Jessica Wires
Why?
Matthew 28. Go. The instructions are pretty clear. I want to learn how to live them out every single day. I want to go. I want to stop waiting for the “right time”. I want to take risks. I want to find justice. I want to change. I want to be a sold-out disciple. I want to be the hands and feet of God. I want to love unconditionally. I want to learn compassion beyond measure. I want to serve with everything I have. I want to care for the poor, oppressed, and hurting… I want to LOVE the un-loved of our world.
These are a few of the reasons that I am going to Chicago in a few days to join this program called Mission Year. I don’t really know what exactly is going to happen but I do know that God is in control and that means it’s going to be amazing! I am asking you to walk with me in prayer as I live out this journey. Thank you for the part that you play in my life. I will keep you updated along the way.
“I think that’s what our world is desperately in need of – lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.”
-Shane Claiborne
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…
Jessica Wires's Blog
The End / Jul 26, 11:04 PM
The end is here! This is my last Mission Year blog. I have one more week to live in Chicago. I have never felt such opposite emotions so strongly. On one hand I cannot believe that I am leaving this place that I have learned to call home this year and these people that I have fallen in love with. On the other hand I am so excited about the next chapter. In some ways I feel like the time flew by and in other ways I feel like I have experienced enough things to fit into several years. This has been the best/worst year of my life and I would not trade a single part of it for anything in the world. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat because the people I have been blessed to become friends with and the lessons that I have learned are irreplaceable. It has been such a beautiful time in my life and there is no way it could have happened without everyone of my friends and family back home who have supported me prayerfully, financially, and emotionally this year. There were times that I had peace in a situation that should have been complete chaos. I know that it was because of the people praying for me back home. There were times when I was so emotionally exhausted that I could not imagine how I was going to keep going, but God used some precious people in my life to give me the encouragement that I needed. I could not question that this was exactly where I was supposed to be this year and God continually affirmed this for me. He has provided for all of my needs. One huge example of His provision is the financial gifts I have received. I am excited to be able to say that God provided me with $12,675 this year. That is $675 over what I needed to raise (praise God!). The extra money has gone to help support my teammates and Mission Year as a whole. I am so grateful for all of the love and support that I have received this year. If you are reading this blog you were a part of this experience with me and I will never be able to thank you enough!
What’s Next?
On July 31st I am headed back to Memphis to live for at least a year. In the fall I will be taking classes at the University of Memphis. I prayerfully made this decision a few months ago based on a yearning I have to learn about my home city in the same way that I have been able to learn about Chicago this year. I want to intentionally enter into relationships to love and learn from the hurting in Memphis the same way I have been learning to do here this year. I love Memphis and I feel drawn back there in a way that I can’t explain. I am completely willing to go wherever God leads me in the future but for now I believe that He is leading me to open my eyes and serve in the place that He put me first. I am so excited to enter into the journey of navigating life in Memphis with the experiences I have had in Chicago. I don’t know exactly what it will look like yet but I do know that I can’t wait to see what God has planned! I look forward to reconnecting with friends and family soon! Please let me know if you want to hear more about my experiences in Chicago or my decision to move back home. There is no way to put all of this year into words in a blog, but I will be happy to talk more about it anytime.
Love and Peace,
Jessica
Where is God? / Jun 30, 05:55 AM
As my time in Chicago is winding down I realize that I am still struggling to find the answer to a question that I have been wrestling with since I arrived. Every time I learn more of the injustices affecting the children that I have fallen in love with, and the pain afflicting my friends and neighbors that have shared their lives with me this year I am confronted with the same question. Where is God in this brokenness? Walking home the other night there was a man passed out in the train station surrounded by paramedics trying to revive him. Walking in front of me was a mother with her two young daughters. These two little girls were witnessing something they should not have to witness. I wish I could say that an event like this is not common in my neighborhood, but I can’t. I have listened to mothers while they painfully explained to me about the needless death of their children because of violence and anger. I have sat with children in tears as we try to work on homework that they are so frustrated with because no one has taught them the basic things that they need to know. I have entered homes where children live with single parents who are addicted to drugs struggling to make ends meet. I could go on but you get the picture.
My emotions have been the same every time my eyes are opened a little wider to the realities affecting people that I love in my neighborhood. I feel anger, confusion, sadness, and hopelessness. I know in my head that these situations are not hopeless with God. I know in my head that he is in control, but knowing this does not make it any easier to see so much hurting with no end in sight. Knowing this and feeling it when my heart is breaking are two different things. I know that this thought process is incredibly arrogant of me. I know that if my heart is breaking for my friends then God cares so much more than I could even imagine. I just wish I had a clearer understanding of why it has to be this way.
Wrestling with finding God in the brokenness in my neighborhood has also affected me on a personal level. I have struggled with feeling peace about the things that worry me. For those of you who do not know, my mom has been going through a lot of medical testing in the past several weeks to find out about some pain she has been having. It has been difficult for me to be so far away from my family during this long stressful process. I have realized in all of this that I am not trusting God. I am not trusting him to take care of my family and I am not trusting him to take care of my neighbors. Realizing this has been a humbling experience for me. Who am I to presume that I know how to take care of people better than God does?
Romans 11:33-36 says: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. These verses serve as a great reminder to me that God is so much bigger than the little box that I put him in. His plans are incomprehensible to me and he is to be given the glory no matter what. I am learning to find him in the small things like playing with the kids I work with at the park and watching them laugh joyfully as they get to spend some time just being kids. He is present in conversations I have had with my friend across the street when we sit and talk about life and faith. He is even present in the distance I feel from home, teaching me to depend completely on him and no one else as I finish strong here. I am definitely not done learning how to put all of my faith in God, but I feel peace in knowing that he is giving me what I need to continue the journey.
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Race Matters / Apr 2, 12:34 PM
The worst kind of problem is the kind that people are unaware of. If people are not aware of the problem, or in this case, think that it has already been solved then nothing will be done to bring justice to the situation. This is definitely the case with the issue of racism and the oppression that comes with it. There are too many of us who are or were under the impression that racism is an issue of the past. This “don’t fix what isn’t broken” attitude is the reason that racism is still an issue today. There are two main expressions of racism in this country. Beverly Tatum defines them both well in her book, Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Active racism: “actively embracing and perpetuating negative and hateful images of those who are different from themselves”, and Passive racism: “Passive racism is more subtle and can be seen in the collusion of laughing when a racist joke is told, of letting exclusionary hiring practices go unchallenged, of accepting as appropriate the omissions of people of color from curriculum, and of avoiding difficult race related issues. Because racism is so ingrained in the fabric of American institutions, it is easily self-perpetuating. All that is required to maintain it is business as usual”.
Unfortunately, and contrary to what we would like to believe, anyone who is not actively working against the problem is contributing to it and is an oppressor. People are benefitting from and doing nothing to go against our “social order” that gives far more advantage to white people than to people of color. Our social structure is built to give supremacy to white people at the cost of taking away privilege and opportunity from people of color. Tatum puts it well when she says, “Racism, like other forms of oppression, is not only a personal ideology based on racial prejudice, but a system involving cultural messages and institutional policies and practices as well as the beliefs and actions of individuals. In the context of the United States, this system clearly operates to the advantage of whites and to the disadvantage of people of color.” The white supremacist beliefs and views that permeate our American Society and culture have created a cycle of racist oppression that is in full force today. My hope is that we will become aware of our participation in the problem and then begin to fight in the battle to put an end to it. “If people are informed they will do the right thing. It is when they are not informed that they become hostages to prejudice” -Chadayne Hunter-Gault. I have learned more about racism since moving to Chicago and living in Englewood than ever before in my life but it is a problem in every city all over our country. It is time for this injustice to be identified by all people so that it will be stopped.
In Englewood there are far too many oppressive cycles that stem from racism to go into detail about them all but to name a few; police brutality, racial profiling, educational disadvantages, residential segregation, unheard political voice, lack of money distribution, and so many more injustices are contributors. The issue that I have dealt with firsthand the most is the issue of the education system. In my community a huge injustice I have witnessed is the cycle of poor education. My neighbors and friends that live here cannot send their children to the kind of schools that they deserve to go to, the schools that get the same amount of attention as the ones in wealthier communities. They do not have the same advantages from the very beginning because racism and classism have kept them stuck in a situation that is nearly impossible to get out of. I volunteer at an afterschool program that has 90 kids enrolled ranging in age from first through fifth grade. Every kid in the program is there because they are failing at least two subjects in school and are scoring way below the average level on the ISAT test. These kids are a very small percentage compared to the multitude of other kids that are in the same situation and are going un-noticed and un-helped. They do not have the same quality being poured into their lives and giving them the numerous advantages of graduating high school, going to college, and getting a good job. They are set up to become “un-successful” by the world’s standards from the minute they enter into kindergarten because that is when it all begins.
I have discovered that there is no simple answer to the question of how to bring racial justice. I think it is a combination of a lot of things; a lot of time, healing, and reconciliation. What would definitely not be a solution would be for some white savior to come in and “fix”. Howard Thurman writes in his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, “It is the sin of pride and arrogance that has tended to vitiate the missionary impulse to make of it an instrument of self-righteousness on the one hand and racial superiority on the other. There needs to be a posture of love for our fellow humans and a concern for their well-being because of that love, not a, “this is a project I’m working on” attitude. We are all human and if we would be willing to look closely I think we would realize that we are not as different as we think we are. “The differences between black and white folk are not blood or color, and the ties that bind us are deeper than those that separate us. The common road of hope which we all traveled has brought us into stronger kinship than any words, laws, or legal claims.” –Richard Wright
There are things that we can do on an individual level and on a group level to step into solidarity with our friends, neighbors, brothers, and sisters to fight alongside them to bring justice to racial oppression. On an individual level we can ask ourselves these questions found in Cornel West’s book, Race Matters. “Am I perpetuating and reinforcing the negative messages so pervasive in our culture, or am I seeking to challenge them? If I have not been exposed to positive images of marginalized groups, am I seeking them out, expanding my own knowledge base for myself and my (future) children? Am I acknowledging and examining my own prejudices, my own rigid categorizations of others, thereby minimizing the adverse impact they might have on my interactions with those I have categorized?”
On a group level we can strive to give a voice to people of color on the political and religious levels. West says, “No Democracy can survive, no matter how strong its markets are, without a serious public life and commitment to fairness and justice.”; “To put it bluntly we do not have enough black leaders who love and respect black people enough to tell them the truth and trust them with the truth.”; “This is especially so in regard to black youth. With roughly 40 percent of black children living in poverty and almost 10 percent of all black young adult men in prison, we face a crisis of enormous proportions.” If everyone instead of just a select few would start treating this issue like the injustice that it actually is progress could be made. “We must delve into the depths where neither liberals nor conservatives dare to tread, namely, into the murky waters of despair and dread that now flood the streets of black America. To talk about the depressing statistics of unemployment, infant mortality, incarceration, teenage pregnancy, and violent crime is one thing. But to face up to the monumental eclipse of hope, the unprecedented collapse of meaning, the incredible disregard for human (especially black) life and property in much of black America is something else.” With a lot of time and willingness to fight in the battle side by side, I think we can really make this a problem of the past but like they always say, “admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery”.
Elephants and the Big Picture / Feb 16, 09:33 PM
“There are four blind men who discover an elephant. Since the men had never encountered an elephant before, they grope about seeking to understand and describe this new phenomenon. One grasps the trunk and concludes that it is a snake. Another explores one of the elephant’s legs and describes it as a tree. A third finds the elephant’s tail and announces that it is a rope. And the fourth blind man, after discovering the elephant’s side, concludes that it is a wall. Which one is right? Each in his blindness is describing the same thing: an elephant. Thus all are right, but none wholly so.” – A Buddhist Sutra
I have heard this story used to make several different points. I have heard it used to describe God, being something we cannot fully understand. I have also heard it used as an aid in understanding world religions and the reason that there are so many. But recently when I was reflecting over it I realized a different meaning as it applies to what I am learning this year about reconciling differences.
We can all relate to the four blind men in this story. They are all certain of what they have found based on the knowledge that they have been given and on the influence of their surroundings. That does not make them any less wrong.
Everyone has a different perspective based on the influence of culture, upbringing, and surroundings. We decide we do not like someone because they are “so different”. We cannot live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same churches, or share our lives with each other. Why? Because they are calling something a snake and we are so sure that it is a tree. We cannot understand their point of view and they cannot understand ours.
This disunity has been a problem we as humans have been facing for a long time. We are separated by race, social class, religion, and any other reason we can find. For example, since moving to Chicago I have become aware of the racial and economic lines that are drawn all over the city. It is made very clear that many people are unwilling to live around those that are “different” than they are. In my community (Englewood) a huge injustice I have witnessed is the cycle of poor education. My neighbors and friends that live here cannot send their children to the kind of schools that they deserve to go to. They do not have the same advantages from the very beginning because racism and classism have kept them stuck in a situation that is nearly impossible to get out of. So around and around we go.
We are told that the two greatest commands are love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. We seem to have a hard time defining neighbor. In a book I recently read, Jesus and the Disinherited, the author, Howard Thurman writes, “Jesus defined the neighbor by telling of the Good Samaritan. With sure artistry and great power he depicted what happens when a man responds directly to human need across the barriers of class, race, and condition. Every man is potentially every other man’s neighbor. Neighborliness is nonspatial, it is qualitative. A man must love his neighbor directly, clearly, permitting no barriers between.”
Luckily we are not left without a solution to our problem. There is a fifth man in our story who is not blind. God can see the whole picture (the whole elephant). Jesus came to heal our blindness. To show us the big picture that he sees. If we would allow ourselves to be healed we would see that we are wrong and from there we could work towards racial and social reconciliation and the peace that we are meant to live under. We have a role to play in the process. We have to be willing to accept that we cannot see the big picture and be willing to move towards understanding and loving those neighbors that we find to be different. It has been my experience that we are usually not as different as we think we are. If we will allow ourselves to be healed of our blindness and have God-vision we will realize that we are all looking at an elephant instead of a bunch of unrelated objects.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
1 Corinthians 12:21-26
Newsletters / Feb 8, 11:31 PM
If you have not been receiving my newsletters and would like to know what I have been up to in Mission Year so far here they are…
September:
Greetings from Chicago! Those of you who have walked through the “Mission Year preparation process” with me know how exciting it is to finally be able to say that. My experience so far has been incredible! I have been able to explore my neighborhood (Englewood) and I have seen several things. I’ve seen poverty, violence, broken homes, and racial divides. I have also seen kind people, beautiful children, creativity, and hope for reconciliation.
I have realized that my being a part of this community makes their problems my problems, their pain becomes my pain, and if they are hurting I am going to be hurting too. It has turned “you, them, and theirs” into “we, us, and ours”. I have already fallen in love with this community and the people that I can now call my neighbors. It feels so right to be here. I learn something new every day and every day my eyes are opened to things I have never known before.
There are a lot of things that I still don’t about this place but there is one thing I know for certain; God is already here. I am not bringing God to this city. I am only here to learn about what He is already doing here and come alongside Him to be a part of it. I hope and pray that barriers are broken down, in-justices are reconciled, and God’s love is shown.
One of the goals of Mission Year is learning to live in community with other people. Everyone who is part of the program is placed on teams. I have been put on a team with five other girls. While these people may or may not become my best friends in the world my goal is to understand, appreciate, and love all of my teammates, and to actively seek God’s best for each one of them. Although we have known each other for only two weeks, my team has grown close through activities such as baking cookies for our neighbors, assembling furniture without any manual or directions, rolling a laundry-filled cart with a wheel that won’t stay on down to the Laundromat, and spending a week in the woods together during our training in Atlanta. These are beautiful girls with hearts full of compassion. I feel very blessed to be able to serve with them this year. We are all different people coming from all different walks of life. I ask that you please pray for them and me as we overcome obstacles and embark on this journey together.
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the prayer that has already been lifted up for me. Since I arrived here I have felt a peace that only comes from God. I have not felt fearful. I have been surrounded by His love and encouragement. I know that it is because so many of you have been praying for me. Keep it up! Please know that I love and appreciate you all. I can’t wait to share my experiences with you as I go through this year.
November:
A few weeks ago all of the Mission Year teams in Chicago participated in PRoP (Paupers Right of Passage). We got up early and met at CCIL (Chicago Christian Industrial League), a homeless outreach ministry. When we first arrived we were taken one by one into a room where we were asked a series of questions in Spanish. The purpose of this was to show us the hardship that so many of our non-English speaking neighbors have to deal with on a daily basis. A task as simple as taking a child to the doctor becomes a very complicated situation if no one speaks your language. After interrogation we were taken to a room of clothing and told that we could pick out one shirt, one pair of pants and a coat. The clothes that we came in were to be handed over in exchange for the ones we received. After we were dressed in our “pauper’s attire” we were paired up and given a list of things to experience for the day.
List in hand, my partner Sara (a fellow Memphian) and I set out, not really knowing what we were going to do. We decided to follow the list and the first thing on it was “ask someone for leftover food”. Seemed easy enough so we set out for The Cheesecake Factory where we thought there would be plenty of opportunity. As I sat on the steps of the building trying to muster up the courage to ask someone for their leftovers I realized that this was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Finally, I decided to just go for it. With my heart pounding, I approached two women carrying leftover bags and said, “Excuse me, my friend and I are hungry and were wondering if you would be willing to spare some food.” She looked me up and down, looked at my friend and said, “No, I think I am going to use these later”. I was shocked. I could not believe that she stood there with her leftovers in her hand and denied them to someone who was hungry. I was not actually in need, but she didn’t know that. This same scenario happened several times as Sara and I continued attempting to find someone generous enough to share from his or her surplus of food. We were unsuccessful.
The next task on the list was to sit on the street corner with a sign… alone. We found a cardboard box in a dumpster, and borrowed a pen to write on it with. After we made our signs we split up to find our spots. This was the hardest part of the day. I was sitting there all alone as people passed by as if I wasn’t there at all. Some people glanced down at me and quickly looked away. Some pretended they didn’t see me at all as they literally stepped over me. Everyone who did look down at me gave a look of disgust as they passed by. One lady even said, “Shame on you,” as she turned up her nose and stepped over. It was the most de-humanizing experience that I have ever had. People assumed that I was worthless based on what they saw. People disapproved of my being there in their way because of the conclusions that they drew. The only person who treated me like a person the whole day was an actual homeless man I met named Mr. Bill.
Mr. Bill walked by and quickly knew that I was not homeless. After explaining to him what I was doing for the day he decided to show me some tips on how to panhandle. After a while he sat down and we spent several hours talking about his story. It was very apparent that he was so thankful to have someone to talk to and care about what he had to say. I was only on the street for a few hours and I felt the effects of being treated like I was worthless. I can only imagine what it would be like to live that out every day. Waking up every day with no one to care about whether or not you are alive is a much worse problem than not knowing where your next meal is going to come from. After talking with Bill and reflecting on what I experienced that day I realized that the problem of homelessness is not really about being hungry or having a place to sleep. Though those are problems that come with the package the real issue is not having someone value you as a human being. God made all people with a purpose and He loves all of His creation, not just the wealthy or well esteemed. All people are precious in His eyes as the people He created them to be. We are supposed to view each other as God’s precious creation. We should love and care for each other. We are supposed to value each other as God values us and not place special value on those we deem “important”. I believe God has “special concern” for the mistreated, for those that we take value away from. If an artist spent many years creating a work of art, a masterpiece, only to have it destroyed by the first person to look at it- the artist would be devastated. It is like this only on a much grander scale when God’s creation is mistreated/oppressed/displaced.
“We are called to love the world. And God loved the world so much that He gave Jesus. Today He loves the world so much that He gives you and me to be His love, His compassion, and His presence.” Mother Teresa, No Greater Love
I am still reflecting and learning from this experience. I am not entirely sure what to do with all of the emotions, thoughts, and lessons I got out of that day. What I do know is that it is not hard to make someone feel valued. At the very least a simple hello could make a difference in the way you make someone feel on any given day. Even if I don’t feel comfortable giving out money because of whatever the situation is I can always ask someone how their day was and show them thπat I value them as God’s creation. There is so much poverty, oppression, and despair going on in our world. Thinking about all of it is very overwhelming to me. All I know to do right now is take it one person at a time and show as much of God’s love as possible.
“I assure you, as often as you did it for one of the least of these brothers, you did it to me.” Jesus, Matthew 25:40
“If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because neither you nor I are generous enough. It is because we are not instruments of love in the hands of God. We do not recognize Christ when once again He appears to us in the hungry man, in the lonely woman, in the child who is looking for a place to get warm.” Mother Teresa, No Greater Love
January:
“How many souls have you saved?”
I was recently asked this question by a well-intentioned friend. It was a little disconcerting but I was not really sure what to say at the time. In the past few weeks since returning from Christmas break, I have been reflecting a lot on what I am doing in Mission Year and how my perception of that has changed since I began in August. Before coming to Chicago I had visions of moving to a “poor” neighborhood and spending a year “fixing” people. I have since learned that neither do people need someone to fix them nor am I so great that I should consider myself a divinely appointed “fixer of the poor.” My intentions were good but I was also arrogantly naïve. I am living in Englewood surrounded by a lot of people who are going through things just like anybody else. The details are maybe a little changed but when it comes down to it I am surrounded by neighbors who are no different from me and no different from you.
I am here to connect with and genuinely love people. I am learning how to walk through life with people, from celebrations to suffering. I recently read in a book by Rob Bell “to express love is to move toward them in a definitive way. In this way, God, an all-powerful being, creator of the Universe and everything in it showed pure love by meeting people on their level, in their world, on their soil… he became like them.” I want to learn to love like God loves. That is what I am here to do.
“Our first need is not for people to fix our problems. People who charge in and have all the answers and try to make things right without first joining us in our pain generally annoy us or worse yet, they push us away. They have nothing to give us. The God that Jesus points us to is not a god who stands at a distance wringing his hands and saying, ‘If only you’d listen to me.”
-Rob Bell
Last trimester I worked at Team Englewood High School in the morning and at By the Hand Club for Kids in the evenings. I decided that I wanted to focus my full attention on one of my service sites, and though I enjoyed the work I was doing at the high school, I felt more invested at By the Hand. I now work at BTH from 10-7. In the mornings at BTH I go on home visits (meet with the families of the kids in the program), help with class prep work, and support the staff in whatever else is needed. I am really enjoying the opportunity to learn from the staff and focus my full attention on the kids I work with.
Thank you all once again for all of the love and support you give me. The incredible experience I am having would not be possible if it weren’t for you!
I am still trying to reach my financial goal. If you have not had the chance to donate yet and would like to, please contact me: wiresja@mail.lipscomb.edu or give online at www.missionyear.org/blog/jessicawires. Thanks :)
If you do not receive my newsletter in the mail and would like to please send me an email with your address. wiresja@gmail.com
