Today starts a new season for Brooke and I. We are now the student mentors for Urban Term students through the Center for Justice and Reconciliation at Point Loma Nazarene University. Around 20 students from PLNU will be moving into City Heights (an incredibly diverse, mostly low-income neighborhood here in the city) for the next 8 weeks. They will be taking classes each weekday morning together and serving internship positions with local non-profits each weekday afternoon. Brooke and I will be meeting with each of them individually a few times and as a group each week for a weekly meal. We’ve met a handful of the students so far and we are really excited to get to know all of them and walk through this eye-opening summer experience they will undergo.

As well, this weekend, we are hosting 25 students from Bluffton University in Ohio. On Saturday, I will be taking the students to Tijuana and visiting Dorcas House and Casa del Migrante. On Sunday, they will visit a variety of churches and discuss their experiences at lunch. The weekend is mostly devoted to looking at issues of globalization in our two urban areas in this region (TJ and SD) and in the Church. Our experience has been that this weekend experience is a challenge for students that have never been out of rural/suburban Ohio before. So, pray for these students as we immerse them in our culture for two days.

But why this starts a new season for us is that these programs commence a new project that we are taking on with the Ecclesia Collective. We are now in the process of developing an internship program. This program would take 3 to 4 young people that would live in the loft, above our home, spending 10 to 12 months as a part of the Hawthorn House community. Interns would spend time with our community, share meals and rhythms with us, work in our garden with us and we would (preferably) connect with a neighborhood non-profit agency or locally owned business for part time work. Brooke and I will meet with the interns every week for guided time to discuss spiritual formation, social engagement and community life among other things. The internships will not start until this coming fall at the earliest. If you are interested, get in touch.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Events.