Oddwalk Ministries

Hello! Here is yet another update from the Young Neighbors adventure that Orin finds himself on this week. It sounds like they’re doing very well and having some great experiences in our nation’s Capitol. Here are some of the highlights from Thursday:

This picture was taken on the drive to one of the work sites. This location is called the International House of Prayer. Anyone want to guess what it used to be called?

Apparently some body art and t-shirt making broke out at Peace Camp:

One of the work groups helped to clear brush at a house being looked after by Mary House, one of the work sites for the week:

At the Community for Creative Non-Violence or CCNV, participants watch a video on the history of the organization. Apparently, CCNV’s headquarters used to house naval offices before the Pentagon was built:

As we’ve mentioned before, Orin is serving as the Prayer and Music Coordinator this week. This picture shows teens working to plan one of the prayer services:

One of the nights of Young Neighbors is typically focused on learning about a different culture or two. On Thursday night, the participants ate an El Salvadorian meal and took part in a Brazilian-African drumming and dancing demonstration:

Hello Everybody!

The last few days have been busy ones for Orin and the Young Neighbors crew in DC. If you aren’t sure what we’re talking about, please check out the last few blog posts.

If you’ve been with us all week…here we go!

Here is one of the groups pulling weeds at the Community for Creative Non-Violence:

Another group took part in a “Peace Hike” at Peace Camp:

Zak, one of the participants, had a birthday on Tuesday. Here is Zak holding the birthday cake that he (other folks at his work site) was encouraged to toss back and forth at increasing distances:

I believe this is the throwing of the cake:

A sign at Mary House, one of the work sites:

At Mary House, the work team was kept busy by making vases out of recyclables:

These pictures are of the Community Food Game, one of the processes Young Neighbors uses to show the difficulty of some members of society to obtain a healthy meal. The activity, originally developed by the Atlanta Community Food Bank, helps young people see the real impact that lack of income, transportation, and exploitation have on the problem of hunger:

These pictures show YNIA participants and staff from UCAP (United Communities Against Poverty) preparing for a nature hike:

On the nature hike, Orin spotted a moth with a cross on its back:

Participants at the CCNV clean out a large food pantry in preparation for an inspection:

At Peace Camp, participants process the morning over lunch with M.J., the Camp Director:

On Wednesday evening, the whole Young Neighbors group attended Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, ate a quick dinner, and headed down to the National Mall. After touring many of our national monuments, the group settled at the Lincoln Memorial for the evening prayer service. The Lincoln Memorial picture shown below is not of the prayer service itself :

Monday at Young Neighbors in Action was pretty busy for Orin. During each week of YNIA, Monday is typically the day when the parish groups make their way to their work sites for the first time. Usually the three staff members, the Site Coordinator, the Program Director, and The Prayer and Music Coordinator, drive around to the various work sites to learn about the service being done and offer support for the parish groups. Here are some highlights from Monday:

This picture was taken at St. Anthony’s, the host site for their Young Neighbors week. Orin’s note to me was that this was ‘indeed a long fence’. Good thing they labeled it:

This is artwork being done at United Communities Against Poverty, Inc. or UCAP, one of the work sites for the week:

This is the Orin we know:

A pledge posted at UCAP:

The next two pictures are of work being done at one of the service locations that supports poor immigrant families:

The Community for Creative Non-Violence, another work site:

This is something called the “Peace Machine” being done at something called ‘Peace Camp’ (stop me if you’re tired of all the detail.):

Since there are no shower facilities at St. Anthony’s, the whole group has to travel to St. Anselm High School each day for a shower. This is an interesting corpus Orin found one one of the walls there:

Each night of Young Neighbors, the participants learn various aspects of their faith and Church teaching where it pertains to justice and service. On Monday night, they learned the different principles of Catholic Social Teaching. Here are some of the posters created during that process: