Adrian & Bam – by Crissy Brooks

An encounter I had on Tuesday with Adrian, one of our Jr. High boys, left me asking some interesting questions.

I simply asked him, “Adrian, who are the people you want to be like?” Without hesitation he said, “Bam.  Bam Majera.”

“Why, what do you admire about him?”

“He does stupid stuff.”

Awesome- the kid I am trying to mold and shape admires someone for doing “stupid stuff”.   Bam Majera has created a media/sports empire out of taking risks and filming it.  His pranks and hijinks are legendary and have made millions of dollars along with TV series, a movie, video games, a radio station and a professional skateboarding career.  As I looked into this guy, I realized there is more to him than “stupid stuff.”  If Adrian wants to be like Bam he is going to have to work really hard.  And I don’t mean jumping off his roof.  I mean taking initiative, being creative and putting in the hours of work and building trust so people will collaborate with him.

I pointed all this out about Bam as Adrian and I sat staring at his failing grades.  We often cannot see truth for ourselves.  We need our community to help interpret our experiences for us.  We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth in the circumstances we find ourselves in.  At that moment, I needed Adrian and he needed me.

My initial reaction to Adrian was that Bam is a completely unacceptable, unworthy role model.  Adrian’s initial thought was that Bam is great because he does “stupid stuff.”  However the more we asked each other questions, the more we listened to what the other had to say, the more we understood.  I began to understand the merits to Bam and the things about him worth looking up to- he likes to make others laugh, he’s not afraid to take risks, he works hard, he his a savvy businessman, and he does what he loves to do.  These are all things I hope that Adrian will do in life.  Adrian began to understand that it takes more than doing “stupid stuff” to become successful.  He realized there must be more to Bam’s life than what he sees on TV.  He began to hear what steps he would have to take to be that successful.

More than anything Adrian and I learned that we should not write each other off.  It would have been easy for either of us to dismiss the other in that moment- me being so old and out of touch; he, being so young and unrealistic.  But we hung in there together and were both enriched in the process.

In a world of celebrity and YouTube, Mika’s team daily engages with students longing for real live role models.  As we start this New Year we are looking for adults who will step up to listen and speak truth to kids.  We are building a team of people whose lives speak care and value.  Will you join us?  Will you encounter Adrian in a way that changes you both?

Que Dramatico!

“Why do you have to be so dramatic!”  I thought as I rolled my eyes.   The speaker was telling stories of immigration officers pounding down doors and ripping mothers away from their children, of fathers leaving for work and being deported, never to say good bye.  It all seemed so extreme.  Maybe there were a few cases like that but, come on!  This is the United States of America.  We have order and compassion.  Let’s not be dramatic in our case studies.  Maybe you have thought the same things.  This is what I thought until it started happening in my neighborhood.

Lately our ministry gets more calls asking for help to find relatives that have been detained or deported.  Last week a mother called crying.  She was hiding in her closet with her four children, afraid to open the door to the immigration officers outside.  “We have never had any problems with the law before,” she cried, as my mind raced to know how to advise her.  “I don’t know why they have come.”  Clearly the immigration agents have a reason and right to ask her for her documents.  She has been in the US for seventeen years.  Her four children were born here.  Her husband was at work.  She stayed in the closet until they left.  What would you do?

What will we do?  Maybe you are rolling your eyes, thinking, “how dramatic!” but the fact of the matter is that the same scene could have played out this morning for your children’s schoolmates or one of your acquaintances.  Chances are that at some point throughout your day, you encountered a neighbor who does not have legal documents to be in this country.  There are around 12 million people in that situation in our country and knocking on their doors while they hide in the closet is not an effective nor American way to deal with the situation we find ourselves in.  There are many reasons that people do not have legal documents.  The system for obtaining documents is completely broken and we must come up with a way for people to literally come out of their closets and participate in legal ways in our society.  It is not safe for us to have neighbors driving around with no licenses or insurance.  It is not fair to workers for undocumented laborers to be working without paying taxes.  And it does not represent our best values to have neighbors who do work hard and contribute to our community be terrified to walk out the front door every morning.  This is the land of the free. So what will we do to solve the situation?  Yesterday Representative Gutierrez introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for American’s Safety and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP).  It is a step toward looking at workable solutions that support our values of freedom and hard work.  Not everyone supports it.  Some say it is too dramatic.  As of right now there are no Republicans co sponsoring the bill.  But it is a conversation starter.  It is a solution oriented bill to move us forward as a nation.  Anne Lamott says to write “sh**** first drafts”.  Write something; get started.  This bill is a start- a first draft that we can examine and pour over and edit until we design a piece of legislation that will give some clear steps for undocumented immigrants to take so that they can earn a rightful place in our neighborhoods, workplaces and country.  The next time a neighbor calls I want to be able to say, “This is what you need to do- step 1, step 2, step 3…”.  No more hiding for any of us.  Let’s solve this thing together.

It’s Working! Caryn Kallal’s

In July, about thirty people packed inside the stuffy, airless garage of the Mika CDC office.  Neighbors, staff, interns, volunteers and a few teens from our youth programs had come together to talk about what we envisioned for the youth of our community.  How do we want our kids to look in thirty years?  What do we need to be doing now to make it happen?  After brainstorming and walking through some pointed exercises, we came up with an ambitious afterschool program for our neighborhood youth.  We all concurred on some important values and structure and we arrived at a program called, Step Up.

It would include academic tutoring, spiritual training and enrichment classes in art, health, finance and leadership training.  We would need 64 volunteers each week, experts to teach the enrichment portions and others willing to do Bible lessons with the students.  And we would do it at three different sites.  Could we do it?  Could we really make this happen?  That was July, now it’s December…

The answer is “yes”!  We did make it happen.  Maybe it doesn’t look exactly as we thought it would and maybe there are a few gaps, but it is working.  Sometimes when I think that it isn’t, I remind myself of what I’ve seen as I float from site to site to site.  I see Abigail at Baker Street who raises her hand to answer every question the group is asked about the Bible lessons.  She doesn’t always know the answer, but she always raises her hand.  I hear Juan’s mom calling him from the door at the Maple Learning Center at 5:45 when his session ended at 5:30.  “He never wants to leave here”, his mom says with a smile.  “It’s the best part of his day”.  Jasmine and Gio, both seniors in high school, give up nearly eight hours a week working with the younger students at The Hope Center.  They say it’s for their community service hours, but I know it’s more than that.

Together we are making Step Up happen.  We are providing a safe, warm environment for the kids to come and learn how to be leaders in their community.  We are giving them adult role models who know them and care about them.  We are giving them opportunities to learn how to be of service to each other and to the broader community.  We are connecting them to experts in their city who know about things that they have never been exposed to before.  We still don’t have 64 volunteers each week and we don’t have all the enrichment classes filled in on our master calendar – but each week we make it happen and each week more people are becoming involved.  I just hope I’m still around in 30 years so I can see how it all pans out!  These kids are going to be amazing because their community did “step up”!

Community in the Truest Sense by Mikkele Bringard

Last night I experienced my first Salvadorian/Guatemalan/Mexican Thanksgiving feast. There was salmon, turkey, ham, rice, potatoes, arroz con leche, pazole, and soooo much more. I ran into Walter, the new Neighborhood Advisor for the Baker neighborhood, at the Mika volunteer party on Friday, and he invited me to come. I was hesitant to attend because when I left in June I told everyone I was moving overseas (which I am, just not as soon as I had originally thought) so I thought it might be weird if I showed up. Either way, I agreed to attend, and the moment I showed up people literally jumped out of their seats to run and hug me. Before we ate, we all sat around (30-40 of us) and talked about what we were thankful for. The neighbors stood up and thanked me, the “mujer bonita” who spent hours walking up and down the street trying in my (very) broken Spanish to get to know everyone. I was overwhelmed by everything as I thought back to this time last year when I only knew a handful of people who had lived there for many years but didn’t know anyone else in the community. I listened to stories of the parties they have and the weekly meetings they hold and the police officers that come to those meetings to build relationships. Some of the Baker folks are even attending bi-weekly planning meetings at the Mika office with neighbors from the three other Mika neighborhoods.

Mike, a leader in the Halecrest Neighborhood Association across the street from Baker, was also there last night. This morning I received an email from him:

“My wife and I joined our Baker Community neighbors/friends last night for a Thanksgiving gathering and I could only compare it to how the very first Thanksgiving must have felt. Sharing a meal and conversation with new and old acquaintances gave chance to strengthen relationships. Everyone had a chance to offer what they were thankful for and one of the common responses is the relationship being formed by our community partnerships. My wife and I are blessed to have been invited to take part in the celebration and are truly thankful for the new friendships and the inspiration given to me to know the value of these partnerships. Friendship is gold and just as my wife and I were offered the many hands of friendship as we moved into Halecrest; we now feel the new friendships offered to us. Health and money are surely important but it is a lonely place without friendship. I sometimes worry about the things I don’t have but then I see what I do have and realize how blessed I am to have such a great family, neighbors and friends.”

Only by the grace of God can a white girl who speaks no Spanish and has no experience in community development walk into a community of mostly Hispanic men and women and form lasting friendships. I now know that no matter what I do and what adventures I embark on elsewhere, there are always people in the Baker neighborhood who will welcome me into their homes with open arms and no questions asked. I went into this neighborhood a year and a half ago hoping to teach others about community, but instead they have taught me.

A Legacy for Mika

Tonight we are hosting our annual Volunteer Appreciation. This has become a highlight of the year- a time to gather everyone who gives of their time, energy, skills and resources to develop leaders in our city. There will be neighborhood leaders, church volunteers, youth, and college students all drawn together by the mission to develop strong communities with VISION.
As we worked on the final preparations for the party, Mark Orphan, Mika’s Founding Director, popped in. He is moving to Colorado to pastor and it was time to say good bye. As we chatted and reminisced I couldn’t help but reflect on the mini group of us that started Mika six years ago. There were four founding members, nine board directors, four supporting churches, and a handful of volunteers and donors.
Tonight we have invited over 250 volunteers from eight churches, three universities, four neighborhoods and several community groups. What a change in six years!
It was bittersweet saying good bye today. The bitter part is not having a trusted mentor and dear friend close by. The sweet part came in reflecting together how God has taken our vision and expanded it to so many people. Mark goes in joy knowing that the foundation he laid is being built on and expanded for God’s Kingdom purposes in Costa Mesa.
As we continue to learn and plan the best way to identify and equip leaders, Mark’s example is in the forefront of my mind. His model of courageous, humble, honest leadership set a standard from the beginning of Mika that we will do well to carry on.

Why Rejoice About Tearing Families Apart? by Crissy Brooks

I heard about the police sting on the day laborers almost instantaneously. One of my neighbor’s boyfriends was in the group that was picked up on 17th Street. I thought it was too bad but there wasn’t much I could do. He was, in fact, here undocumented.

Then more and more women began calling me saying their husbands had been taken, too. By Monday, I had six out of the 11 families whose husbands were arrested asking me for help. The rent is due this week and there was the immediate pressure of where to come up with the money now that their spouses weren’t here or in a position to provide for them.

Our organization, Mika Community Development Corp., doesn’t deal much with relief work. The whole premise of our ministry is to equip leaders to take responsibility for their community. I buy into the idea that if you point out opportunities and open up space for people to work and lead, then they will step into that role and be successful. I believe it is more beneficial for the whole community and affirms the dignity of the individual to offer work instead of hand outs.

As I sat in my office surrounded by these suddenly single moms listing what they needed to get through the week, I was perplexed by the fact that 72 hours earlier these women and their husbands were self reliant. They were formulating a plan to pay the rent.

Now, in order to show men that they have to be responsible for their actions, we have deported them, and the burden of care for their families is on the community. Churches, individuals and companies have pitched in to make up the short fall in rent for this week. As generous as this is, it’s just a short-term solution. Now the hard work starts of mapping out a long-term plan for these women and their children.

Of course I could do nothing. I could “let the market take care of itself.” And I’m starting to think this might be the best solution. I hear this admonishment often in the news and in our own city policy discussions –- this idea that if you open up economic opportunity it will either succeed or fail based on the demand for the product.

The more I reflect on the immigration situation the more I hear this phrase in my head. I keep trying to figure out how we got into this situation in the first place. At the risk of making a very complicated situation too simplistic, I think it goes back to us as a nation, trusting the market’s ability to take care of itself more than our laws.

The economic opportunity was so great in the last few decades that our systems couldn’t keep up. There weren’t enough visas for the amount of foreign workers we needed to keep up with the economy so we found ways outside the law to keep it going.

Then we changed our minds. We decided that enough is enough and now we want to enforce these laws. So we’re cracking down. The market has failed us. We are afraid there’s not enough for everyone and so we’re back to trusting in the law. In the mean time there are millions of people caught between our invitation into opportunity and our crackdown with the law.

So I cannot do nothing. These millions of people have become our neighbors and coworkers and friends and those who serve us in many capacities. I can’t do nothing because my faith as a Christian requires justice and mercy. Some say it was justice for the 11 day laborers to be deported. Now it is mercy that must follow through on the ramifications of those men being removed from our community and their families.

Several of my fellow Costa Mesans commented on the Daily Pilot story about the police bust using language of celebration and rejoicing. While I disagree with the reasoning, I can understand the support of the police actions.

What I cannot understand is those who rejoice in the fact that our neighbors’ families have been torn apart. Children are literally crying for their fathers, and mothers are scrambling to get by. You can say they brought it on themselves but why would you celebrate that kind of pain?

I have cried a lot this week. I cried with the women who don’t know how they will provide for their families. I cried with the men as I sat in a hotel room in Tijuana explaining that the church in Costa Mesa is standing with them and their families. But mostly I’ve cried alone in my car wondering how we became a city that tears families apart on purpose and then rejoices about it.

The Miracle Baby- by Effy Sanchez

Carlos Arturo is a miracle baby.  When his mother Maria was three months pregnant, her husband committed suicide leaving her a widow with four kids and one on the way.  During her fifth month of pregnancy, Maria had emergency surgery to remove her gallbladder and at six months the doctors put her on bed rest in the hospital for a month.  So it was no surprise that on July 19, 2009 when Carlos Arturo was born 5 weeks premature weighing 6lbs., the doctors called him a miracle baby.

Maria and her family live in Shalimar, one of Mika’s four neighborhoods.  Through all of this, Maria was never alone.  The week after the suicide, Crissy, Mika’s director, visited Maria and asked who had been supporting her.  She answered, “The ladies who meet in the park have been here everyday.”  These “ladies who meet in the park” are the Shalimar Neighborhood Action Committee, Comunidad Unida.  Immediately they circled around one of their neighbors in need.  This support continued throughout the pregnancy as I and other neighborhood leaders would visit Maria, take her kids out to activities and pray with their family.

Carlos Arturo, a child whose path to life was paved with sorrow, sickness and strife, entered the world in celebration and the love of an entire community.

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Important Summer Work

Today was the last day of Vacation Bible School- beach day! The kids had gone to VBS in their bathing suits and Hawaiian shirts so when they got home we were ready with water balloons and sprinklers. We chased each other around the courtyard like crazies- throwing balloons and jumping through the water while the dog barked and moms looked on.
Every year around the second week of August I realize that the summer is almost over and I have missed it. I didn’t go to the beach. I didn’t eat enough bbq. So this year I have determined not to let summer pass me by.
Today I had very important things to do. I met with board members and planned trainings. I followed up with volunteers and needed to study for a talk. I needed to plow through my important work and then I got wind of the water fight.
I remembered my resolution to engage the sunshine and summer activities. More importantly, I remembered my Lord- who took time to play with the kids and I went.
Next thing I knew I was sitting on hot concrete soaking wet eating Little Caesars pizza while kids quoted Bible verses and listed off their new VBS friends. Marcos said, ” I love everything about VBS. I don’t know why any kid wouldn’t like it.” Then my dog ate his chips. Ah, summertime.

Karen

Recently I decided to take on a mentee. Her name is Karen. She’s a gem! She’s 9 years old, smart as a whip and will melt you with her chocolate brown doe eyes and broad smile. Don’t get me wrong- she is no shrinking violet. The girl can dish it out (as well as take it) and can “hang” with a houseful of teenage boys as if she’s done it all her life. This girl has all the right stuff to make it and I want to make sure she does. On our first meeting we wrote down a list of things we wanted to do together. “How much time do we have?” she asked. “I don’t know, ten minutes or so”, I answered. “No, I mean how many years will we be together?” She responded. Wow! This seemed out of left field. “I don’t know, how long do you want to be together?” She was quiet and then said, “30 years.” “30 years? You will be 39. You’ll be done with college, probably be married and have a couple of kids. I’ll be 78,” I explained. She laughed. “That’s like a Grandma! Don’t worry, if you die, I will go to your funeral.” This time I laughed. “Yes you will! And you will stand up there and tell everyone what we’ve done over the past 30 years!” She smiled and said, “And I’ll tell them you were the most amazing woman ever.”
I think at 39, she will be the most amazing woman ever.
Her thoughts were not out of left field. Karen knows exactly what she wants from our relationship. Now, I do too. How great would it be if I DID see her through the next thirty years? I think we’ll just start with 2009!
Of all the great youth activities Mika has going on, I think that our Mentoring program is the most important. You may have read the statistics of how valuable it is to have good adult role models for our children. Studies show that support and encouragement keep them in school longer and help kids navigate the tricky parts of growing up. We know mentoring exposes kids to things they might not have access to in their families and that nearly 18 million kids’ ages 10-18 are at risk of not living up to their potential if they don’t have a strong adult role model in their lives. We currently have 15 pairs of mentors and mentees. Connecting students with their adult friends is one of the many joys of my job, but nothing compares to watching what happens when they start to build their relationships. If you are interested in mentoring a student (with or without a 30 year commitment) contact me at caryn@mikacdc.org