This last weekend I participated in the Milwaukee Urban Dip or MUD for short. This dip got the students of MSOE InterVarsity involved in and grow a passion for the city of Milwaukee and the poverty in it. We did service projects by ourselves and with other organizations in the area. MUD was from Thursday afternoon of last week till this previous Sunday. There were 12 students that decided to give up the second half of their spring break to come to this event which is pretty miraculous because bigger schools such as Marquette and UW-Milwaukee have about 15 students come to this sort of thing for their respective schools. This great showing allowed us to do miraculous things in the City of Milwaukee this last weekend.
Thursday
People started showing up from their spring break around 2:30 and hung out. This day was more to get our mindset into what God wanted us to do for the weekend and to get more focused. First off was team building activities. The favorite one that we did was the classic human knot. The catch was that all of us had to keep our eyes closed except one person directing everyone on what to do. This showed the team that communication isn't easy when everyone's panicking or if everyone is sharing their input all at one time. It also taught the people that had their eyes open to take control of situations in order to get the objective done on time.
After the team building activities we set out to our first service project: picking up trash. This was a very eye opening experience for me. I didn't think that 2 hours of picking up garbage off the streets of Milwaukee would produce so much trash! In those little two hours I by myself picked up a full trash bag worth of garbage. This was the first step into my noticing the trouble that Milwaukee was in and how much work needs to be done in the city.
Friday
Friday was by far the most productive day that we had on this retreat in our backyard. We went to an organization in Milwaukee called Mother Scott Christian Youth Center. Mother Scott is considered the "Mother Theresa of Milwaukee". She founded this place and made it grow into what it is today. She is still alive and kicking and serving Milwaukee in her mid 70's! What a beast. The first few seconds of walking into this place, I noticed that it was a completely different world. There were homeless people eating and a woman preaching to them. She wasn't just preaching though. She was preaching from her heart. I could hear how much faith she had and the love that she had for these people. These differences didn't stop coming there...
They had a lot for us to do at Mother Scott's. The biggest thing that we helped with included our engineering skills, designing a computer lab. This helped me realize that not everyone can do the things that I can do with respects to engineering and helped me see how valuable God's gifts are. The computers that they had at Mother Scott's were old. I'm not talking about Windows Vista old, I'm talking Windows 2000 old. They all worked well but nowhere near what most people consider up to par today. Another project that they had people working on was folding an bagging clothes for another organization in the area called Repairers of the Breach. They're also sending clothes down to Alabama to help support the people that were effected by the tornadoes. They are also doing a good amount of remodeling there so they had us doing some odd jobs moving some stuff around, throwing some stuff out, etc.
Mother Scott's was a lot of work but our day was far from over. Next we had a community dinner at a place called St. Ben's. For the most part, people that are homeless or in poverty go to these meals. We wanted to see what it was like and experience what they experience daily while eating this meal. It worked. I had a conversation with a man named Mississippi. He was a tremendous guy and he had gone through so much. He came from Mississippi to Milwaukee in 1979 and wasn't used to the life style that it brought. He told us that the first day that he came up here he saw a black guy walking with a white girl and didn't know what was happening, he'd been used to racism his whole life and still is today. When I started talking to him he didn't understand why people like us would come and eat and hang out with "people like him". I explained to him that we're all brothers and sisters in God's eyes and that we need to take care of each other. He eventually understood it but was obviously taken aback by the situation. He went on to talk about his struggles that he's had as a homeless man and his frustrations about what he faces and the cycle he goes through.
Saturday
Saturday was a reality check for the leaders that helped organize MUD such as myself. We had set up three different organizations to send kids over for the day to play with us in our recreation center. In the end we had an organization say that they would get some kids here and everything would be fine. No kids showed up. This was God making sure that our priorities were in check. We wanted kids to come because we wanted to help them and have our event go smoothly. This isn't the thought process that God wants. He wants us to want to serve Him and let Him take over everything. We were relying on ourselves way too much.
Eventually some teenagers from an organization called Kidz in the Hood came by and we played some basketball and volleyball with them. This was loads of fun for me because it was just like being home and hanging out with people that I'm not used to all the time. These kids aren't any different than me; they love sports, they dream, and they want to be wanted.
How does this relate to LeaderTreks?
For the most part, this doesn't relate to LeaderTreks. It does however, secure the fact that I'm going to the right place this summer. The reason for that is because as this weekend went along, my heart kept on breaking more and more for the people of Milwaukee. I couldn't stand just sitting aside and doing nothing about this problem in the city that I live in. I need to do something about it. Chicago is very similar to Milwaukee but on a larger scale, much larger scale. Living in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago for the summer will help me better understand what people in poverty endure. Up till this last weekend, poverty in Milwaukee, scratch that, the city was very abstract to me. I didn't know what it was truly like to live in poverty or be homeless and my idea of it is starting to take shape and my burden for these people is growing tremendously.
Update on Raising Support
I still have not been able to see how much or who has helped support me for my summer. But the minimum number that I was given that has been received thus far is $1250. I thank all of you for all of the prayers and support that you have given me. Another thing that I learned from MUD was that serving people can be tiring. I was beat after one weekend of service let alone a whole summer of service. I ask that all you out there keep on praying for energy for me as I get everything finalized for this summer and as the internship begins.
