Samantha Bird
So Why Mission Year? It's a Long Story Actually...
Well I’ve never blogged before, I always liked the idea, I’d imagine blogging my thoughts under a false name to inspire many curious people who stumbled upon my blog. The problem is… the thought of sharing my thoughts with all scared me, and I don’t have too many inspiring things to say. I just like to imagine those scenarios, I love the way other people’s lives cross paths and affect each other, its cool and strangers are so interesting. So anyways, here is to starting something I always have wanted to do, a blog. Cheers….
My name is Samantha Christine Bird; I’ve decided to make myself known to those of you who may not be as familiar with me, so hang with me as I describe myself a tad. Thanks. I’m 18, yes that probably sounds young, I know. I just graduated from high school here in Riverside California where I’ve lived forever. I’m a fan of history,art, and music. I always saw myself becoming an archeologist and living in a tent in the middle of the Egyptian desert. I must have been inspired by Indiana Jones what can I say. The lifestyle of a nomad is very appealing to me, living off of whatever you have and nothing else, and meeting tons of awesome people through your travels, seeing beautiful places and experiencing different cultures.. I have three sisters who are my best friends, I have a turtle who I am giving away seeing as I can not take him with me, need a friend? He’s yours. And so far I’m enjoying following God, I’ve realized so far throughout my life I’ve never really had to trust God with my future or seek His will when making plans, but this summer has been a crazy adventure and I’m loving it. Realizing that nothing else in my life is mandatory and that God has the control to do whatever He wants is entirely freeing.
So why mission year? It’s a long story actually.
Why: I want to do mission year because I KNOW it’s what God wants me to do, and I consider that a huge privilege, that GOD, who made the earth and led all the impressive historic people of the bible, is guiding me. I want to be useful to God and so I can’t wait to spend this next year with the one focus of serving and loving people so they may see how much more God loves them. I’m not quite sure how God will use me, Sam Bird, but that’s alright because it’s not about me, and I need to remember that. I’m simply another little sinful servant that God doesn’t need, but chooses to use, that is a privilege.
How God showed me Mission Year:
I’ve spent this entire year so self focused on my future plans, in my case college. All year I was terribly indecisive, first this college then that, then finally this summer I had settled with PLNU. However throughout the whole process there was a little voice in me that was telling me that college wasn’t right just yet. One day when I was feeling very unsure I started searching for year programs that I could do before school, and I stumbled upon mission year. Reading through the program, I realized that it was completely inline with my thoughts and goals in life, and was amazed. Mission Year is seriously an awesome program; I’m in love with it. I took the fact that I found the website a few days before the end of the extended deadline as an omen. So fearfully I looked more into the program hoping it wasn’t what God REALLY wanted, I mean not seriously right? I had three days to choose if I was gonna go for it and apply. And I let those three days pass, and the day of the deadline I did everything I could to distract myself, telling myself I couldn’t possibly apply the night of. I went to Chile for a few weeks on a mission trip with my church, and came home to find that God was not going to let me simply ignore His calling. My doors were shut to any university my means of inaccessible loans. Loathing myself for turning down mission year, I started thinking about community college. After a few weeks mission year popped back into my head and I decided to email them, and promised God I would go if they said there was space available. If this was what He wanted, He would work the magic to make it happen, and I would be right behind Him. Mission Year responded saying that there may be an opportunity for a new team to be made, they had already created the teams, and to apply just in case. Thankfully the new team opportunity worked out, and now God is sending me to Charlotte North Carolina on October 2. The way everything worked out at the last minute was all so divine and God easily opened the doors for me to do this, so now I’m walking through, very humbled that He allowed everything to work out after I had ignored Him the first time. It is very obvious that this is what God wants, it’s never been so clear to me, and so I’m beyond excited, I wish I could find some more expressive words.
Here are the two things I really look forward to: Learning and serving. I think whatever I do, ill always have the selfish motive to learn. I wish I could honestly say that I want to do mission year just so I can serve other people and love them, but I can’t. I don’t think its wrong to want to learn, but it definitely is a selfish aspect of my choice. I’m excited to learn to understand people more so I can empathize with them more genuinely; I’m excited to learn to love the way God does. I’m excited to serve other people and help them in tangible ways as well as emotional. I look forward to watching God work through my team mates, and I can’t wait to meet them! I just look forward to everything, the people I meet, the issues and problems the team has to work through, the time I feel out of my element, when God’s love is experienced by a neighbor…. It’s all what God has planned, and that will be something beautiful to witness and experience.
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…
Samantha Bird's Blog
Fundraising / May 11, 05:44 PM
-As many of you have heard from my newsletters and emails, I am very behind in
fundraising! This has caused me to get back into the creative side of me, which I’m
happy about. I have long neglected creating things because I’ve been so busy and
overwhelmed with life. But here are some rings I’ve started to make. I’m going to sell them in NoDa, which is the art district of Charlotte. They have art crawls on most Fridays, they are awesome, tons of street vendors, artists, musicians playing on the streets. It’s fun, anyways I hope they sell. I’m gonna be creating some headbands and necklaces and journals and other random things as well and hopefully I’ll get more pictures up soon. If you interested in buying anything let me know (popsi4567@yahoo.com) and I’ll figure out a way to get it to you. Also now that I’ve learned to post pictures I’ll get some up of Charlotte and people. Sad that it took me this long to do that. Whatever though I am now so hooray!
Attempted Ring Project
Chinese Food / May 11, 05:43 PM
Yesterday while writing my father back downtown near this loud beautiful water fountain, by the noise of a homeless man drumming, outside of that fancy restaurant, I felt so relaxed and had not a care in the world.
Soon enough some of my friends from Urban Ministry Center (a center for homeless people) showed up to play cards. I told them I’d join them once finished writing my letter, then all of a sudden my friend Bianca showed up. This was surprising to me because I haven’t seen her in a few weeks, she was recently banned from the center. She is 18, beautiful and a super talented poet. She has been through a lot of crapp in her life, kicked out of her home for getting pregnant a few years ago and since then she refuses to have anything to do with her family.
I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity up so after we played cards I asked her if she wanted to grab something to eat, who knows when I’d see her again. We ended up at this Chinese food place. Yum, it was delicious. Our conversation consisted of weed, robbery, racism, anger… we spoke about hurt, and all the awful things she has been through. I mostly just listened because I never know what kind of advice you can give to such heaviness. And I don’t think she needs another person telling her ways to change her life, she really just needs someone to listen and accept and love.
It’s crazy how different our lives are when we are the same age. I had to leave her at the transit center to go another night without sleep. I cried as I got closer and closer to my bed, my safe house, and my awesome roommates who love me.
i asked for wonder. / Feb 3, 06:12 PM
I apologize to those of you who care about reading my blogs and have not had new news to read of for a long time. Man I suck!
“Dear Lord,
grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of Your universe. Delight me to see how Your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of men’s faces. Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all.”
That is just a prayer from a book I’m reading called The Ragamuffin Gospel.
So lately I have been feeling real dreamy, like life is just this foggy unreal existence, I’m sure you are familiar with the feeling. I used to find little things really beautiful and exciting, and looking back at myself I think I used to be more joyful. I’m not sure what my problem is. I keep allowing myself to forget things about God. This book I’m reading for mission year curriculum came at a very fortunate time. I feel like the way brennan manning presents God’s grace is just refreshing my soul. I mean its nothing new, but he presents it so simply, and for some reason God’s love is just seeming NEW to me. I can’t really explain why its new to me NOW when I’ve known it all my life. But I’m having a hard time believing it. Seriously doesn’t Grace seem too good to be true. But anyways back to this dream. This prayer is something that really stuck out to me because of the dreamy way Ive been feeling, and the realization that Ive lost the Wonder of life. So Ive been praying this prayer. And guess what, the past few weeks earth has really been showing off. And life has been more colorful. And Ive been more brave.
Well here is an example: Charlotte decided to be summery and sunny and warm! And i felt like i was in California. Then it decided to get super rainy again. and i hated that. But then last Sunday, this rain was wonderful. after a long day of entertaining wild children, and feelin sick to my stomach from the pound of calorie pound cake that i made and then ate with them, we began to clean our house as is our Sunday night custom, when i looked outside I saw that the rain was coming down harder than id ever seen before in my life. And it was not even slightly cold outside. That night turned into barefoot freedom, it was beautiful, and felt soooo good. We swang in the pouring rain, sang in the pouring rain, danced in the pouring rain, i jumped in all the puddles i could find. Then the wind started to change the direction of the rain, and it was just crazy gusty watery freedom. and it was Wonderful.
And now Charlotte has given us snow. SNOW. I had never been in actual snow fall in all my life. It was such a magical moment. We were at this place called Urban Ministries helping some artists spray paint a mural on these lockers, and it started to snow. I danced around and couldn’t stop smiling. I was really jealous when i watched the movie Avatar because Pandora was the most beautiful place, but our earth is similar, and its REAL. Anyways our planet is full of WONDER, just watch planet earth or the snow falling, or the sun making snow look like sparkles.
Made a snow man with a friend named Damien today, it ended up being a man named Amy, don’t really know how that ended up. And then it ended up becoming a statuesque sculpture of a person on one knee. I realized that i LOVE sculpting, i was getting way too into it, and it got destroyed. how sad. Snow ball fights are also fun, and pretending to be ice skaters with becky, and her falling many times hah:) know what though, snow makes adults in Charlotte grouchy. Some lady blamed Becky and I on making the road more slippery. As if that is in our hands.
Ive started to having morning cooking class with my neighbor Mr. Bobbie, he is this old man who is a professional horse guy. He seriously has probably hundreds of ribbons and trophies from all these national horse competitions. Anyways he used to be a cook, and so far all I’ve made with him is peach cobbler, but i plan on more of this. it was really fun, and he has the cutest dog named junior.
I WILL be working at urban ministries SOON. It WILL happen. i keep telling myself that, i love it there.
Stephina one of my neighbors is becoming like my mom here, and she makes me laugh my head off. She is awesome and understands me when i just don’t understand life. Her and her husband William have showed me such great friendship. She just got home from spending a few weeks at the hospital, she got an infection from a back surgery she had. So if you like to pray for people, pray for them. They are wearing heavy boots these days as they both are unemployed and have health problems.
I just got home from spending time with my friend on her porch cause her family locked her out. Sometimes all you can say to someone is “i don’t understand why life has to be so tough” and then cry with them. I think this was one of the most real and depressing moments Ive had with someone here in Charlotte. No 12 year old deserves to be locked out of their home at 11 at night, and nobody deserves to feel unloved the way she does. This girl just holds such a huge place in my soul, i could cry over her life but that doesn’t really help does it. What do i do with this? I guess just pass it on and hope that your prayers help her. I’m glad to have found though that she believes that God does things for a reason, but that doesn’t really ease the pain too much. She does not seem like a twelve year old.
well life is just a mixture of joyful, depressing, hilarious, boring, wonderful moments isn’t it. sometimes i just don’t know how to be: sad, happy, bla? i mean i don’t want to end this on a sad note, but I’m sad and so many people have such unfortunate lives. Ill end it with something to do with Wonder since that was the title.
I really feel that God is starting to bring back that wonder in my life. Its great.
“God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us.”
Go play in the rain, or build a snow statue, or if there is no snow just lay in the grass and take a nap, or talk to that person over there about their life!
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Happy Halloween!!! / Nov 1, 09:29 PM
Today is Halloween! This is one of my favorite holidays, I don’t understand why people think it is evil. I mean you get to dress up in fun costums and get free candy. And plus my family has THE best halloween traditions so its not just like any other night with my family. I’m trying not to be sad this dreary Halloween morning. Sad that it doesn’t feel at all like halloween here (we never had time to decorate), sad that I didn’t carve a pumpkin, sad that all my family is probably scrambling around that house this very minute putting together last minute costums, or sad that I’ll be missin out on the chili and corn bread, sad that I won’t be able to hold my cute little baby cousin Corwin stuffed in a costum, sad that I won’t be sitting on the floor with all my cousins and siblings who are TOO old to trick or treat swapping our candies… Wow this is not helping. HOWEVER, I am really excited because we are going to be helping at our church tonight and they are going to play ITs the Great Pumpkin CHarlie Brown! That is all I need, thats my silver lining. There is also hope that this Halloween may be just as wonderful as the 18 Ive spent with my family because its new and exciting, its more fallish over here in Charlotte than in Riverside, I mean its probably going to be 80 degrees there psh, AND each week here I seem to be falling more and more in love with my new life. Seriously things just seem to be getting better and better, each day surprises me with new realizations and wonderful experiences or conversations. So today will not let me down. I will not let it, I have complete control over that.
Since I’ve been busy and kept putting off writing another blog, I will have to sum up the past couple weeks with a nice little list of things pulled from my journal entries.
THE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT LIFE, NEW REALIZATIONS, AND OTHER RANDOM FACTS ABOUT LIFE:
-The Smelly Cat Coffeehouse, it is a cozy little coffee shop located in the art district of Charlotte called NoDa. It was recommended by these awesome people from our church Katie and Adam, here is your shout out! I love the place, I’m glad to have found a place that gives me the same cozy and relaxed feeling as Back To THe Grind back home. I will be spending many a Sabbath day there. Beth you would love it. Beth is my little sister, and Back To The Grind was our favorite place, we would go there more than once a week it seems. Anyways I took the team there for teamnight, and Becky spilled her carmel apple cider. Then we played Scrabble.
-The last step at the top of our stairs squeaks everytime you step on it, so I remember to skip over it everytime.
-We have neighbors name Princess and Puddin. enough said.
-I’ve been working at two different elementary schools the past couple weeks cause my background check cleared, and I LOVE IT. I work for an organization called A Child’s Place, which I think is one of THE coolest programs eva! They help homeless children in the school system. By providing pretty much everything you need for school and MORE. They also help out the parents by finding them places that can help them with further needs and holding seminars once a month. What I do is tutor kids one on one and just befriend them and check up on their lives and love them as much as I can! One boy I’ve been working with is named Phillip and he is in kindergarten. He is only five but seriously I swear he has the mind of a much older human being. He is just hilarious and I can already see his character and personality coming through. Here is Phillip’s problem because of the circumstances of his life he is very disruptive in class, and behind all the other students. So I tutor him for LONG periods of time, and its hard because he is making SLOW progress. But I can tell what a difference individual time and love is making in his life. He is a beautiful person. The other day I was sick of tutoring him, and Im sure he was sick of repetative letter and number games, so I just decided we could talk and chill for a bit, little did his teacher know hah. We began with the usual kid banter.. you know the various random stories that don’t seem important to you at all, but for kids its the most important thing ever. EX: “Yesterday i played football with my cousin and blabblablaba.” Its cute don’t get me wrong. But as our conversation progressed I began to learn new and sad things about his life. I gave him five cards for his five years of life, and I set out 18 for myself. As we looked at each others years we were both hit with crazy realizations. I was hit with this sad thought that I’ve already lived a good deal of my life, and it went by really fast. He was hit with the fact that he still has his whole life to live. These are his exact words “I still have my WHOLE life!” Then we began talking about the future and what he would be doing when he was my age. I had to hold back my tears when I realized how dim his future is. I started imagine him getting involved in a gang, selling drugs, doing drugs, living on the streets, this beautiful soul. I want the best for him, I want him to flourish in life and discover God’s love. I realized how important it is for me to love him, and I’ve decided that I’ll be praying for this kid my entire life. I have to trust that God will put more people into his life and really watch over him. Its hard that I’ll have no idea where he ends up, or who he becomes. Im just really priviledged to be a light for him this year, and I pray that each year God uses someone else in his life. It breaks my heart how many children out there have such sucky childhoods and dim futures.
-A while ago Shannon from Right Moves For Youth, another nonprofit that helps kids in school, took our team on a tour of Charlotte. She told us stories of students who were in her program who had been shot and killed on the streets we were driving, of the segregation in the school systems here in Charlotte, unequal education, there are so MANY problems with this world. Especially Charlotte. We drove through tons and tons of poor neighborhoods and there was always this common denominator: Charlotte hides their poor. Along all the busy streets the homes of the ghettos have been bought, remade to look beautiful, and sold to wealthier families. Who knows where the previous families went. But if you travel past these main roads into the neighborhoods, past the facade these pretty homes, you discover blocks of poor run down homes. It was a really weird feeling, because I’m not kidding, this was everywhere not just in one spot of Charlotte, I felt like it was this huge conspiracy. Hiding the poor deep back into the neighborhoods where they will have no voice and won’t disrupt anyones “conscience”. We then drove through the North side of Charlotte, where I saw some of the most BEAUTIFUL homes I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a shock to see how wide the gap between rich and poor is here. And it is also hard to see how alive segregation has remained. It was eye opening and discouraging. But at the same time I feel it was a pivotal moment in my life, I will never be satisfied in life unless I am living THIS life. The one God has called all of us to live, helping those who need help. And this looks different in each and everyones life, but for me I think it will mean relating with the poor and living among them. We shall see.
-Waffles with Becky and Jaimee at 1 in the morning. Yum. Then waking up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache, an inner battle in my mind, whether or not I was going to vomit.
-Finding Barak downstairs talking to himself.
-Getting ready for bed, about to turn off the lights when I hear unfamiliar voices downstairs. Going downstairs to find Spider and Darius over at 10 in the night with ice cream they had bought for us, they just watched us eat. Sugar is bad for your teeth they say. This was last week, and you dont know how much I needed it. I had had the worst day, and that made my night, I was seriously overwhelmed with joy.
-Jaimee and I’s community group. They are small groups from the church, and ours is with a whole bunch of college age girls, who are THE nicest people ever! After our small group that met at a coffeeshop we went to one of the girls dorm room and played video games and learned the stanky leg and laughed. It felt so good hangin out with girls our age, and I can see us becoming really good friends. God has been soooo GOOD in providing friends and relationships for us!
-Helping out at the seminars at ACP on thursday, entertaining 70 kids, and them teaching me how to do the JERK. Yep Im gonna be coming home with ghetto dance moves.
-Jaimee and I getting our ears pieced at some shadey shop in atlanta last weekend.
-Meeting so many awesome missionyear kids in Atlanta, Ashley and Caleb’s beautiful kitchen, washing south Atlanta team’s dishes because they were so great and hospitable to us! We also watched Crash with them, that was one intense movie. Staying up late with Kirsten and Brando talking and getting to know them a little, you guys are AWESOME! PLEASE atlanta teams visit us, we miss you guys.
-Walking to work in the rain, leaves falling from trees like rain, therapeutic late night swinging with Becky.
-A halloween care package sent from Jordyn Ferrarro, full of candy and halloween socks! YES!
-Art crawls in NoDa, being sad I can’t support these aspiring artist, their stuff is too expenSIVE.
-Three way phone calls with mom and ash
-God being wonderful and taking good care of us, showing His love, and teaching us wonderful things everyday.
Now its time to go hang out in the neighborhood, then its off to church for a halloween festival, and then perhaps scary movies with our new friends!
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Am I living the life Christ died to give me? / Oct 13, 10:05 PM
Today has been one of those much need refreshing days. Its really weird, I feel like I am bipolar sometimes because there are days when this new life is so exciting and I totally understand why God has me here, and other days its tough and I’m homesick and feel weak! One of my favorite songs from our new church sings… “I may be weak, but your spirits strong in me, my flesh may fail, but my God you never will!” This is like the story of my life. Today is Sunday, our second day going to church our second Sunday in NC. Again it feels that I’ve been here so much longer. Church was very wonderful and the message was just really encouraging, so I’ll share with you a little. Colossians 3 was read about being raised to a new life through Christ’s death, and putting to death all your old sinful ways, and putting your mind and heart on things above. It was just really empowering realizing that with Christ we are living NEW lives, and the past and all that baggage does not matter. It was also challenging seeing that my focus is often swayed and a serious question to consider is “am i living the life that Christ died to give me?” I would like to say I am but I know that there are still deep sins of greed, jealousy, and selfishness within me that beg for me to give into their way of thought. It’s so frustrating that I can’t shake all my evilness. I just want so badly to be fully HUMBLE. Why do selfish thoughts even cross my mind. I guess what I’m trying to get across is that Jesus died for us and heaven is a REALITY, and it should not be taken lightly! We need to daily kill our sinful ways and thoughts and consciously live in light of His death. We are new people…“in its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you.” Life is such a serious thing!
So there has been much going on since my last blog. Its crazy how much my perspectives have seemed to change in only a week and how much I’ve learned about God and myself, ITS CRAZY I say! We started reading “Restoring At-Risk Communities” and I feel its somehow bringing such clarity to me about life and how to follow Jesus and I’m only in the second chapter. For some reason Ive really been struggling with that fact that mission year is only that, a year. Its so hard for me to get to know all these people knowing that its just temporary, I feel guilty. We are only going to be here loving them for this one year of their life, then we leave and its all over. That been my outlook. However this book has been really comforting by allowing me to understand that our part in the community this year is to develop those among us to carry on the heart and skills needed to restore their community. “The mission of the Messiah- and our mission- is not complete until we have empowered those living in the devastated places, the ruined cities, to restore and rebuild their own community. “ Although this will be one year of my life, I really am considering relocation to an inner city once I move home. I really feel its the most affective way of helping the community and plus that is exactly what Jesus did when He came down to earth to live with us, I think its how he has called us to live. To live WITH those in need.
“Living the gospel means desiring for your neighbors and your neighbor’s family that which you desire for yourself and your family. Living the gospel means bettering the quality of other people’s lives-spiritually, physically, socially, and emotionally- as you better your own. Living the gospel means sharing in the suffering and pain of others.”
Anyways I can go on and on with what this is teaching. I just suggest you read it. Its been really exciting, that past few days we have met more and more people in the neighborhood and church. Today we went out to lunch with a big group of people from our church, mostly the people in charge of outreach who we will be working with, and it was really encouraging and exciting to see how enthusiastic there are about mission year partnering with their church Elevation. We had them over at our house for a little bit after that, and it was just really fun having guests and making more friends here! Its funny how great it is to have people over! We actually had our first guest over on Thursday, he was a man from Elevation who kindly volunteered to help us move in more furniture. We ended up making him dinner and he stayed over for a long time just talking! And yesterday was our first real day of mission year, meaning no orientation stuff, and this is getting serious! We spent the whole day being out in our neighborhood. We sat on the usual park table with Spider, Barak played football with the little cussing boys who make us laugh, I got to hold a bunny named honey bun! It was so cute, it belongs to our neighbors who actually only moved here three weeks ago! We met tons of little kids! ALSO I forgot to tell you! Jaimee and I were making cookies the other day and realized we didn’t have any sugar. So of course we had to ask our neighbors for a cup of sugar, so typical. I’m glad it happened though because these people are never out so to talk to them and meet them it took us getting into their home! They invited us in! So that was nice and we brought them warm freshly baked cookies afterwards!
The past few days have just been really eye opening. And I’m beginning to see what potential there is with Elevation and our neighborhood and its really encouraging and exciting. God is present and He lives in us! Goodnight, love you all.
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