Vocation, part II.

Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world.  --Oscar Romero

So what led to LVC, Chicago, and the Howard Area Community Center?  Calling. Vocation. God. You know, the usual.  

I joined a church when I was fifteen.  I embarked on this endeavor with the support, but not companionship of my family, who left the Catholic Church years before I was born.  After trying several I finally found a community I wanted to be a part of and was baptized in September of 2003 at Hope Lutheran Church in Farmington Hills, Michigan.  At a youth retreat I met representatives from Capital University and while as a school it didn't fit many of my “checklist” I decided to visit.  Immediately upon that first visit I knew I'd attend Capital.   During my years at Capital I made it a personal task to understand what I was really saying when I said I was a Lutheran.  I found that I really did choose a church with which I was theologically compatible for the most part.  I also found a deep love of liberation theology and social justice.

These two things left me to strongly consider a service-year.  Representatives from the Lutheran Volunteer Corps kept visiting Capital and even though I knew all the answers I couldn't help attending their presentations.  I felt like Rory from Gilmore Girls who kept checking to see if anything had changed in the Harvard guidebook (too much? sorry).  I loved the idea that LVC was not only a year of service, but really focused on the individual.  This meshed very well with my belief that this year would be transformational in my life and it was not that I was going to be helping the helpless, but rather being in community and “doing life” with others.  I valued deeply LVC's commitments to social justice, simplistic living and intentional community.  I am passionate about social justice, I could use a few lessons about how to live more simply and I thrive in community.  There you have my decision to join LVC.  

I went through the application process earlier this year and by March was selecting locations to interview with.  As I'm fairly undecided about my future and passionate about a lot of things that narrowing process was extremely difficult.  I choose to heed the advice of wiser, past-LVC volunteers that continually reminding me not to choose a city, but rather choose by placement.  My final three interviews came through with a Immigrant detention lawyer service in Washington, DC, a case manager for asylum seekers in the Twin Cities, and a crisis specialist with the Howard Area Community Center in Chicago.  

I went through the interview process and although each had something to offer.  I just really fit well with HACC.  The responsibilities of this position are to run an emergency food pantry and to  offer help with a heating assistance program.  I have had prior experience with both of these through my time at Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio's Choice Food Pantries.  

When I was able to ask questions of my interviewer, her answers resonated deeply within my soul.  Specifically I recall her discussion of the HACC (which does virtually every type of assistance).  She said that the HACC promotes education and family care.  It is important to the staff at the HACC that they are not enabling the cycle of poverty, but instead offering the individuals in the area resources to overcome their poverty and to contribute to the community more positively.  When I inquired about how as an agency HACC was contributing to ending violence in the area she again spoke to their commitment to transforming individuals and families within the area and through establishing relationships and demonstrating the negative effects of violence (even down to corporal punishment all the way through gun control) they were attempting to address the problem from a grassroots level.

Earlier this week I received my tentative housing assignment.  All of the LVC houses are named after an important activist.  I will be living in Casa Oscar Romero.  There are  truly fewer places that could be more fitting for me.  Archbishop Oscar Romero was one of the first liberation theologians I read.  I keep a prayer of sorts that he wrote posted in my room as a reminder (I'll post it at the end of this blog).  I have begun the introduction process with my three roommates.  Our home is four miles from my placement, seven blocks from the lake and extremely close to St. Augustine College, the only bilingual college in the mid-west.  

From the few details I have currently, this looks to be an extremely transformational year.  Perhaps even more than I realize now.

Peace,

Amanda