One can never work overtime for the poor. We're only scrambling to make up for our deficiencies.
-Mountains Beyond Mountains
While I realize Tier 2 is all about autonomy, its extent is a bit unnerving. I now have my own cubicle, phone number, voicemail, and email address at All Saints, and they all treat me like I’m a permanent part of the staff. Its great to be entrusted with so much responsibility and to be completely involved and in charge of every aspect of the Tents of Hope project, at the same time I almost feel overwhelmed at the amount I have to do. Its almost like there isn’t enough time for all that I need to do, hopefully that feeling will pass. My supervisor has already told me to be careful about working too much; she knows from experience that “this place will steal all of your time if you let it.” Considering all the projects that just the Peace and Justice Department I can see what she means.
No matter how hard I work though, I feel like it won’t be enough. Even the fundraising I am able to do will only be able to help the approx. 400,000 refugees that have been able to escape. 2.5-3 million are still essentially homeless within Sudan, trapped in their own country in constant terror. In Not On Our Watch Don Cheadle asserted that, “... indifference and ignorance can kill,” the more statistics and stories the more I realize the truth of that statement. Apathy and selfishness can prove just as harmful as hatred, because they allow horrors to continue. From the beginning of this project I have been realizing how simple it is to alleviate someone else’s suffering, even a miniscule amount. It just makes me sad that everyone doesn’t, but grateful that so many do.
No matter how hard I work though, I feel like it won’t be enough. Even the fundraising I am able to do will only be able to help the approx. 400,000 refugees that have been able to escape. 2.5-3 million are still essentially homeless within Sudan, trapped in their own country in constant terror. In Not On Our Watch Don Cheadle asserted that, “... indifference and ignorance can kill,” the more statistics and stories the more I realize the truth of that statement. Apathy and selfishness can prove just as harmful as hatred, because they allow horrors to continue. From the beginning of this project I have been realizing how simple it is to alleviate someone else’s suffering, even a miniscule amount. It just makes me sad that everyone doesn’t, but grateful that so many do.
Being new to the somewhat complicated infrastructure of the church I sometimes feel incompetent because I have to ask so many question all the time about how to get things done. All the same everyone has been incredibly welcoming and helpful with my project. I still can’t get rid of the nagging fears about my plan falling through or that I’m not knowledgeable enough about the topic or that I’m not doing enough. What is enough? All of us will be working with a partner for 8 weeks, then what? Do we just walk away?
Tents of Hope is really only a one year project, culminating in a gathering of the tents decorated by communities around the country in Washington, DC in November. In addition to raising funds to support primary and secondary school education in the Kounoungo refugee camp I am trying to use our tent to inspire people to political advocacy. This is especially exciting for me because I've never been politically active in my life (I only registered to vote a few months ago) and now I am heading a letter writing campaign to President Bush and Senators Boxer and Feinstein.
One of my main struggles in my project is trying to find ways to make people care. The fact is most everyone knows about the Darfur genocide, they don't necessarily know exactly where Darfur is or who is killing who or why (if there really is a why), until a few weeks ago neither did I. Even so, when the word "genocide" is used, do any of those details really matter? Perhaps everyone, somewhere deep in their subconscious, does care but not enough to drive people to action, that’s how I was. I'm just worried that I won't be convincing enough, after my first attempt at fundraising I realize how naive I was to think this was going to be easy. The current state of our economy makes money a difficult thing to part with especially when the church is already involved in so much (and yesterday I paid $4.80/gallong for gas).
Working at a church is helping me to regain my faith in faith. Being Catholic when I was younger meant my faith was largely dependent upon a lot of rituals. Other than my personal negative experience, I began loosing faith because I thought that it required all the bowing and bells and stained glass windows and repetitions and what seemed like endless memorization. While I understand and respect that some find that part of their respective faiths comforting and necessary, for me it just always seemed superfluous, especially when I didn’t feel like it was helping me or anyone else. All Saints seems different. Aside from being the most inclusive church I’ve ever seen, it seems like their faith is not so centered on “how” you practice (though church services are an important part), or even what you specifically believe in, they place more
emphasis on what positive effects you allow your faith to lead you to. Even their church seal symbol shows this, spirituality is only one of pieces of their faith. My supervisor said she once spoke to an atheist who became a member of the church. He told her he didn’t believe in God, but if he did it would be like the one All Saints believes in. I completely understand what he means.
Tents of Hope is really only a one year project, culminating in a gathering of the tents decorated by communities around the country in Washington, DC in November. In addition to raising funds to support primary and secondary school education in the Kounoungo refugee camp I am trying to use our tent to inspire people to political advocacy. This is especially exciting for me because I've never been politically active in my life (I only registered to vote a few months ago) and now I am heading a letter writing campaign to President Bush and Senators Boxer and Feinstein.
One of my main struggles in my project is trying to find ways to make people care. The fact is most everyone knows about the Darfur genocide, they don't necessarily know exactly where Darfur is or who is killing who or why (if there really is a why), until a few weeks ago neither did I. Even so, when the word "genocide" is used, do any of those details really matter? Perhaps everyone, somewhere deep in their subconscious, does care but not enough to drive people to action, that’s how I was. I'm just worried that I won't be convincing enough, after my first attempt at fundraising I realize how naive I was to think this was going to be easy. The current state of our economy makes money a difficult thing to part with especially when the church is already involved in so much (and yesterday I paid $4.80/gallong for gas).
Working at a church is helping me to regain my faith in faith. Being Catholic when I was younger meant my faith was largely dependent upon a lot of rituals. Other than my personal negative experience, I began loosing faith because I thought that it required all the bowing and bells and stained glass windows and repetitions and what seemed like endless memorization. While I understand and respect that some find that part of their respective faiths comforting and necessary, for me it just always seemed superfluous, especially when I didn’t feel like it was helping me or anyone else. All Saints seems different. Aside from being the most inclusive church I’ve ever seen, it seems like their faith is not so centered on “how” you practice (though church services are an important part), or even what you specifically believe in, they place more
emphasis on what positive effects you allow your faith to lead you to. Even their church seal symbol shows this, spirituality is only one of pieces of their faith. My supervisor said she once spoke to an atheist who became a member of the church. He told her he didn’t believe in God, but if he did it would be like the one All Saints believes in. I completely understand what he means.For more info about Darfur:
- http://www.ourpledge.org/
- http://www.standnow.org/
- http://www.jewishworldwatch.org/
- http://www.ourpledge.org/
- http://www.standnow.org/
- http://www.jewishworldwatch.org/
1 comment:
It's hard to "make people care" nowadays. It's sad that it takes a really special and very specific connection to something to make most people care about it. I believe that it's just human nature to be "selfish". I must admitt that i can be a little selfish at times too. It's a constant struggle to be selfless like Dr. Paul Farmer, but i feel it's something we all are capable of (well, maybe not to the extent of Farmer, but we can get pretty close).
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