Joey Brumme
You Think I'm Crazy For Doing Mission Year? I May Agree...
So, you may ask, why on earth would you want to do something like Mission Year? That’s a great question, and one I have asked myself many times. I am doing this because I feel like God has been calling me to live amongst the poor for a few years now. More specifically, during the Urbana Missions Conference in 2006, God began to open my eyes to the amount of suffering that is experienced in the world today, suffering that I have so often ignored over the years. When I finally decided to listen, I felt God calling me to know and experience His heart for the “least” among us, the “least” that Jesus speaks about in the gospels. And I believe doing something like Mission Year is a step in the right direction. It is not going to be easy living amongst the poor. In fact, this will likely be a very uncomfortable year. But, I have been convicted lately that God does not call us to a comfortable life. The American dream is probably not a part of His plan for most of our lives. In fact, the only place in the Bible where the word, “comfortable”, seems to appear is in Job 21:23-26, “One person dies in prosperity, completely comfortable and secure, the picture of good health, vigorous and fit. Another person dies in bitter poverty, never having tasted the good life. But both are buried in the same dust, both eaten by the same maggots.” That is quite a morbid picture I know, but I think we’ve been deceived in America. I’ve tended to think that God desires us to be happy and comfortable, things He never promises in the Bible, and I’ve bought into that lie for many years now. I believe He only desires us to take comfort in Him, not in the safe, secure life we lead.
But, anyway, I digress. I know I will see a lot of messed up things and a lot of hurting people in Chicago. I no longer want to run from this though. I want to see, learn, and experience a part of the world where injustice and suffering are daily realities, so I can truly know what God feels everyday as he mourns for the world. If I am able to know and experience even the most miniscule part of God’s heart for suffering and injustice through my experience in Chicago, then I will consider it an incredible blessing.
That is only a small part of why I want to do Mission Year. I’m sure many more things will become clear throughout the year, and I hope to post them here in this blog. So, stay tuned! For now, I’m out.
Peace,
Joey Brumme
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…
Joey Brumme's Blog
Reaffirming Dignity: An Encounter on the Street... / Oct 17, 03:36 PM
Well, I’ve been meaning to update my blog for about a month, but being limited to about 2 hours on the internet per week makes it quite difficult to accomplish all the things I’ve been hoping to accomplish. I had several different things in mind to post here, one of course being a general update on what’s going on here in the Windy City, but I’m going to hold off on that one for a couple days. I apologize to all who are eager for some info about my team, my service site, my neighborhood, etc. I’ll write a long update as soon as I get some more time.
For now, I want to share a story about an encounter my team and I had while walking downtown on Wednesday, September 17. This happened on CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) Relay Day during the week of Chicago-specific training. CTA Relay Day was basically a big photo scavenger hunt in which we used public transportation to visit many of Chicago’s famous sites, like Soldier Field and Navy Pier. This was just a creative way to help us get accustomed to using public transportation.
On the way to the Rock N’ Roll McDonald’s (one of our scavenger goals), I greeted an African-American man who was walking on the street with a simple, “Hello.” Nothing too extraordinary as I’d been trying to get used to greeting strangers on the street, especially in our neighborhood. But, he immediately stopped and approached us saying, “I’ve been walking these streets for two years and you’re only the second person who has even acknowledged me.” This, of course, took us a bit off guard. But, we stopped and talked with him for a little while and eventually found out he was a homeless man named James, who actually had lived in Englewood at some point.
This conversation only lasted about 10 minutes, but it left me thinking and questioning long after the fact. It cost me so little to acknowledge James. Perhaps I was only risking being ignored or feeling awkward interacting in a situation out of my comfort zone. So, why, if it cost me so little, did my greeting mean so much to him?
For James, I think it was all about reaffirming his dignity. The more I’ve studied homelessness and poverty, and talked with homeless folks (neither have I done nearly enough), the more I become convinced that there is an intense need in the hearts of people like James to be reaffirmed and loved as human beings. Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone has this basic need. But, for James, and many others, this need has been intensified through years of being ignored and pushed to the margins of our society. Many people (myself included) tend to walk by homeless folks on the street without greeting them, smiling, or even making eye contact. Personally, I know I’ve thought if I make eye contact with a homeless person, they’ll ask me for money and I’ll either feel guilty if I can’t give it to them or coerced into giving something I don’t want to give. I may be wrong, but I think this tends to be a pretty common thought process for many people. But, regardless of the thought process, the result still tends to be the same; people like James are ignored and subsequently made to feel perhaps less than human. Imagine what it’d be like to go through days, weeks, and years being constantly ignored. And the only time someone doesn’t ignore you is when they drop a few quarters in your cup.
No wonder it meant so much to James to be acknowledged as a normal human being that day. He was starving to be afforded just a morsel of kindness and dignity, even for just a few moments.
Next time I see James, or anyone else on the street who may look different than me, I pray I take that opportunity to reach out and treat them with the dignity they deserve…even if it means feeling awkward once in a while. As Mission Year continues to preach to us, “Embrace the awkwardness!”
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