Ellen Pavlacka
So What's Up With Mission Year?
Hey there! If you’re reading this, you deserve a massive hug for checking out my blog and being interested in what I’m up to. Thank you so much for being a part of my adventures with Mission Year!
In case you didn’t know, I’m Ellen Pavlacka, and am going to be a high school graduate by the time Mission Year rolls around. The simple things in life are my thing – dancing in the rain, blowing bubbles, making music, popsicle stick jokes, late night conversations, etc.
The summer after my junior year of high school, I thought I had life all planned out. I was going to take a year off before college to participate in a music program and then go to school to become a comfortable suburbanite youth pastor. Through a series of events around that time, God flipped my world upside down – which, might I add, made a huge mess – and suddenly made me wary of comfort. He instilled a desire in me to do something different, something radical. Thanks to the wonder that is the internet as well as the legendary Tony Campolo, I came across Mission Year and it seemed like the perfect program to challenge old ideas and unquestioned beliefs while allowing me to redefine my faith through service to people who need some serious loving.
There are about 8,000 reasons why I’ve chosen to do Mission Year, but I’ll spare you a long day’s reading and just refer you to Matthew 22.
“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’
Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.’”
Peace out, people. I love you! Thanks for being awesome!
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…
Ellen Pavlacka's Blog
Long Division / Mar 5, 09:08 PM
I want to know why I had to spend half an hour on long division today with a sophomore in high school. Why am I the first teacher he’s had between 4th grade and now that cares that he’s scared of questions like 560 ÷ 5? Michael is brilliant and perfectly capable. So why has no one helped him be that? How in the world is Camden supposed to get better?
On a more positive note, some of my after-school program kids built a kick-butt dog sled and made it into the news!
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local-beat/Your_News__Youth_Dog_Sled_Philadelphia.html?__source=Facebook
"The Beggar" / Jan 14, 05:53 PM
“Ah! Blessed be God, the most compassionate One! Welcome to the marketplace. I can see that you are staring at me and wondering already how you can avoid me, slip away perhaps, and hope that I do not catch sight of you. Ah, yes, I do know what you are feeling and thinking, by the grace of God I know.
You see, I am a beggar, but I like being a beggar! You find that surprising? Annoying? Well, believe me, I didn’t always want to be a beggar. In the beginning I was furious with God for choosing me to beg, to make my way in the world dirty, smelling, ragged, and lacking everything that I needed. But eventually, after yelling and screaming at God, most compassionate One, he gave me to see what was holy and good about my profession. And now I want to be a beggar. I like being a beggar. Why? Because God in his mercy lets me see you just as you are, just as he sees you. Isn’t that marvelous. Besides seeing you the way God sees you I also have a most important work to do. My path is to make you lighter, to help you part with what burdens you and holds you enslaved and bowed down-usually whether you want to or not! Ah, you look skeptical. Let me show you what I mean.
You see a beggar as you are walking down the street.
What do you do? You quickly decide to casually cross over to the other side of the street-that’s if you’re attentive and can think of such a move before you’re right up on the person. Or if you are engrossed in your own world and I come up to you without warning and catch you offguard you frown and harden your face, or you clutch your purse and say something like “Uh, I don’t have any change,” or “Catch me on my way back.” I see you as your back retreats down the street and I pray God in his mercy says to you in your need: “Uh, I’m in a hurry right now, I’ll catch you when I’m coming back this way.” I see you.
Or, say you’ve had a good day and you are coming down the street with a bounce in your step, feeling good about the world, and you see me with my hand out. You dip into your pocket and come out with a couple of coins and smile at me and go merrily on your way. As you go I pray God in his mercy will smile upon you and throw a few coins your way.
Or you are coming down the street and the world is heavy on your heart. You may even have come from the mosque or church and you are thinking about the prayers and how difficult it is to live in the world and be good and righteous and not contribute to the ills of society. Then you see me and you frown. But you stop and you dig into your wallet or purse and come up with a dollar or two. I smile gratefully and then you say: “Look, buddy, I don’t want you spending this on booze or cigarettes. Get yourself a sandwich, go look for a job.” Or you give me the money and quote scripture at me, something like, “Those who do not work should not be allowed to eat free.” Off you go, feeling like you’ve made a statement while at the same time doing your charitable deed for the day. And I pray God in his mercy will give you enough for a sandwich, but I pray it comes with a lecture and a religious moral too-straight from the mouth of the Holy One.And then, sometimes, though it’s very rare, one of you comes to me and gives to me before I can beg from you. You’ve been watching and you are moved to pity by my condition and you care, and then it’s I who have to stop. I look hard at you and wonder who you are. Has God, the most compassionate One, come to visit his people again? Rarely does someone give to me before I have to beg for what I need just to make it through the next couple of hours. And then I pray God to visit you, to move on you and take over your life and I give thanks that I have met someone truly holy and righteous.
So, you see, no matter what you do when you see me, I see you-really see you-the way God in his mercy sees you. And I’m here to make you lighter and freer, to open you up to the grace of God, to the Holy hiding anywhere in this world. You see, I’m a beggar, but I like being a beggar. I’m good at it and I’m going to lift a burden from you and make you poorer and freer, whether you really want me to or not. You see, I do know you, and God has blessed me in letting me share in his work of liberation and freedom.
Some day, one day, may it be soon, everyone will be free and even in the marketplace all the beggars will be gone! Yes, our path will be over. One day we will not be necessary. On that day all of you will know your path. Maybe one of you will even be called a beggar! You could do lots worse, you know. If you want to be a beggar, come, come with me and I’ll sing with you and watch people with you and praise God with you. Just remember: I know my path. Do you know yours? May God the most compassionate One, bless you all. So be it. Amen”
(Excerpt from Blessings and Woes by Megan McKenna)
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PRoP - Part II / Jan 14, 05:53 PM
Apologies for posting the second half of my PROP blog more than a month later than the first half. Aside from not meaning to publish the first half when I did, I also like creating unreasonably large amounts of suspense.
At any rate, after getting off the subway and heading into Philly, I headed to Rittenhouse Square, a quaint little park and a hot spot for homeless folks to hang out. I sat there for a good while, watching people pass through with destinations in mind, brisk paces, unmoving gazes, blue-tooth conversations going, and expensive coffees in hand. After awhile of just soaking in the breath of Philly that fall morning, I got up and walked around for a while. Finding a man handing out fliers advertizing a small business to make a little bit of money, I parked myself nearby and watched him be dehumanized. No one wanted the fliers, and instead of looking him in the eye and saying “no thank you, I won’t shop there and don’t want to waste paper” everyone chose to act as if he wasn’t there at all. I’d been those people my entire life.
Mr. Flier man took a break at one point to smoke, and within seconds had three guys around him asking for a cigarette or a light. I wondered what kind of message this sent to him about his choices in life.
I got up after about 15 minutes of watching and continued on until I bumped into a man panhandling in front of Dunkin Donuts. His name was Curtis. And he told me that he stands out there and tries to raise $25 every day so he can pay off his $125 rent. He told me about his fight with alcoholism and crack and the hard fight that welfare has set before him. He wanted so badly to turn his life around and do something new. Curtis was raw, real, and beautiful.
After talking to Curtis, I headed to the subway for some warmth and rest. I found a cozy, somewhat concealed alcove and snuggled up on the floor. I half slept, half listened to people walk by. For the half hour I lay there, no one’s pace slowed, no one came near, and no one stopped their conversation to mention my presence. I felt invisible.
After sufficient time to thaw from the chilly weather, I found a nearby McDonalds, stood in front of it, and started in on the one thing I was most hesitant to do.
“Do you have any spare change so I could buy something to eat?” I got mostly “no’s” in the form of pretending I didn’t exist and walking by with no acknowledgment whatsoever except the slight but hugely obvious body language shift to that of discomfort. The ones that at least looked me in the eyes offered dignity with their rejection. The two people that gave me money were both men and both acted as if I were a burden – an unwelcome intrusion into their day.
After awhile, I reached my goal. My lunch consisted of a McDouble and water. There was a whopping 42 cents left over.
Back to Rittenhouse Square. I sat down next to a homeless man on a park bench. He immediately asked if I had any change. 42 cents later, I asked his name. Michael. We ended up talking for over two hours. He told me that he was an alcoholic, which had driven him to the streets, but after those two hours, he wasn’t Michael the homeless alcoholic. He was Michael, an undiscovered treasure.
He told me about his life growing up – his schizophrenic mom and drug-addicted dad, how mean they were, and how they and his younger sisters grew up in Queens. He told me that they don’t have contact with each other anymore. He told me that before he moved to Philly he lived in Westchester County near the Brandywine Lake and how it was beautiful but he hated it because he lived there by himself and was lonely. He told me that he loves Rittenhouse Square because it’s so beautiful and he gets to see and interact with people. He said he loves history and politics and knows a lot because he reads the newspapers and has read all the historical plaques in the city. He loves to read, especially about colonial America, and he absolutely has an obsessive love for William Penn. If he could worship him, he probably would.
Michael lived with a girlfriend for five years and hasn’t been with her for two, but when he did live with her, she had 20 cats. He said he loves animals, the squirrels in Rittenhouse are so friendly, and he loves cats so much more than dogs. When he started talking about the 20 cats, he began to cry because it took him three weeks for them to warm up to him and trust him before they finally would cuddle up to him. He thinks they really taught him how to relax.
Michael really loves to cook and really likes John Lennon because he had a sucky life and could write things like “my life is terrible, I just want to die” in a beautiful way. He gave me panhandling tips and told me about this awesome deal at the University of Pennsylvania where they give out really good food and you can get seconds and even dessert. He thought I was homeless like him and told me not to go back to Camden because Philly had so much more to offer.
Michael showed me how deceiving surface level views of people can be. I could’ve just given him my 42 cents and continued on, letting him fill the position of “lazy beggar” in my mind, never getting to see into his soul. I’m done with doing that.
PRoP taught me more about dignity, brokenness, and the equality of humanity than anything else I’ve ever experienced. It brought the heart of Jesus’ ministry to the poor and oppressed brilliantly to life.
PRoP / Dec 11, 10:37 AM
Towards the end of November, we spent a weekend on another one of Mission Year’s crazy mind-blowing adventures that they have planned for us. This time is was PRoP (aka Pauper’s Rite of Passage) – a short term look into the life of homeless Philadelphia and a look out of the eyes of the homeless into the consumer-driven life of the city. Stripped of conveniences, we were able to gain new eyes.
When we arrived at the Mission Year office in Philly, we were all eager for this experience that we knew so little about to begin. We were given PBJ, chips, and coke to eat for dinner and a really vague run down of how the next two days would look from Chris, the dude that led the program.
After talking to us a bit, Chris handed us forms to fill out so we could get clothes from a shelter before we headed out, then left the room. We quickly noticed that some of the forms were in Spanish and some were in English, so we dove in and helped each other translate and fill out the three page long forms with a vast array of questions asking for our social security numbers, emergency contact information, job information, how long we had been homeless, and questions about our goals in life.
Once everyone had finished, we headed over to Potter Street and lined up at the Simple Way’s clothing give-away center. Mission Year alum greeted us at the door, in character as stereotypical case-workers at a donation center. They led us through a grueling simulated process to get clothes that resembled pretty accurately the process most homeless people have to go through to get what they need from social service places. It took all 22 of us almost an hour to get through the line and get what we needed, mainly because of rude, heartless caseworkers with ridiculously high expectations of us.
After getting our clothes, we got changed and headed over to Chris’ church where he left us with six flashlights a warning that if we shined them too much his neighbors would probably call the police, and the knowledge that he would be back sometime in the morning.
The church was dark and had no heat. We oriented ourselves in the strange place and tried to sleep. We had only been allowed to bring a maximum of two items with us. For some that meant a sleeping bag and by way of the warmth it gave, sleep. For some that meant a toothbrush and toothpaste and by way of that, a really rough night.
For everyone it was a cold and uncomfortable night, and when Chris showed up at 6:30am with a hearty “rise and shine! I’ve got some jelly donuts and orange juice for y’all!” we weren’t looking very fresh.
Turns out that jelly donuts and orange juice for Chris = more PBJ, more chips, and orange soda for us.
Chris read us a passage called “The Beggar” that I really liked (I’ll post it separately) and a sheet of information for getting through the day. We headed out around 7, took the subway to center city, and began our time of homelessness.
On Going Home For Christmas... / Dec 11, 10:35 AM
“Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you.”
-2 Corinthians 12:19-21a
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