LOVE

I am happy to share with you all Mission Years February plug for funds. If you feel like giving, mission year is a completely legit organization that if a worth wile use of your funds. Think about it.

https://www.missionyear.org/love/rebekahwelch


I will write a real blog soon. Currently I am really tired though and I can't think straight enough to get any thoughts together.

love love love,

rebekah

Turbo Jam

The newest trend in our house is work out videos. I consider this trend to be good. Past 55th street trends were raw brownie batter eating, crocheting, and in general just eating/making sugary food. So since most of us in the house decided to be more 'healthy' this winter, work out videos seemed to make and appearance. It started when I got out my 20 minute pilates DVD from my senior year of high school. This was a good challenge for a few days. After that Tera pulled out her huge collection of Turbo Jam DVD's. I had never experienced Turbo Jam before, and lets just say that it is an experience, (especially for a coordination challenged person like me). So after a few 20 minute sessions every once in a while we went crazy on Sunday afternoon. Tera, Lilly, and I completed one 20 minute learn and burn work out followed by a 40 minute sculpt session and lastly a 20 minute ab session that was really painful. Climbing stairs and moving my stomach has been a challenge.

Other than obsessively working out (not really) things have been good. Amy and I got to see our favorite baby Rhianna the other day. Our neighbors babysit her every Saturday and I always look forward to seeing her. She is honestly the funniest baby ever. I can't wait till she starts talking.

In other unrelated news my family will be in Philly in a little under three weeks to visit me for the weekend. Then three weeks after that I will be traveling to Brenham TX to be a part of the wedding of Lauren Hall and Chris Gaines! After that a certain best friend is coming to visit me! So spring is going to be eventful no doubt.

That's all for now. I will try to encourage something funny to happen with the kids today in aftercare at Cornerstone. The funniest thing that happened yesterday, and its a little more creepy than funny was this kid "john" who is in kindergarten whispering "i killed a fat man" under his breath repeatedly while doing homework. Its always the small things that make me laugh.

p.s. Oh, I forgot to officially announce that I have been accepted to Eastern University for the MA program in Urban Studies with a concentration in Community Development! Whoop!

drama queen

I am officially not as good at east coast living as I thought I would be. I had this romanticized idea about winter on the east coast from christmas movies based in new york. I always just assumed I would automatically enjoy the brisk, cold weather and take to it quickly. Wrong. My body has gone into shock this week. I am wearing multiple layers of hats, scarves, and gloves and I am still shivering. I really try my hardest not to be dramatic, but I am acting a little like a drama queen in this weather. I completely understand why animals want to live in our house. I actually have a little (a very little) compassion for the squirrel that was living in our house. For those of you who haven't heard the story of the squirrel here is a quick synopsis.

On my last night in Philly before Christmas break my roommates and I discovered an animal in a closet. In said closet this animal had made a nest with Tera's clothes and pieces of paper and had chewed through a plastic laundry basket. What is the animal you ask. Oh, just a full size SQUIRREL. Sick. So we all flipped out and shouted profanities and cried and laughed and then we called the landlord. Thus the landlord sent over a man who when we answered the door was holding a big stick. He told us he was a redneck from Florida and that he was going to kill the squirrel. So then "Steve" we will call him had a change of heart and decided to try and catch the squirrel in a box. Bad idea Steve. The squirrel, who we thought was tired and half dead, was not. It ran into one of the bedrooms, then it ran up Steve's leg and arm and jumped into Sara's bed. We all freaked out. I jumped onto a chair, and then the squirrel ran downstairs and then proceeded to get stuck in our radiator. After a few more minutes of the squirrel freaking out and running around we somehow managed to chase it out the front door,crazy night.

Some in our house think that the squirrel has taken up resident in our house again. We have no way of knowing for sure, but for now there has been no concrete evidence.

This week has been good in other ways. I completed a tax training through the Benefit Bank this week. It was weirdly exciting to learn about filing taxes. I have no idea why I liked it so much. I made friends with one of the ladies taking the class and I picked her brain about working the non-profit world and living in Philly. She did better than me in the cold weather because she is from Michigan. Oh Texas, how you have spoiled me.

For curriculum we are reading Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I highly recommend it. It has always been one of those books that I have wanted to read, bought to read, borrowed to read, but never really did it. Big mistake on my part for waiting so long. It is excellent. I am most attracted to the way the Manning talks about why Jesus is so close to children, and those with childlike hearts. He mentions the incompetence of children and how they really don't have the ability to do lots of things for themselves, and how God longs to do far more for us than we allow Him to. A seemingly obvious thought, but still so hard for my mind to grasp.

I hope everyone has a great week.

back.

As of 2:30 yesterday afternoon I was a citizen of Philadelphia again. I was greeted by the great Philadelphia airport and was invited to wait for my luggage for 30 minutes. Good welcome. Despite not ideal conditions I got back to my house and was greeted by all the christmas decorations that I promptly took down and threw them down the basement stairs. Once that was over i popped a few benadryl and slept for about ten hours. It was glorious. I was slightly groggy this morning though and had and interesting walk to work. I had forgotten how much I really like my 30 minute walk to work. It is sometimes a pain and often boring, but there is something really therapeutic about that walk. I see friendly and unfriendly people, and look at the murals, and I always debate going into dunkin' donuts for a coffee. When I am almost to work I usually get accosted by the hack cab drivers on Woodland who ask me if i need a ride anywhere. You would think after four months of seeing me walk everyday that they would understand that I am never going to take a ride in their cars. No offense to them however, I am sure they are wonderful gentlemen.

My two weeks at home were good. I got the see a few friends and family and spent a lot of time consuming mexican food. Christmas was spent in Amarillo with my mom's side of the family. It was good we ate lamb. For one of the first times ever my family opened presents on Christmas eve, which I enjoyed. My favorite gift, probably the rolly bag my mom got me. Cute and practical. We opened presents at my grandma's the day after christmas with my aunt and uncle.

New Year's eve I drove to Dallas and met up with seven of my closest friends. We all crammed into a hotel room and every choreographed a dance to Bossy to welcome Brooke back from France. She of course was overwhelmed. She actually wouldn't come into the room while we were doing the dance, which worried me. She ended up not being emotionally scarred from it however. On New Year's day we woke up early and ate at the unbeatable Cafe Brazil, and then I headed to my grandparents. Rachel and I might or might not have gotten lost. At my grandparents my entire family met up to celebrate the holiday. The day after was Grace Brazile-Watsons wedding which was a good time for all. The next my family and Brooke headed to Amarillo in my dad's highlander and arrived home on Saturday. I got to see some Gladies on Sunday who surprised me with a visit to Amarillo. We cooked dinner and laughed. The next morning at 6:30 my mom drove me to the airport, and I was gone.

So my two weeks home was good, and I am looking forward to more fun in the months to come.

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A friend from Philly asked me to post this video.

the holiday

This holiday season I have already been given time and opportunities to reflect on the holiday season and why we celebrate the way we do. I think before coming to mission year I had already prepared myself a little bit for a shift in my thinking in several areas. Two of the areas I feel the holiday speaks most clearly to me are in the forms of money and materialism, and how often they go hand in hand.

My experience with money during mission year has already been challenging. Being given $70 a month to meet all my needs is while not impossible living, very different than what I am used to. I have adapted somewhat well, but I still sometimes feel like this is just a game I am playing and not a real lifestyle. My first real opportunity to have this challenged came the day after thanksgiving when I participated in buy nothing day. I was presented with the facts of the gross over consumption of the US and Europe and was appalled by them. (www.adbusters.org) I took this newfound passion and joined the US anti-heroes and the simple way on the streets of Downtown Philly on black Friday and tried to encourage people to buy nothing and to find worth in the holiday itself, not the money and materialism that goes with it.

Black Friday of course is a lead in to Christmas, the biggest gift giving holiday of the year. Everywhere I have gone this month I have been presented with ideas of advent and the deep beautiful truth of Christmas that is very different than the ones seen on the television. I have heard more about that Christmas is a season where we should be anxiously awaiting the coming of Jesus. That our souls should be longing for him….longing. For me in the recent past Christmas has been more about longing for a break from classes and deeply desiring a new gift to entertain me. I think the way we have formed for ourselves a Christmas holiday that focuses on so much other than the actual person of Jesus has completely robbed us of the truth and deep meaning of the holiday. In me this is changing. I know that I am letting go begrudgingly of lots of the things about myself that I know are wrong, but that are so comfortable or natural in my life. Most of these things are tied up in how I view money and my possessions.

On Saturday I had another wonderful opportunity that I am beginning to feel is one of the best things about being in Philadelphia. I was able to take part in a presentation given by the http://www.alternativeseminary.com called Peace on Earth and the Politics of Christmas. The talk was amazing, and it completely deconstructed many of the thoughts that I had about Christmas and why I celebrate it the way I do. We mostly looked deeply at the birth narratives in the books of Matthew and Luke and saw how both of the stories are ones of intense crisis and scandal, not really the fuzzy feel good nativity scenes we see every year. I knew that I knew some of this in my head, but I had never taken it to heart.

One of the parts of the story in Matthew that I know I always breeze past is the part when Herod kills all the children under the age of two, trying to get rid of Jesus. This calculated infanticide was brutal and nasty, and is embedded in the “Christmas story”. It talks about how the mothers of these children wept and could not be comforted. We talked about some of the repercussions of this event. Like, did Jesus know that his birth had been the cause of all of this destruction? We asked the question what if the rest of the story that Matthew lines out in his gospel an answer to these weeping women telling them that there is hope. That the violence they experienced in an ancient and perpetual violence that the messiah had an answer to. The beatitutudes speak to the counter-cultural-ness of Jesus. Blessed are those who mourn.

We also talked about how the birth of Jesus completely upset the governmental power struggles of the day. Jesus was born and people were telling Herod that this baby was the king of the Jews. Herod was known to be a nasty ruler and was not going to take this. The infanticide that Herod mandated gave a feel of threat in this story that is definitely not warm and fuzzy. In the story that Luke tells we see the ‘divine’ power of Cesar in taking a census of the entire world. The nature of the census is that it would benefit Rome, who were occupying Israel at the time, in the forms of taxation, control, and military conscription. So in administering the census Cesar is only making his rule more powerful and controlling and the Jews hated this.

Joseph and Mary, we know, had to travel to Bethlehem for the census. Because of the census Bethlehem was in chaos with more people there than usual being there. This situation put Joseph and Mary into a form of functional homelessness squatting in a back alley somewhere, seeking refuge in a cave. Mary gave birth in this cave, probably alone, and put Jesus in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. We have heard these words a thousand times, but what do they really imply. Jesus was wrapped in cloth because the stable was so nasty and Mary was doing whatever she could to try and keep him clean. He was put in a manger not because it was perfect for a baby and full of fresh smelling hay but because there was no other option. The fact that they are in such nasty circumstances shows us that they are marginalized by the powers of their day stuck, homeless in an alley with no medical help, giving birth. This is not romantic.

The angels then appear to sheppard’s to tell the good news of the birth of Christ. This would be like today going to sanitation workers and telling them this news first. It was a slap in the face to the imperial system showing that in God’s kingdom the first come last and the last come first. The heavenly hosts of angels that appear are more like a squadron of angels that are announcing the peace of Christ, Pax Christi in direct opposition to the Pax Romana that Cesar had initiated. This story is really a call to allegiance in asking the people the question who really runs the world?

sick awesome.

It is officially December. I am really excited about the holidays. Last night my roommates and I put together our Christmas tree and set out all the decorations we could find. Out decorations came as hand me downs from past years of Mission Year participants. The boxes were full of lights, garlands, and other various trinkets. My favorite was a miniature snow globe that looked like plastic television that had the nativity scene inside. There were also some plastic elves stocking hooks that Lu insisted were leprechauns. She didn’t enjoy the Christmas decorating as much as I did and thus mocked the decorations…I have forgiven her.

Our thanksgiving was good. We woke up early on the morning of and headed to center city (downtown) for the Thanksgiving Day parade. Lu, Amy and I decided to walk. We thought that public transport might be down or really slow. I am not naturally much of a walker but hanging out with Amy has inspired/forced me to walk really long distances already this year. So after the 4 mile walk into center city we sat and watched an awesome parade complete with the giant inflated balloons shaped like Garfield and Hello Kitty, marching bands, and various celebrities. I might have also seen Rachel Ray live in person. There were also approx. 98 clowns in this parade, which would have really freaked Bre out had she been with me. I took some pictures to scare her with later.

After the parade we came home took naps and just rested before dinner. Around 5 we headed to our neighbors house for a night of eating. I walked into the kitchen and I didn’t see a lot of food and was thinking that it was going to be a small meal. WRONG. I walked down into the basement and there were about 15 huge trays full of food. I was immediately handed a bowl of goat soup (my neighbors are Jamaican) that I cheerfully ate trying to avoid the bones and other items that I was questionable on what they were. They had a huge spread of traditional thanksgiving food with tons of Jamaican food mixed in. It was an awesome meal. There were probably about 50 people there over the course of the night eating, playing domino's, and just talking. The night ended with rum cake, which I have learned is a staple in Jamaican homes. I went home full and happy.

The day after thanksgiving is known by a lot of people as black Friday. Some of my friends and I embraced the opposite and celebrated Buy Nothing Day. Partnering with our friends at the simple way we headed to downtown dressed in crazy costumes and handed out free hot chocolate and encouraged people to be counter-cultural and buy nothing. It was really fun to act ridiculous and to hear that people really agree with us. They agree that the holidays are a time for family and friends, not for consumerism and spending. I might have more to say on this later, for now you can check out this http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/?p=4220 and see the perspective of one of my fellow my Buy Nothing Day participants.

I have also had a revelation over that past couple of weeks about what really brings me joy. Working with people applying for jobs, filling out rental assistance, getting LIHEAP applications in the mail gives me joy. The days that I have spent laboring with people over theses types of things have been the most joy filled days I have had here in Philly. As I am praying through what graduate program I should do in the fall, or over whether or not I should even do grad school, God is showing me what brings me joy. Joy is not being with kids all day. Joy is not sitting in an office all day. I am slowly learning what the future might look like for me, and it is exciting.