaries were drawn along racial lines.
My point is that while you ar immersed in a different culture there in Louisiana, there are groups within your own city that are much the same.
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