Andrea Davis
About Mission Year
Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor. Learn more about our first year program…
Andrea Davis's Blog
Our Mission Year Church... / Apr 28, 11:20 AM
I began to write in my April newsletter about our church involvement and relationships we’ve begun to form at our church, Greater Galilee Missionary Baptist Church. Here is part of what I wrote in that newsletter and the continuation of it:
We’ve felt that so far this year we haven’t really gotten to know anyone outside of seeing them on Sunday, and part of our purpose in Mission Year is not only to partner with the local church in the ministry they are doing, but also to learn how to better love in this African-American context from a church and from people who have been working in North Lawndale for years. And how do you learn from someone? You spend time with them. So as I said, we’ve been praying for relationships and trying to be better at reaching out to people and letting them know that we do want to get to know them outside of the church walls. I’m excited that during the past few months I have been able to take advantage of opportunities like Wednesday morning Bible study, where a group of 6-7 of us – usually retired ladies and me – study a chapter of Isaiah, led by Sister Coleman, who has facilitated our involvement in Greater Galilee. I have also continued to be a part of the church’s monthly feeding ministry, serving a free hot meal to up to 300 people over the course of two days. We also got invited to a big 90th birthday party bash for one of the “mothers” in the church and Melissa, Ashley, and I attended a purse swap in March where ladies had brought purses and they were all set out on a table and we got to choose 2-3 purses each (I have one purse to my name… so I got another new – to me – purse and a nice wallet because I didn’t even have a wallet)! I can’t wait to tell you soon about one lady from our church, Gail, who I have been blessed to get to know outside of church as well!
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An update on Lawndale Christian Fitness Center: March was an extremely busy month for us in the Fitness Center (LCFC). Sometimes around 6 p.m. I would be the only one at the front desk checking in members and youth and sometimes working on signing up 3 or 4 new members at a time, plus needing to find new membership cards and still remember to “buzz” to let people in the door to the fitness floor upstairs where all of the equipment is! The Fitness Center continues to be busy, although the staff have told me that any day now things should be getting “better” (less busy), especially as it warms up and people can get their exercise outdoors. The great thing is how many people’s lives are being impacted through use of LCFC! People in our community are becoming physically healthier and stronger, affects every other part of their lives – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and socially!
We recently hit some LCFC records:
389 adults and youth visited the fitness center during a single day!
1,157 active members – the most “current members” we’ve had in the history of the fitness center!
6,527 total visits during the month of March –the most visits we’ve ever had in a single month!
It’s all about love / Apr 17, 11:48 AM
An excerpt from my February newsletter:
You may wonder if I’m going out on the streets “evangelizing.” If you’ve been reading this newsletter for the past 5 months, by now you probably know that we are not. So what is the “Mission” part of “Mission Year” all about? We are engaged in what some would call “relational evangelism” – building relationships and showing love (Christ) through our daily interactions. We show this love at our services sites: the staff and community members we provide services to in so many ways throughout the week, in our neighborhood: all the adults and kids we’re building relationships with, inviting over for meals and baking cookies and bread for, at church: by giving hugs, talking with people, and serving when we are able, within our apartment: doing day-to-day duties like making meals for one another, washing the dishes, going to the Laundromat and grocery store, cleaning the bathroom or kitchen or living room, and by listening to one another (sharing our lives).
How did Jesus love? Simply through the interactions he had with people. He loved in his own neighborhood and in the places he was a foreigner, he loved at the synagogue, he loved the people he seemed to spend the most time with – the 12 disciples, as they ate together, and listened to and lived with one another (and he even washed their feet!), and Jesus loved as he served everywhere he went. He gave up his life in the ultimate act of love, bringing redemption, salvation, and justice.
We love because he first loved us.
“I don’t think we have to evangelize more, although evangelism is necessary. I don’t think we have to preach more, although we must preach. I think we must live together and show forth the love that Christ has for us.”
— George J. Taylor
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Forgiveness and Reconciliation / Apr 4, 04:02 PM
We had our Spring Break coinciding with Easter last week, March 15-24. My birthday was March 14 so it was nice to be able to go home for my birthday and everything. Actually, it was just wonderful to be home… mainly because I needed to see my family and let’s be honest… my fiance… so badly. Got to see some friends from college and catch up (a bit) with them and my family.
Last week of course I went back to work and it was tough. It’s been tough to wake up in the mornings and I’ve been tired and no sleep is enough (although this is not an entirely new phenomenon for me). Just not had a lot of motivation to do what I’m doing. It’s partly because the person I want to partner with in all of this is not here working side by side with me. I didn’t know that Mission Year would be so tough being engaged. I knew it’d be tough but not this tough. Didn’t realize that every time after coming back all I’d want to do is be back at home with Abhi. And we know that this is good for us, learning a lot and both growing, we just wish we could be growing together in the same city – or even the same state! :) But we keep holding out because we’re getting married in the middle of October and we’ll get to finish out our senior year of college together.
Last week it was cool because I got to see some reconciliation happen between someone who works at the health center and one of our fitness center members. I guess something had happened between them that I think was a misunderstanding and my coworker came up to me one day (someone I don’t even know that well) and he said “I want to apologize to this lady who’s coming in right now, so it’s good that you’re here.”
He walked right up to her and told her he wanted to apologize and how he wasn’t even sure how he’d offended her, but he’s trying to serve the Lord and better live for Christ and he knows that whatever behavior it was, it wasn’t a reflection of Christ in her eyes, so he wanted to ask for her forgiveness. He said he’s still working on following Christ and better understanding how that looks. She accepted his apology and shook his hand and said “thanks brother.” Then he looked at me questioningly, like, “how did I do?” and I gave him a smile and said “yeah.” I didn’t have to be privy to that exchange, but it warmed my heart to see him working to reconcile with her. I said a quick prayer, too, thanking God for allowing me to see a bit of His kingdom coming here in North Lawndale.
Sabbath / Mar 19, 03:51 PM
I’m currently sitting at my fiance’s 21 inch (?) mac computer in Orange City Iowa… the town of my family, college, and fiance. Besides the 12 hours between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. yesterday (Monday) I have had a good break. Contained in those 12 hours was unrelenting stomach pain, throwing up (only once – I felt like it and thought it would clear up the pain which it didn’t really), and almost 12 hours of sleep. I was going to meet up with people at our college’s new cafe last night but rescheduled to tonight because of how badly I was feeling.
After Mission Year I’ll definitely never look at Mondays in the same way again. I know that’s even more true after talking with Mike Noble, who did Mission Year in Philly last year, and is now a Junior back here at Northwestern College. We talked Sunday after lunch (lunch was Indian food that Abhi and I cooked for Abhi’s worship team and Mike’s on Abhi’s team [which is cool, I think]) which was really nice… even just hearing what his team was like and different things about their year… Anyway, that was Sunday and Mike was saying it was his sabbath so instead of doing homework he was off to play video games. :)
This morning I attended chapel with Abhi, which was really nice. Our school’s chaplain spoke on Leviticus, which is the chapel theme for this semester! He likes to pick somewhat obscure things – or things that students request. He does a good job with whatever it is though. So he started by talking about Leviticus 15 and how it’s got all these ritual purity things that seem just so unnecessary and for the life of him he can’t figure out why that stuff has to be in the Bible… even all the commentaries he’s read haven’t shed any good light on Leviticus 15. I thought “oh no, he’s going to go over these off-the-wall purity codes that I don’t want to know about…” but fortunately he went to Leviticus 18 and instead talked about the Sabbath.
Leviticus 23: 1-8 (TNIV)
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies. 3 “ ‘There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the LORD. 4 “ ‘These are the LORD’s appointed festivals, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times: 5 The LORD’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. 6 On the fifteenth day of that month the LORD’s Festival of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. 7 On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. 8 For seven days present a food offering to the LORD. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.’ “1. Work hard
2. Rest
3. Remember
Come & See Weekend / Mar 6, 12:36 PM
Well, the family came. It had been iffy earlier in the week and but they ended up deciding to come even though there was no guarantee about how the weather would be today and tomorrow for them to get home. Mom decided to step out and take the chance though. They decided it was worth it to see me. :) I feel love.
They (My mom, Erica age 14, Virginia age 13, Jonathan age 9, Stephanie age 8, and my fiancé Abhi age 20 :)) drove up to our apartment late on Friday night and rang our bell. The girls (my roommates) all ran to the door to let my family in before I could get there and then the girls all screamed. :) I’m surprised they didn’t scare my family away. The girls gave everyone hugs and said hi and were so excited to finally be meeting my family who they had heard so much about.
On Saturday we got our house grocery shopping and laundry done and it was such a blessing to have a car to use to get everywhere since my family had driven! Wow, what a luxury to have a vehicle when you are so used to public transit (and sometimes waiting 30-45 minutes for a bus!) Later in the day my family and I went to a Black History Month Celebration that was being held in the neighborhood. Unfortunately we just missed the program they had at the celebration, but we met a lady who recognized me and we found out that we both go to Greater Galilee Church so that was cool. Then we headed to Garfield Park Conservatory to see the greenery, which was quite fun – I had never really been there before and it’s right near the neighborhood too. For dinner we drove up to Devon Avenue, an Indian and Pakistani community.
On Sunday my roommates and my family, we all walked to Greater Galilee for church – we could’ve driven but I wanted my family to experience to real deal, which is the 5 of us girls walking the few blocks to church each Sunday morning and we were blessed that it was relatively “warm” that morning too (probably about 35 degrees!). Church was good… Jonathan and Abhi sat on either side of me and Stephanie sat on my lap throughout the 2.5 hour service! :) My family stood when church recognized the visitors and people were (of course) so welcoming to my family… gave hugs and said hey and were so glad that my family was there too. :) One lady who I’ve started to get to know from church was so excited to meet Abhi especially and was like “this is your fiance?!!” and gave him 3 hugs. :)
After church our neighbor Ms. Dottie came over and Abhi cooked some Indian food and Ashley cooked bean chili and we ate and enjoyed one another’s company. After lunch/dinner the family and I went downtown to go up in the Sears Tower (we decided to splurge on it… the kids have never been in airplanes and I thought it would be cool to see the whole view of the city).
Monday it looked like my family was going to have to be leaving (they weren’t going to leave until early Tuesday morning) because of snow headed our way, so we didn’t get to go downtown to the Field Museum or the Aquarium, but they stuck around a few hours and got to see the Fitness Center (one of the places I work), and we got to go to the thrift store :) and we had Lou Malnati’s pizza here in North Lawndale for lunch. It was so good… it was (obviously) hard for me when they had to leave, but I’m looking forward to seeing them during my spring break in the middle of March, and their visit helped give me some energy to get me through a few more weeks! Praise God that I got to see them!!!
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