www.creighton.edu/scsj (402) 280-1290 Harper Center Suite 2067 Service & Justice Trips 2016-2017: A Year in Review I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across waters to create many ripples. - St. Teresa of Calcutta
Service & Justice Trips By the Numbers 35 years of Service & Justice Trips Fall { Spring Over 230 students on 31 trips across the United States 15,000 approximate hours of service completed on trips this year Over 145 students on 19 trips across the United States Participants used our 7 pillars to reflect on their experiences and bring home countless connections and memories. Justice Solidarity Sustainability Service Community 2 Simplicity Reflection
In Their Own Words Fall and Spring Break Service & Justice Trip Participants reflect upon their own experiences. St. Paul, MN Milwaukee, WI Cleveland, OH I was taught that in being myself well, I can help, learn, and understand those around me. No matter how small your corner of this world may seem, all you have to do is look to the person next to you and your world becomes a little bigger. - St. Jane House, Minneapolis, MN, Spring Trip Participant It was not about us walking away and saying we had done something or feeling good because they had seemed thankful. It was about us looking in the eyes of people around us and realizing they were no different than us. It was about spending time with each person as a person, and not a homeless person. It was not about us, it was about seeing ourselves in each person that we met and recognizing that we are the same. - St. Martin s Hospitality Center, Albuquerque, NM, Fall Trip Participant There is always change and progress that can be made in a direction that is in the best interests of society - but the fight to facilitate that change is never going to end. All I had to do was begin fighting... to realize that the sooner you start to fight for social justice, the longer you are able to make an impact. - St. Joseph Worker/Advocacy Trip, St. Paul, MN, Fall Trip Participant I am here to consistently search for more answers and more questions by being present with what is going on in the world around me. I am here to simply sit and listen, whether that is sharing coffee with people experiencing homelessness or sipping tea with people of other faiths. - Cleveland Catholic Worker House, Cleveland, OH, Fall Trip Participant The stories I had the privilege to hear and the wonderful people I got to journey through life with for a week will stay with me forever. I was reminded that the person you see on the street corner is not defined by their inability to pay rent - they re a person first. A person with a past, present, and hopes for the future. - St. Martin s Hospitality Center, Albuquerque, NM, Spring Trip Participant 3
Community: The best experience was getting to know my group. I got to know each and every one of them very closely and can t wait to keep seeing them after our trip. - Omaha One World Participant Send-off: I felt most alive the first day of the trip. We were still pretty unfamiliar with each other, but we quickly became close through games. - Omaha OneWorld Participant Service: I have always known that service is going to be a part of my life, and being here helped me to realize that I can be a serviceoriented person without making it my career. - Albuquerque, NM Participant 4
A Timeline of Service & Justice Trips While no two Service & Justice Trips are the same, the trips follow a similar pattern for participants to receive the most out of their experience. Here s a peek into these week-long service and justice experiences based on past participant reflections. Social Analysis: I felt most alive as a leader during social analysis. I really felt the participants understood the meaning behind it and made it very specific to our host site. It was cool to see. - Cleveland, OH Coordinator Reflection: My best experience was reflection. I think it is so important to reflect upon the things we experienced throughout the week. It helped me to process and absorb new things we learn as well as create an extremely close-knit community - El Paso, TX Participant Advocacy: I intend to be more active in speaking up/educating people about social injustice and criminal injustice. I would usually just show my support whenever someone would bring it up, but I want to be regularly engaged in such activism. - Montgomery, AL Participant 5
Experiencing the Fullness of Service & Justice Trips Senior Adrienne Pyle Inspires Trip Participants at Spring Send-off 6 Good evening, everyone. My heart is beating so fast right now and not because I m nervous. Well, I am. But it s pounding because of how much excitement and joy I have seeing so many people on the cusp of what I can only describe as the single most transformational experience I ve had at Creighton University. Words don t do justice for the immense potential that sits before you in these next several days, as well as for the rest of your life. However, I m going to attempt to put into words a few snippets of advice that I ve accumulated over the years and the 4 trips that I ve been on that might help you to ready yourself for the opportunity ahead. I say opportunity very intentionally because there is one key factor that determines whether or not this Service and Justice trip will be a worthwhile experience. That key component is you. Very simply, the transformational capacity of these trips is only released when you allow it to be. This starts with the group that you are sitting with. These people are entering an experience that is as new to them as it is to you. They are every bit as nervous and as eager as you are. Each of your group members is truly accompanying you throughout this process. Chances are, you probably have never met many of them before your first General Meeting. And that s amazing! Because I guarantee that you will walk away from this experience feeling like you have known these people your entire life. A Harry Potter quote that really resonates with Service & Justice trips for me is this one: There are some things you can t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them. And while I wouldn t necessarily liken a Service & Justice Trip to a mountain troll, the concept of tackling a new experience with new people, limited resources, little sleep, and a whirlwind of adrenaline creates such a cohesive sense of solidarity and community that you may find yourself with 4 or more genuine friendships that will sustain you for years to come. Rely on these group members. Trust them. Allowing yourself to be open and honest with each other will create the space for constructive dialogue and deep relationships. In the past 4 years, I ve been as far away as El Paso and as close as North Omaha on these Service & Justice Trips, and what I have learned to be true is that we have no inkling of the complexity of an issue until we are waist-deep in it, trudging through its density alongside the community members themselves. We have no capacity to fathom the realness of a social injustice until we are sitting across the breakfast table from it, calling it by its name, and taking in every scar and wrinkle on its face. What I m saying is, we must leave our bags of assumptions and expectations in our dorm rooms before we step into the role of being guests in our service and justice communities. We must allow these communities to express themselves in their own words and in their own contexts. And by letting ourselves to be open to all that these communities have to offer, we are lowering our personal walls that may shield us from the risk of change. I will bet you all 26 dollars and 2 cents in my bank account that if you take this risk, your life will be richer because of it. And not richer in the monetary sense. You see, these Service & Justice Trips have the potential to transform your whole person what you stand for, what your values are, who you choose to be in life. Many of my friends have changed their entire education and career path because these service and justice trips have moved something inside them something that they saw or experienced that has changed their worldview. They have come back saying, I saw this injustice, or that social issue. These problems have faces to them now, and I can t just move forward in life while ignoring that it is a reality. I must do something about it. These trips allow you to step beyond the boundaries of our inherent biases, our upbringings, our skill sets, our familiarities and to tread the no-man s land in which we can meet people where they are at, and expand our potential for stewardship.
As the late Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, once stated, The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become. Probably the most important piece of advice that I will give you tonight is to allow yourself to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. There will be times in which you may encounter something that does not sit well with you or even shakes you to your core. On my first Service & Justice Trip, I joined eight other students in a 13-hour van ride to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We worked in and slept at St. Martin s Hospitality Center, which is a day shelter that provides services and food for the homeless of Albuquerque. My group spent seven very moving days growing in solidarity and getting to know the community members on a personal level. We were doing our utmost to exemplify Men and Women For and With Others by treating each client experiencing homelessness with respect and dignity. Over the course of the week, I had established a friendship with one of the clients at St. Martin s, named Marian. Although he was a shy, quiet elderly man, Marian s smile lit up the entire room and he naturally made people feel comfortable. Marian and I had countless conversations during the week, many of which were very deep and several hours in length. Marian was full of experience and endless wisdom. Somehow, each of our conversations always tended to take a spiritual turn, but each time that we approached the topic of religion, Marian deliberately turned the conversation down another avenue. I picked up on this and finally, on the last day in Albuquerque, I felt comfortable enough to ask, Marian, I don t mean to pry, but you seem like a spiritual man with so much wisdom and compassion to share with others. I m just curious, do you belong to any religion that would inspire you to live your life in this way? Without missing a beat, Marian answered, Well, sort-of. I used to belong to what I like to call the Hypocrite Religion. Pointing at the cross necklace I wore, he said, You know it as Christianity. It s where you worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore him on Monday. I was floored. I had no idea what I could or should say, so I said nothing. I just sat there. As a Christian, I felt immensely embarrassed. As we piled into the van a few hours later, I was still pretty quiet. I could see Marian waving at me through the window, and I waved back but felt hot, curdling shame welling up in the pit of my stomach. The shame, I realized, came from the truth in Marian s words; all too often, I found myself participating in acts of service and holiness when it was convenient for me, and I allowed myself to be blind to the needs of others when it wasn t a suitable time or place. The extent of my action in the face of injustice was my own comfort zone. As a result, I had allowed myself to distance myself from the realities that people like Marian and too many others face, unable to turn off the injustice when it simply wasn t convenient for them. I was certainly not being a Woman For and With Others in an honest sense, and I wasn t fully opening myself to respond to the call of a life of These Service & Justice Trips have the potential to transform your whole person what you stand for, what your values are, who you choose to be in life. service. To the challenge of a life of service. But it hasn t stopped me from trying; in the aftermath of this first trip and the three following trips, I have learned one thing to be true: personal change only begins at the end of your comfort zone. On these trips, you will meet people that you cannot help, and situations that you can t fix. But I entreat you do not allow this to dishearten you; by opening your hearts in vulnerability to others, by allowing your hearts to be broken, only then can you allow your heart to be moved to a position of hope and action. You may go into these trips intending to give of yourself, but you will undeniably receive so much more. Going on a service and justice trips is one of the best decisions that you can make at Creighton, where we are called to not only to the opportunity, but to the responsibility of being Men and Women For and With Others. If you do not leave Creighton University feeling measurably different from the person you were when you entered, you have done yourself a great disservice. These trips are a concrete step in the right direction. These trips will rock you to your core. These trips are the fulfillment of the obligations to which our Jesuit education is calling us. I challenge you all, I challenge myself, to view the people of this world... as beacons of light and love that deserve to be cherished and celebrated at every time of the day and in every occasion. This is the only way that we can approach our journeys as service and justice advocates if we want to fulfill our calling of Jesuit responsibility to care for others with the richness that these trips provide. I promise you, I swear to you, it will be worth it. Or else I owe you $26.02. 7
El Paso, TX Montgomery, AL El Paso, TX Kansas City, KS East St. Louis, IL 8
Coming Home Core Team Leader Bridget Sebby Reflects on Trip Experiences When I think about the SCSJ and specifically Service & Justice Trips, the first symbol that comes to mind is the praxis spiral. The praxis spiral is the on-going reflection method that asks three main questions that ultimately leads to further reflection and action. It asks what? So what? And now what? For the what: you ask yourself, What happened and what did I experience? For the so what: Why does this matter? And for the now what: now what do I do? The praxis spiral has been extremely helpful to me in understanding, facing, and overcoming the challenges that come with returning from service & justice trips. One of the greatest challenges I have faced coming back from my trips has to do with the WHAT question. My challenge is how to talk about my trip to those who did not go on it with me. Pictured above is Bridget s Service & Justice Trip group in Denver, CO. She is pictured second from the right. Each trip is a new experience with a new group of people to a new community. No two trips are ever the same. On these trips you learn about the realities of justice issues, you meet the human beings being impacted, you hear their stories, and you create connections and relationships with new people in your life. After each trip, I come back to Omaha with a feeling of exhausted eagerness. Exhausted from the long and experiencefilled week but eager to share my experiences with my friends and family. But we are faced with the question of how to even begin talking about what we experienced, saw, and heard that week. After reflecting on my trip, I have found that the best way to talk about the trip is to simply tell specific stories of my experience that I found meaning in. For me, each trip has taught me something about life, about others, and about myself. In my story telling, I attempt to answer the questions of the praxis spiral by talking about what actually happened on my trip, why it matters, and what I am going to do now that I have had this experience. 95
THANK YOU! We are very thankful for all the participants, coordinators, and supporters who have nurtured the Service & Justice Trips program over the last 35 years. What began as the dream of seven students has grown into an incredible program with nearly 400 students serving, learning, and reflecting each year. This year was the 20th anniversary of our Soup Luncheon and it once again was a great success as we raised over $50,000. This will allow the SCSJ to subsidize the cost of trips for all students while also ensuring that we can continue to provide significant need-based and leadership scholarships. 10