Today is Day #11 at BayUP. We visited a local church today called “the Way” and attended an awesome block party in one of the Oakland neighborhoods. Picture a mixture of age groups – kids, high school students, college students, young adults, parents, older adults and a mix of ethnic groups – Chinese, Cambodian, Thai, Black, Mexican, Guatemalan, White, etc. sharing laughter, life and fun together. The run down homes that lined the blocked off street was a sharp contrast to the joy-filled unity of a diverse people that filled the street. It was really a beautiful picture of God’s shalom (how things God intended them to be, right relationships with right people, restoration, peace, and harmony). I even imagined myself wanting to raise kids in this community. This definitely was my favorite experience of BayUP so far.
BayUP has definitely been an eye opening and challenging journey. I will do my best to provide a comprehensive snapshot of the past 11 days. Please excuse my abrupt flow of thoughts, I was never that great at writing.
Orientation
About 3 days ago, we finished our weeklong group orientation. Orientation was pretty intense. Each day focused on different topics such as working poverty, multiethnicity, racism, gentrification, etc. as various speakers were invited to share their personal stories. In the midst of these very emotionally heavy sessions, there was a lot of time needed to process and reflect as each person was impacted by a spectrum of emotions rooted from their own individual lives. Along with going to sessions, all the students and staff were able to share life together for the first week, spending all hours of the day with each other living under the same roof called Harbour House. It has been good without the distractions of technology (this was really obvious once we got our phones on Sabbath day as everyone’s head focused down on their phones). Once orientation was over (this past Wednesday), our teams blessed each other in prayer as we were sent out to move into our respective sites – mine being at City Team. I’ll share more about how City Team is in the next blog so I’ll focus on orientation right now.
Why Did God Even Choose Me to Be Here?
Some of my wrestling thoughts – What am I doing here at BayUP? Why did God even choose me to be here?
During orientation we heard firsthand accounts from victims of injustices and activists fighting against these injustices. In response, I felt overwhelmed yet apathetic to the struggles of the urban poor and the systemic injustices that are going on. I felt uneducated and ignorant. I asked myself why I was even so excited to come to BayUP. I never really had an interest in learning about social justice anyways, how would coming to a program make that any different? However, I realized that maybe that’s why I am here. I don’t want to be ignorant anymore, but it’s still not just that easy to have a change of heart.
Inadequate and Unaware
I am one of the few students at BayUP where listening to these topics is a very new experience. It makes sense that most students who come on this urban program know a little bit or a lot whether from personal experiences or classes like sociology they have taken. For me, I came in with a “blank slate” towards these topics - no biases, no personal experiences, just open ears to listen, receive, and learn. It was hard, though, as I experienced my lack of understanding. I felt inadequate and I realized I was very unaware of the world around me.
Read more about Jason's experience learning about social justice for the first time in tomorrow's post.
Jason Wang is a student blogger from the Bay Area Urban Project. Throughout the summer we’ll be posting blogs and reflections written by students on summer projects. This post was written on June 29, and first posted at bayupcloseup.wordpress.com
