You Count by Crissy Brooks

Printed in the Daily Pilot, March 9, 2011

A View From The Mesa:

Matthew 6 reminds us that we all count

Last week, one of my neighbors came to my office with her eviction notice in hand.

It was a pretty straightforward situation. She had to go.

“But we did so much work on our apartment,” she told me as she launched into a long list of improvements she and her husband had made, including new flooring and crown molding.

“It doesn’t count,” I said. “The work you did doesn’t matter. You have to go.”

Later that evening, my own words haunted me, and I felt ashamed that I told someone who had worked hard and cared to be responsible that she didn’t count. That her work didn’t matter. My neighbor had come looking for affirmation and I blew it.

As I opened the Bible the next day, I was struck by the words of Jesus in Matthew 6, “… and you count …”

In the passage, Jesus talks about how if God cares for the birds, how much more he must care for us. Now, you don’t have to agree with my theology, but you can imagine how convicted and inspired I was to have those words leap off the page at me that morning.

You count. What you do matters.

Last week, at the Costa Mesa City Council meeting, a packed house of folks listened to the questions, comments and strong opinions about the effort to outsource city services.

As we were wrapping up around midnight, one city employee got up to say how the most disheartening part of the whole process was not necessarily losing his job, but feeling discarded and cast aside.

He felt like he doesn’t count, that his work doesn’t matter.

I already blew it once, and I do not want to repeat the mistake of treating my neighbors disrespectfully and without dignity. It was shared at the meeting that the average length of service of our city employees is 12 years.

Whether or not you agree with outsourcing city services, I think we can agree that those who serve us matter. Their work counts and this time of uncertainty seemed like a good time to tell them that.

Whether folks end up losing their jobs in six months, we can take this opportunity to affirm what they have done for our city over the years.

Our city employees want to know that the service and time they have put into our city matter. And residents who take the time and energy to read reports and come out to engage in our local process at council meetings also want to know that it matters.

After two hours of listening to one another, and many people exercising their privilege to speak out, Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer basically told us in his closing remarks that the wrong people were in the room. We didn’t count.

And then he said to us collectively, “I know that you did not mean what you said.” What you say and do and know doesn’t matter.

Undoubtedly, I disagree, and here’s what I’m proposing: Let’s write a note of appreciation to our city employees.

This talk of massive layoffs is affecting all the city employees, not just those in the targeted departments. It is around 400 people, so it will take a group effort.

Employees’ names are not listed individually, so if you know someone write to him or her directly. If you do not know someone personally, write a general note of appreciation and e-mail it to me at Crissy@mikacdc.org. I will compile them all and send them to individual employees.

If you don’t know what to say, simply tell them, “You count. What you do matters.”

Let’s be the kind of community that respects each other’s work and honors our dignity as human beings. I am going to start with the Animal Control team. They have picked up my crazy dog on numerous occasions, and I appreciate them.

I am a big fan of the handwritten note, so I am going to go that route. How great would it be if we get enough people writing to thank all of our city staff! Will you show your appreciation?

Fellow Costa Mesans, you count. Your voices and work matters. It matters that we live in a place where bright residents with knowledge, experience and expertise bring that forth to serve our city. Whether we agree or not, you count, and your work for our community matters.

Someone does notice.

CRISSY BROOKS, a lifelong Costa Mesa resident, is the executive director and co-founder of MIKA. She lives on the city’s Westside and is active in community service. She can be reached at crissy@mikacdc.org.

Why I Volunteer

By Alexis Billings

Step up has been an amazing experience for me this semester. Firstly, it was a cross-cultural experience as I am Caucasian and all of the families in the program are Hispanic. It has been very moving to share a common goal and common beliefs with people of a different cultural background. Since I do not speak Spanish fluently, many of the kids have had to translate for me while I communicate with their parents. I am constantly amazed by the kids’ ability and willingness to do this. They are all very patient with me. I love seeing the kids learn and understand new concepts. There is nothing more satisfying then when I explain a concept to a child and they say, “I get it!”  I have also had fun learning their names and grade levels, and getting to know them and their families. I have seen some great progress in some of their reading levels and math skills, even if I have only been around for one semester. The words from God that the kids personally receive during devotional time always amaze me. As much as I sometimes think that they are not paying attention, the Lord puts profound things on their hearts. I am moved by the connection with God that some of them have. I also love the amigos and volunteers who have been working at the centers this semester. Their willingness to serve is a gift from God. Times when I have been sick or having a bad day, they willingly pick up the slack and move forward with the kids.

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.

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.

The Right Tool by Crissy Brooks

” Get the right tool,” my dad would often yell when I used the back of a screwdriver as a hammer or my nails as tweezers.  It was easy for him to say. He had a whole garage full of tools. I was just grabbing for whatever was closest and quickest to get the job done.

Last night when I pulled into my carport I was assaulted by the most vulgar graffitti covering the whole wall in front of me. The kids upstairs have been a problem in the neighborhood for a while. Everybody has been complaining about them. I haven’t seen an adult come or go from the apartment in weeks. Last night it became clear that I couldn’t put off a conversation with them any longer.

I hauled myself up the stairs, stepped over the make shift dog gate, and entered the living room filled with two bunkbeds and the backseat of a mini van acting as a sofa. Five teenagers stared at me as I sat down on the “couch”, a dog on each side of me. “Who’s going to paint downstairs and when?,” I said, skipping over any chit chat.

“It wasn’t us,” one of the girls said.

“I didn’t ask if it was you. I asked when you were going to paint it,” I explained. I really didn’t think that they had done it, but it had to be one of friends that come and go all night long.

“Let’s just paint it now,” the oldest guy said. “I’ll go buy rollers at the 99 cent store.”  He got on his bike and left.

At this point I was pretty surprised. I thought there was going to be more of a fight. I went downstairs to get paint and by the time I got back two of them were standing in the garage with rollers, ready to go. As they painted they began to tell me about themselves, about their family, and their mom being gone all the time. They told me about the kids who did the graffiti and the changes they would like to make. When they finished the garage they went over to the outside wall and started painting over the gang tagging there. They seemed to enjoy the work and sharing about themselves.

As I stood there watching them happily paint, I thought of the focus we place on equipping people in our ministry (www.mikacdc.org). I thought about my dad saying, “Get the right tool.” Here before me I saw how the right tool was bringing out the best in my neighbors. In a simple way, being asked to take responsibility triggered them into action. They were physically equipped with the right tools, but I saw too that they had it in them to do something good, they just needed an opportunity. I wondered if anyone had ever asked them to take responsibility for their builing or our community. Chap Clark’s book Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers came to mind. http://www.amazon.com/Hurt-Inside-Todays-Teenagers-Culture/dp/0801027322

Clark asserts that adults have abandoned teens, that we have left them to raise themselves. The two painters in front of me seemed to be a glaring example of this. My first idea was to tell them to paint and leave them to figure it out but when the oldest so eagerly rode off to buy rollers, it made me want to get together the rest of the equipment and stick around. And now after our visit I want to stick around more. Maybe there will be other opportunities to work together or get to know each other. It is convicting to see my own ability to judge and become the cranky lady downstairs. Last night my neighbors gave me a chance to reconsider my view of them. They took my reprimand as an invitation and let me into a sliver of their world. Perhaps we can continue equipping each other with the right tools for loving our community.

Alleys, Scars, and Day Laborers

 By Crissy Brooks

 

It is amazing to what lengths we will go to avoid seeing what is hard.  This morning on my way home from my run I thought about going down the alley.  I like to pass through that way every once in awhile to check out what’s going on.  The alley is a bit of a “behind the scenes” look at my neighborhood.  – When I walk down it I can see which crews are active by the graffiti.  I have a chance to notice whose landlord is not keeping things up.  Sometimes I can tell if a family has to live out of their garage.  Walking down the alley is one way I take the temperature of how we’re doing as a community.  This morning though, I didn’t want to run down the alley.  I didn’t want to know what’s going on.  I didn’t want to see graffiti.  I didn’t want to notice furniture discarded in the alley.  I didn’t want to know what was wrong.

 

This willingness to embrace denial has crept into my heart as of late.  There has been a general discontentedness that I have tried to avoid through various methods.  I’ve been shopping. I’ve cleaned house like a madwoman.  I went for long runs.  In this attempt to make myself feel better, I decided I needed to get rid of my scars.  I bought some scar removal anointment and committed to the suggested three times daily application.  It seemed that the more I applied the anointment, the more scars I noticed that needed to be removed.  I was diligent, even rigorous, with applying to each unwanted mark. 

 

Somewhere around day 3 of my manic application of scar lotion I realized that I was removing scars from my body in an attempt to make my heart feel whole.  I was willing to commit to a system of scar removal, yet not willing to sit quietly with my hurting heart.  I did not want to know what was wrong.

 

Today as I walked to work I thought about taking a different route.  I did not want to see the day laborers on the corner.  We have worked on several initiatives together in our city that have not been successful.  I feel like I’ve let them down and this morning I did not want to answer their questions about our next move.  Plus now with the economy being so bad there are more guys and fewer jobs.   I feel the burden and urgency when I’m with them.  Today I didn’t want to know what was wrong.

 

I am convicted by what Albert Edward Day wrote in The Captivating Presence:

            “I came to a new understanding why Jesus passed up the religious establishment of his day, the economically secure, the socially prestigious, and sought out the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the sick, the lonely.  He felt, as we so often do not feel, their sorrow.  He was acquainted, as we too seldom are, with their grief.  On Calvary he died of a broken heart.  But that heart was broken long before Black Friday, by the desolation of the common people. ‘In all their afflictions he was afflicted.’

            Most of the time we are not.  We seem to have quite a different conception of life.  We avoid as much as possible the unpleasant.  We shun the suffering of others.  We shrink back from any burdens except those which life itself inescapably thrusts upon us.  We seek arduously the wealth and power that will enable us to secure ourselves against the possibility of being involved with another’s affliction.  Lazarus sometimes makes his way to our door step.  We toss him a coin and go on our way.  We give our charities but we do not give ourselves.  We build our charitable institutions but we do not build ourselves into other’s lives. 

 

May Jesus give me his heart to enter into the lives of others.  May he strip away the anointments and alternate routes that keep me from seeing and feeling what is.