July 17, 2011 | 4:00 p.m.

Reflections on Work Camp 2011 in Detroit

Senior Highs Leaders and Youth
Fourth Presbyterian Church

Nehemiah 2:11–20

Leader: God is good!
Congregation: All the time!
Leader: All the time!
Congregation: God is good!

We picked up some new habits in Detroit. Whenever Charon, our leader from the Detroit Presbytery, said, “God is good”, we responded, “All the time!” She’d then say, “All the time,” and we’d answer, “God is good!”

I’ve never been on a work trip where we did more jobs. Our team from the Presbytery of Detroit opened their arms and their hearts to us, and then they put us to work. We planted crops. We served food to men who were working to turn their lives around and to families terrified and stressed by the illness of a child. We washed cars. We landscaped, built frames for houses, and stacked bricks. And that doesn’t even count the work we didn’t get to do on our first day, when we were rained out of our job to build a new path at a nature center.

As satisfying as it was to see those beautiful rows of weeded tomato plants and those great pallets of bricks, those images are not the ones engraved on my heart. There you will find the images of our new friends from the Presbytery of Detroit. Charon, declaring that God is good and cheering for the White Sox in the bottom of the ninth. LeAnn’s grin as she did a snatch and grab of John’s hat. Nathan and Jordan’s joy at seeing us, their new friends. Michael, KT, and Cameron, Detroit-area youth who led us in worship. You’ll also see our group, drawing closer to our new brothers and sisters in Christ and closer to each other.

We gathered and worshiped at a different church every morning and ate dinner at a different church every night. We experienced a hospitality and a community that we hope to emulate here. We came back hungry to know the other youth in our presbytery and to welcome strangers to our church.

It’s a tradition that on the last night of work camp we lay hands on and pray for our graduating seniors. This year, three of our leaders were young people we prayed on their way in a sanctuary in Hazard, Kentucky, in 2007. Chelsea, Marie, Erika, and Sam were incoming freshmen then. We were so happy to have Flo, Stu, and Gabrielle back with us, beginning a new ministry here. God is indeed good.

—Gretchen Wahl

· · ·

I would have to describe this past week as coming full circle. After being away the past few years, I returned to the place that has been so influential in my life. This senior high group has meant so much to me; words cannot describe how proud I am of its members. It almost felt as if I never left, but in reality I did, because I could see how much all of these youth have grown. It was strange for me to come back in a leadership position, because I was so used to being the youth, but I was ready for the challenge. It stuck with me throughout the week—the idea that despite how much I have grown, I am back where I started. Rather than feel like I was going in circles, I felt stronger in my faith because I was surrounded by family that was where it always was. I am confident in speaking for the three of us that have returned that in the end we just wanted to give back to that which has given us so much. As a group, in just this past week, we have all grown in our individual faiths, and I hope these experiences will mean to you all as much as they have meant to me. To the graduating seniors, I hope you will remember all of your experiences here as you move forward and face new challenges. You all have what it takes to be great, and from personal experience, I can promise you that you will always have this group right where you left it. Because coming full circle or returning to where it all began is not the same as getting nowhere; it is symbolic in that if you just take a second to look, you will find the inspiration to further your journey in life.

—Stuart Whitmore

· · ·

On our last day in Detroit, Kimberlee asked me, “What was the most meaningful experience you’ve had during this work trip?” I knew immediately what I wanted to say, but after reflecting on it for an entire day, I came to a conclusion that to me seemed more in-depth than what I originally thought about.

I have only been on one other work trip, two years ago in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Although it was exciting to be in a new country and I learned a lot about different religions, this Detroit mission trip has made a truly memorable mark in my life. First, I am two years older, and I feel as though I appreciated the things I did and the things I saw that much more. Secondly, I have come out of this experience with a new sense of who I am and what it means to be a Christian. The missions we were sent out on this past week were very hands-on. We weeded a community garden and did landscaping for Habitat for Humanity homes, to name just a few activities. But for me, the day that stuck in my mind was Wednesday, when we went to a Ronald McDonald House.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what RMH is, it’s a program that provides families who have very sick children a place to stay while their child is in the hospital and provides it at little or no cost. It is a clean, welcoming environment for families who are going through a stressful and difficult time. We made a delicious taco lunch for the residents and got to talk and share a meal with them. As I listened to these brave parents, grandparents, and siblings, I could not imagine the struggle they were going through. One mother said she had been staying at the RMH for months. A young girl told me how her sister was having another tumor removed. Again and again during the day I kept thanking God for my own family’s health.

That night during our evening devotion, we all answered the question, “Where have you felt or seen the Spirit today?” and I immediately thought of my interaction with someone at the RMH who, without knowing it, changed something inside of me. As I was cutting lettuce for our tacos, a woman sat down and we started to converse. Her grandson was six weeks old and undergoing open-heart surgery. His mother was going through a divorce, and oftentimes it was up to this amazing grandmother to care for the grandson and his teenage older sister. She talked to me about how she was from the country and so being in the city of Detroit scared her, but she needed to be there for her grandson. After listening to her for a while, I said that I had to go and finish making the lunch. As we parted, she said, “Thank you for listening. I’m very lonely and that’s all I needed.”

That was the most defining moment of the trip for me. In that moment, I truly did feel the Spirit. Making a lunch for those in need is all very good, but getting the chance to talk to those receiving the meal made it more meaningful. These families were going through a difficult time, and all they needed was someone who would listen. This woman renewed in me a sense of duty, and I see now how important our mission work is. Just by listening, I made an impact on her day. But in telling me this, she made an impact on my life. There have been few times in my life where I have walked away from an experience feeling that something had happened, that a moment was shared between strangers and in that moment, people were changed. One of the members of the other church spoke about “letting your light shine” and doing God’s work. Personally, it has been hard for me to speak about my faith and relationship with God. But this mission trip has helped me to speak out more. Detroit taught me how to let my light shine. It was truly life changing. With all this in mind, I feel well equipped to go out into the world and continue the work I feel compelled by God to do.

—Emma Richardson

· · ·

Proud? Proud.

That was my two-word story for the week. A two-word story is one word, said two ways, to demonstrate a before and an after. In the beginning of the trip I was wondering if I would be proud of the work we would accomplish. I was wondering whether the work we did would make a real impact on the lives of the people of Detroit. After completing the work and thinking about how this work would affect them, I can now say that I am very proud of the work we have done. Part of the work we did was building frames for the walls of a house. We did this in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity. After completing the frames, which was not an easy task, we were allowed to sign them. I wrote, “Built with Joy, so that Hope may prosper.” The first part of this statement, “Built with Joy,” came from the joy of the group that I worked with. It is true that some of the people on the trip were better at working with hammers than others, but we all worked together to build these houses for people who really needed them. We were all happy to work together to reach a common goal. The second part of this statement, “So that Hope may prosper,” was added, because after finishing the project—not before or during—is when I realized what we were working towards. We didn’t work together just so that the project could be over faster or because we knew that only together could we succeed, which were my thoughts about the project before and during it, in that order. I realized only after the project was over that we were working to build houses for people who needed the houses, for people who wished to further themselves, and, most importantly, for people who have not lost hope. I believe that they knew if they worked hard enough and prayed hard enough, that one day they would be rewarded. So we worked for them and for their inspiring hope.

I am so proud to have been a part of a team that was working for something so great and doing it so selflessly. It’s truly inspiring to see a group of people become more than just a group, but a team who relies on one another and trusts one another. We, as the senior highs group, have become a team with not only one another, but with people from Detroit as well. We worked beside them and with them as though we had known them for much longer than we actually had. Again this spirit of group- and team-mindedness is what shines more brightly than anything else for me. I find it so amazing that a group of individuals can form such a strong bond in just a short week that I cannot help but be inspired to connect with everyone I meet.

This brings me to a part of a note someone wrote me during the notes portion of our trip. Towards the end of our work trip, we sat in a circle and wrote personal notes for one another. These notes are really special because you can see just how much of an impact you have made on others even if you did so unintentionally. Someone I had really connected with on this trip wrote at the end of their note a short four-word sentence. It said, “Don’t be a stranger.” This speaks for more than just me keeping in touch, but to me and all of you in our everyday lives. This means that we should show our light to everyone we meet and to make ourselves known so that we are no longer strangers. This short sentence, when compared to the trip as a whole, has special meaning for me. The meaning of “Don’t be a stranger” to me is that I should open myself up to others, because then I have the chance to inspire others, even if I am not aiming to do so. Even just a smile is enough to inspire others to be greater, and it is easy to smile. So if you open up yourself, which is admittedly much harder than smiling, just think about how inspiring you could be, if only unintentionally. I want all of you to be proud of who you are and what you do, just like I am proud of what our group has become, because it is easier to believe in others and inspire others if you are first proud of yourself.

Amen.

— Mac Sinclair

· · ·

As we boarded the vans to begin our venture on the 2011 work camp in Detroit, I was already eager to discover how my fifth and final work camp would play out. Senior Highs has been a core component of my high school life ever since my beginnings there when we all boarded the vans heading towards Hazard, Kentucky, only four short years ago.

The devastating reality of Detroit became apparent right away. The downfall of the once-booming city was clear, and it seemed as though it was in its own bubble. Surrounding the rundown area by a distance of one block were beautiful mansions and wealthy communities. Of those that got out of the city, most flocked to the outskirts and became too preoccupied with their new lives to focus on the rebuilding of what appeared to be a hopeless cause. However, we worked with a group of adults and youth who hold a great passion for their city and have a strong faith in its renovation.

Our first day of work was spent on an urban garden. It was the hardest working day I had experienced on any work camp trip ever. There was never a moment where someone was empty-handed, searching for something to do, and we all worked together to make an unmistakably physical difference.

My day at the Ronald McDonald House was one that made more of an impact on me. We not only made lunch for the families—sixty tacos in sixty minutes—but also had the opportunity to sit down and enjoy lunch with them. This really put certain aspects of my life in perspective, as I saw one woman eating with her head down, never lifting it up to say a word. Her granddaughter had been in the hospital for a while, and her future was not looking great. These people’s lives were a constant struggle. Yet there was one man whose son was not expected to get better and miraculously did. It is occurrences such as these and the expressions on that man’s face in which I see Christ.

I was excited to learn that we would be working with Habitat for Humanity on our last day of work. They had already built seventy homes in the process of rebuilding Detroit. It was this day that I felt the most connected to the renewal of Detroit and the small, yet essential role we were playing in it. In just one day, we had constructed the outer frame of someone’s new home.

I had also never been on a work camp that demonstrated such a strong sense of hospitality. Every single night we were hosted by a different church, grateful for the work that we were doing.

Although I was able to see God on our service sites and in the eyes of the youth from the Presbytery of Detroit, God was also displayed to me in the bonds within our own youth. It has been through Fourth Church that I have developed my strongest and lifelong relationships. Although this trip marked the end of a chapter in my life, it was definitely not a good-bye. This thought is ensured through Flo, Gabby, and Stu, who were just graduated seniors when we were incoming freshmen.

—Erika Force

· · ·

I always like to say that Chicago is the best city in the world, but I never realized how great a city it is until I went on this trip to Detroit. The downtown of Detroit is as dead as the Cubs season this year. I was shocked by how few people there were walking around downtown Detroit on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Everywhere you look, there are vacant buildings and houses where businesses used to be and where people used to live but could not sell their homes so they just left. Over the past decade, the population of the city has fallen by 25 percent, to a little over 700,000. The only city with a steeper drop is New Orleans. This experience made me truly appreciate how blessed I am to live in Chicago. Chicago is a world-class city that has a healthy, diversified economy, a beautiful skyline, and hard-working attitude.

Now, Chicago is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There are neighborhoods that are just as bad as some of the neighborhoods in Detroit. There are still too many homeless people on the street, and the graduation rate for high school students in the CPS is somewhere around 50 percent. I think this is where we come in. Detroit used to be a city on par with Chicago, but due to racial division in the sixties and an economic dependence on the now-struggling auto industry, the city has suffered greatly during the past few decades. That is why I believe we, the people of Chicago, need to be proactive to make Chicago the best city it can be. Whether it is spending a day working at one of Chicago’s urban farms or serving the homeless at a soup kitchen, it is our responsibility to keep Chicago great. We need to see what happened to Detroit and make sure, by taking care of those who are suffering, that never happens to Chicago, because we are only as good as the least of us. That is why I am proud to be a member of Fourth Church, because we are active in helping those who need the help the most, with our Sunday Night Suppers and other social service programs. It truly is a light in the city.

—Sam Donham

· · ·

This trip to Detroit was my fifth and final work trip as a member of the senior high group. It seems like only a few weeks ago I was leaving for my first trip to Kentucky, a brand-new pair of work boots and nail apron in tow, not knowing what to expect. I remember how great that week was and how it inspired me to remain a committed member of Senior Highs for the following four years. Each summer I looked forward to the work trip, and I can’t believe that this one was my last, at least as a youth.

When we first arrived in Detroit, we were given the royal treatment. We had a private tour of downtown, ate Coney Island dogs for dinner, and spent almost an entire day rock climbing as a group. Although this was a very fun few days, I couldn’t help feeling that what we had come to do was to work and that we hadn’t been doing that.

On Tuesday, we went to a community garden and were taught how to remove suckers from “tomatahs” and which weeds would be the hardest to pull. We spent the whole day crouched down in the hot sun, pulling up weeds or spreading compost over new rows for plants, but each person had a job to do and worked hard to accomplish it. When I looked up from my narrow view of weeds and tomatoes, I could see the whole group, covered in dirt and sweat, working hard at their assigned task.

I remember at the end of the day we had to start to clean up, and some people were upset because they wanted to finish the rows they had been working on. It was truly amazing to see how dedicated we all had become to this garden and as a group. One thing that has remained the same on every work camp is that by the end of the week, we are all a much closer group and are not ready to leave.

I think the work that we did in Detroit will have a great impact on the city, however, I think the most important thing accomplished on this trip was what we learned. We met many people throughout the week who said, “Thanks so much for coming; we really need your help,” but I couldn’t see how they were trying to help themselves. On the other hand, we also met people who worked side by side with us to help out their own community. These people who took action are the people that I was inspired by. I realized that all of the things we did in Detroit can also be done right here in Chicago. I was inspired to take action here, and I hope that the lessons I learned in Detroit will continue to keep me motivated here in my hometown.

—Marie Donaldson

· · ·

This past week in Detroit was nothing but a wonderful summation of my time spent here at Fourth Church. When I was a little kid in the nursery, I had no idea how big of a part this church would play in my life. Now, graduated and ready to move on to college, I realize just how big that part was.

Last week in Detroit, our group accomplished so many different projects and met so many great people; it would be impossible to recount it all. One project, however, truly stood out to me, as I’m sure it did for others in the group. On the second full day in Detroit, we were able to work at an urban garden weeding the tomato patch. I was amazed at our group. We worked so hard, in crazy amounts of sunshine, and truly made an astonishing difference. When we began weeding, no one could even see the tomato plants from the weeds, but after we left, there was nothing but tomato plants in sight. This is merely a taste of the many projects our group accomplished during this past week.

Our time in Detroit was full of hard work at multiple sites, fantastic people, and delicious meals generously cooked by various churches in the area. However, for me, the projects, people, and food are not the takeaway. It was the entire experience. Not only of Detroit, but of all my years at Fourth Church. Going back to the beginning, I have not only realized how big of a part the church was in me, but also how big of a part I was in the church. At first this may seem like an incredibly egotistical thing to say, but let me explain. I was able to find my niche at Fourth Church through the senior highs group. Here I have had the opportunity to go to many work trips, such as Detroit. The fact that I, and the rest of our group, can say we have provided much-needed help to so many different areas is a testament to how we are the living church. I have come to learn in Senior Highs that “church” is not merely a standing, stationary building, but rather a collection of moving parts that work together to bring our beliefs into existence. To me, a major tenet of our belief is to provide for others. To be there for people when no one else is. To make a difference. Our group here at Fourth Church has made a difference, and not just last week. Our work that we have done will make a difference in people’s lives forever. This is why I believe I, and our entire senior highs group, is such a big part of this church.

In August, when I am packing up my things and moving on to start a new life, in a new place, I will always remember how big of a part this church played in my life. But more importantly, how big of a part I am in the church.

—Chelsea Bumpus

· · ·

I learned many new things throughout this trip through Detroit, but I think the most important was learning that God truly does live through us and the Holy Spirit is always around us. I didn’t come to this conclusion at first. In fact it only happened the second-to-last night when we were having our closing devotions, but I don’t think it matters when it came to me, as long as it did.

Lots of times when you are doing the tasks we were doing, such as weeding, preparing food, landscaping homes, or hammering nails to make walls, God is not always on your mind. You tend to be more preoccupied with the task at hand, rather than thinking about what role God is playing in whatever you are doing. The reason why I think the closing devotions every night were so important was because it helped you reflect on the day and look back on how God might have been there throughout the day with you.

Thursday night, when looking back at our day of hammering nails to make walls, I realized that throughout the whole week, the main reason I was working so hard and never giving up was because God was living through me. God was helping me help other people. God was inspiring me to keep doing the work. God was there with me the whole time. Realizing all of this truly helped me feel closer to God, which is one of the main reasons I think these mission trips are so important.

Not only did this trip help me feel closer to God, but being able to help a community that really needs the help just feels good. I think we all enjoyed the days of work when we were able to see our results, like when we were weeding and at the beginning the field was covered in weeds but five hours later no weeds were in sight. Knowing that we were helping the people who work on the community farm and making it so that they didn’t have to worry about the weeding that day was very rewarding. The trip was planned so well that the other days we were able to see our results as well. With the groups at the Ronald McDonald House cooking the food and the group at the soup kitchen plating the food, we were both able to see the food served and see how much the people appreciated the food we were giving them. Even just hearing one man walk out of the soup kitchen saying something along the lines of “Thank you so much. God bless” reassured me that we were doing the right thing and also helped me realize again that the Holy Spirit was with us. Lastly, even though we didn’t see step-by-step the walls we hammered get put together into a house, we still knew that what we created would help someone in need have a new home.

This trip to Detroit will always stay with me, not only because of the new friends I made and not only because of the work we did, but because it also helped me become closer to God.

—Johanna Mintz