Home Sweet Minneapolis

 

Sometimes I still feel like I am on vacation, but soon enough I think I will hit me that this is my new home! I feel fortunate to have missed the big heat wave of the summer, and have enjoyed 2 weeks of 80 degree weather…I’m not sure if I believe all the horror stories about 110 degree summers and -40 degree winters.  As of now, it feels perfect.  This year, Minneapolis was voted the most hipster city in the US and the most bikable city in the US—so it will be a perfect fit for me, right? Maybe I’m not hipster and I don’t really know how to be a city biker, but the latter is something I think I can accomplish within this year!   My neighborhood is in South Minneapolis. It is a very ethnically diverse neighborhood, but a very fun part of the city to live in—surrounded by parks and lakes.  I am living with 4 other people who are in Lutheran Volunteer Corps and working in placements around the area: Jessica, Rebecca, Emily and Eric.  My world is continually getting smaller as all 4 of my roommates (who grew up in Minnesota, Iowa, Chicago and Arizona) know people in common from FLBC or PLU! We live in a 3 story, 5-bedroom house with 1 bathroom. Our house is very old and full of character—dark wood and creaky floors, tacky wallpaper and a mish mosh of donated furniture. 

The phrase “Minnesota Nice” (to describe just how nice Midwesterners are) has been confirmed on numerous occasions in my first 2 weeks.  We moved into a house fully furnished from our Local Support Committee who also filled our house with groceries and restocked us again after the first week to make sure we wouldn’t go hungry.  On Sunday at our host church, at least 12 people came up to introduce themselves and offer us anything we needed. We have also been invited to dinners and picnics for several nights in a row to get to know other people in the community. People are too good to us here!

A few highlights from my first 2 weeks here:

-        Learning my way around a new city—never been so thankful for a street grid system than now! While living on 17^th Avenue might sound like a boring address, I can find my way back home with almost no problem!

-        Visiting May Day Café for internet usage every couple of days until we get internet in our house…we are regulars.

-        Playing Apples to Apples with for far too long with Rebecca and Eric one night

-        Roommate “awkward family photo” photoshoot

-        Meeting all the friends of my new friends here—my circles are getting bigger

-        Drive-in movie (Princess Pride) on Lake Calhoun

-        Picnics and bike rides around the very numerous city lakes

-        Learning how to be a city bike commuter and the correct hand signals to move through traffic (luckily my commute is through mostly low traffic neighborhoods)

-        Eating fresh veggies from our backyard garden

-        Walking to the Midtown Farmers Market (and visiting roommate Emily who works there) for other fresh veggies

-        Seeing camp friends Ben, Simon and Morgan as my first friends in the Cities

-        Exploring Minnehaha Falls for our LVC picnic night

-        Going to the Twins Game with Becca Richardson from PLU (even though we lost 8-1)

All in all, if I could have moved to any city in the US this year, I feel like this is the perfect place. Not only am I living in my 6^th state and exploring life in a new part of the US, but I moved into the best support network of new people—a combination of camp friends who live out here, my new housemates, the LVC Twin Cities Community, and all the wonderful people I am getting to know between church and work. I feel like I am going to be quite happy here.

Care

Life as a Volunteer with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps!

The big question: ‘What are you doing with your life after graduation?’ has come up in conversations with any and everyone over the last year—and I know lots of us got tired of answering such big questions in a few sentences! Thus, I have created a blog to answer that very question as it applies to me.  Many of you know that I am doing the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with my program, LVC is an organization that has 150 members in 14 cities across the US.  LVC is committed to seeking peace through justice, and as volunteers we committed to a year of intentional community living, simplicity, sustainability and social justice. I am so excited to be a part of a service program that not only reaches a lot of people in many different aspects, but focuses on the root causes that have forced people into oppression in the first place—lots of ‘isms’—racism, classism, sexism, etc.  You can’t fight injustices within the educational system without deeply understanding poverty; you can’t look at health care issues if you neglect proper nutrition and access to food.  During our week of orientation (which I liken to staff training at camp, except 10x less fun and 20x more intellectually challenging) we discussed many of these issues at length. I learned so much, enjoyed the discussions that poured over into dinner and the late hours of the night, and was left with lots of big things to think about.  Rather than getting into some of these discussions too far in depth here, I hope to apply some of what we talked about to my experiences over the course of the year…as I know I still have a lot of reflecting to do. 

Each of us in LVC are matched with a placement organization, mostly with different non-profits in all kinds of areas—health care, education, hunger and homelessness, environmental work, etc… I am working at Open Arms, which you will have to read about in a separate blog post!  Another part of being in LVC is the intentional community aspect, in which we are assigned into houses with other volunteers.  I am in South Minneapolis in the Wellstone House. We have community nights as a house every week and spirituality nights once a month to make sure that we remain a support to our housemates who are experiencing the same things that we are.  We are each given a stipend that covers housing, food and personal expenses each month, so we will be living very simply.  So far, I am finding it a very comfortable way to live!  I don’t have a car this year, so I will be getting around by bike or bus—which is a fun way to explore a new city!

All in all, I am very excited to see what this year will bring, and I am excited to learn, because I know I have a lot to learn!