My Recent Trip to Tijuana

This was the "bridge to mexico." They didn't check our passports, id's, baggage, nothing! Just... bienvenidos come on in!  

This is the orphanage compound that we spent most of our time at. This kids love to hoop. 

This was probably my favorite moment of the trip. It was right in the middle of our longest day of experiencing the suffering in Tijuana. We came back from the "dump" and some kids were helping the cook make dinner. I asked if I could help and they taught me the proper Mexican way to roll out a perfectly round Tortilla. My last tortilla was definitely a lot better than my first but I was no where near the perfection the locals were turning out every three to my one tortilla.

This was the meal I helped make. Actually, "helping" might not be the best word choice since it implies I some how aided or quickened the process of making dinner.

We played an epic soccer game in the Mexican mountains against the kids that live in an orphanage there. We lost badly, but like the tortillas it was one of those cool moments where I felt like I was diving into the Mexican culture by playing soccer on a dirt field and a perfect setting in the mountains. 

This community is built on what was once a garbage dump. 

The dump was shut down years ago and they covered the trash in dirt. The entire mountain and valley in this picture is literally a trash pile covered in dirt that people have made their homes on. 

At the bottom of this valley was a river that was full of trash. I was reminded of the River of Life promised in Revelation to appear in the new Jerusalem to be an eternal source for the living water of Christ. I long for Jesus to come back and fill this river with water. 

As you know, all the injustices of this world can be traced back to Disney. I thought it appropriate to record the obvious source of the suffering in the dump. 

Aaron touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time 

Every night we snuck out of the compound and headed to a corner six blocks away that was serving up the best tacos I have ever had! It is pretty obvious from the expressions of Larry and I that we were pretty excited about these tacos. The best part was the fact that one taco was only one dollar! 

Ocean Beach California

The Training School recently took a week long trip to San Diego and Tijuana. 

Conclusions from the trip: 1. Four years of Spanish and I can only ask people who their favorite soccer player is. 

2. I love Cali and would not mind at all living there one day. "Ocean Beach Christian Church" has a nice ring to it..eh?

3. The human spirit is incredibly resilient and creative in the face of poverty and suffering. 

4. Sex trafficking is seriously fucked up and I am really struggling with why God allows this to happen. 

5. I really really love Cali. 

Here are some pictures from our short stop in San Diego's Ocean Beach neighborhood. More pics from Tijuana to come soon. 

Ocean Beach is an awesome community full of local surfers and vagabonds that have travelled all the way across the country for the promise of sleeping on the beach next to a bonfire ablaze with Christmas trees that were dug out of a dumpster. 

I had forgotten how refreshing and rejuvenating the sun, sand, and waves are. 

Some how Ocean Beach has remained a haven for those of us who hate the "man" and corporations. There were no big businesses, hotels, resorts, chain restaurants, and the homes were literally surf shacks sitting on five million dollar lots. 

We watched the sun set one night. Did you know when you watch the sun set on the Pacific coast you can see a green flash when the last rays of the sun disappear under the horizon? I thought I might have some sort of little flash that evening. 

Some of us stopped into the Hummingbird Coffee Shop to load up on some of this molecule to keep us going. The coffee shop was split right down the middle. On one side was a coffee shop the other was a fed ex store. 

Toronto's Sanctuary Church

One of the best things about the Training School so far has been our visits to Sanctuary Church in Toronto. Maybe you have read the book God in the Alley? If not, I recommend it! 


The church is the most tangible expression of the Kingdom of God on earth that I have ever experienced. Truly all are welcome and all are free to act however in the safe space Sanctuary creates. They truly emoby their name and become a sanctuary for people who are marginalized and ignored by just about everyone else, including me. 


Because Sanctuary has been so formational to me, I wanted to share with you a few articles written by someone who has imbedded himself in the Sanctuary community, is living out of his car and on the streets, and is writing about his experiences. I got to walk with him for two weekends while in Toronto debating fun stuff like journalistic objectivity versus subjectivity and exploring though conversations why in the world this guy would want to live on these cold jaded streets for a month straight! 


Here are the links to the articles Stephen was written and that have been published through a not-for profit out of Carmel called World Next Door: 


Article One: 
http://www.worldnextdoor.org/2011/12/a-motley-crew-of-christians/#comments
Article Two: 
http://www.worldnextdoor.org/2011/12/that’s-god-that’s-god-that’s-god-–-part-i/#

Images of Jesus

In light of Christmas (specifically christmas shopping) coming up and the Occupy Movement that has been gaining momentum the past two months; these images of Jesus seem rather relevant and provocative: 

Some Recent Quotes

Here are some recent quotes we have been wrestling with in the training school:

"Sometimes I would like to ask God why he allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when he could do something about it."

"Well why don't you ask him?"

"Because I am afraid he would ask me the same question."

Christ has no body on earth but yours

No hands but yours

Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out,

Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good

And yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.

-Teresa of Avila

The greatest hermeneutic of the gospel is a community that seeks to live it.

-Larry Mitchell

Back in the Game

I haven't been blogging much at all lately. Which is super odd to me since I am processing, learning, and experiencing more than I probably have in any other season of my life. The Training School has afforded me all types of new experiences and space to live in community with people. So I should have tons of thoughts, ideas, and questions to share all the time, and I definitely do! Yet, my blog says otherwise. My theory is that so much of what we do is so hard to quantify into blog posts let alone conversations when someone makes the mistake of asking me how Training School is going.

I think I will try to be a little more intentional about processing and sharing my thoughts and experiences through the blog from here on out.

I think I will start now:

Just two weekend ago some of us from the Training School made a trek up to Toronto. It is amazing how formational a quick weekend trip can be when you go with the intentions of walking together in intimate community and go with open eyes and hands for what the streets have to offer.

What I learned:

1. I don't walk much.

I was physically sore from walking wherever we went in the city.

2. I don't live below the surface very often.

Walking with friends that want to have conversations that revolve around meaningful, emotional, and spiritual concepts for basically three days straight causes me to be emotionally and physically drained. My lack of stamina for such conversations led me to deduce I don't live below the surface very often.

3. I am a communist.

Just Kidding, about that one. But we did stumble into a park that was being occupied by people in support of the Occupy Wallstreet movement. It was pretty awesome to walk around and interact with the diverse group of people that had committed all kinds of time, energy, and money towards the movement.

The protesters were occupying St. James Park for five weeks in the heart of downtown Toronto before they were evicted.

They occupiers had literally created their own little community equipped with a kitchen, first aid tent, general assembly, and even a library full of more than a 1,000 books.

This guy was cool. He came up with this idea of setting up portable tables for dialogue. Aren't conversations, debates, and arguments better around a table where people know each other's names and aren't posturing at one another??

We just happened to be there on a day that they marched throughout the city. There were probably only about 100 permanent tents in St. James Park but nearly 5,000 people turned out for their march through the city.

Where I've Been & Where I'm Going

What a journey I have been on since I graduated from Butler University last spring! I just recently started working part time for Young Life Carmel and I am also embarking on a journey with my Church that I will explain later. 

My senior year at Butler was a season of transition as I wrestled with what would come after graduation. I was accepted into a graduate program in theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City but was also feeling God tug on my heart to stay in Indianapolis for one more year. As I prayed and had conversations with friends, family, and mentors I felt that it was not the right time to take the financial leap into graduate school. 

Above is Union. It sits on on the upper east side of Manhattan right next to Columbia and Harlem. 

This summer I spent a month volunteering at Timberwolf Lake in Michigan as a Work Crew Boss. The Work Crew is comprised of around forty high school kids that have volunteered a month of their lives to live and serve at a Young Life camp. As a work crew boss, my role was to lead a group of six Work Crew kids in our daily physical labor but also (and more importantly) I was leading the group in all spiritual matters. In other words, I was disciplining, mentoring the high school kids that had come to serve for a month. The experience afforded me amazing opportunities to grow as a leader and in my individual relationship with Christ. 

One of the best jobs the Work Crew has is to welcome the busses that are dropping of hundreds of high school kids about ready to have the best week of their life and maybe here the Gospel for the first time. 

I was the Outdoor Crew Boss and these were the six guys and girls I worked with daily. I learned so much from their willingness to serve and dig deeper in their relationships with Christ. 

This is us on one of our nights off. We threw the junk in our lives that was holding us back from following Jesus into the fire, sang songs, and drank root beer. 

While graduate school seemed to be the most prestigious option for my life, I felt God pulling me towards a different path for the year ahead. After many conversations I decided to commit to a year long journey with Common Ground Christian Church called the Kingdom Living Training School. 

Do not be deceived by the title. It is not really a school, and I am not really being “trained” in anything. It is a journey with a group of 15 other people that have committed to intentionally walking with Jesus for the next year.

 Practically this looks like three classes a week from 9am to 12 where we sit in a classroom and are lead in conversation by our teacher and guide Larry Mitchell. We also take five or six vision trips to places like Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tijuana. There is no curriculum only our guide and the direction the spirit leads the community in conversation with each other, with questions, with people we run into on our long walks through the city, with books, and with God.

It is so clear to me now that God lead me to the Training School for so many different reasons. In fact, God reveals something new to me every day. The best way I know how to describe the training school is a very intentional time in your life where you make space for God to really get into the cracks and crevices of your life that you have kept hidden from yourself and God. It is a period of refining that is sparked by the intentionally of the group and the community we are trying to live into. 

This is the group on top of the hostel we stayed in overlooking the Toronto. Which is the 5th largest city in North America and one of (if not the most) diverse cities in the world. 

We walk everywhere! And because we walk every where we are constantly in communication with each other, with the city, and with the people that line the streets of the city. 

We ate like this for the whole week. On the ground, in the middle of the city, sharing, tearing bread with our hands, and always sitting in a circle. 

The whole group! 

 

Outside of the Training School I was hoping to find someway to make money to pay bills, eat, pay for the training school, and save a little for graduate school. I was really hoping to do this by finding a job that I am passionate about and that would provide good experience in ministry and non-for profit work.  

I was blessed to be offered a part time Young Life staff position with Carmel (the area I have been leading at the past four years.) It has been such a blessing to work on staff in Carmel. I get to work alongside my best friends and already have a solid base of relationships with high school kids to work from. 

Part time Young life staff means I am doing all of the same things I did as a volunteer leader but also taking on administrative, organizational, and non-profit management roles to create space for other volunteer leaders to build relationships with high school students. 

So far my time on Young Life staff has been an absolute blast! There is some really amazing momentum and excitement right now stirring in Carmel Young Life. God is doing some amazing things in kids lives and setting this leadership team up to meet hundreds of new kids that maybe have never heard the good and true news of the Gospel.

 

Every month we have a Thanksgiving dinner potluck style. We probably had close to sixty kids show up to eat and have community with us. 

This was "Double Dog Dare you Club" Jake was Moonrock and I was Danger. 

Campaigners so far this year has been amazing! It reminds me of how badly kids want to dig deep, ask hard questions, and wrestle with stuff that matters. Nothing gets me more excited than sitting in a circle with young people and wrestling with matters of the heart. 

Wow. This is a lot. I hope you made it all the way through to the end or at least looked at all of the pictures! In the future my updates wont be near as long, there has just been a ton of transition these past couple of months that I wanted people to be updated on. 

I am looking for financial support for Young Life so if you are interested in partnering with me in my mission in Carmel you can email me at brodsky.david.peace@gmail.com. If nothing else, please partner with me in praying for me. Here are some specific areas that need prayer: 

1. My time in the Training School. 

2. Carmel Young Life- that we would be a ministry that is both wide and deep! 

3. That God would provide a part time job outside of YL so I could have more money to save up for school. 

Shalom