Dance Dance Revolution
Hello.
So, wow. Our first days in Rochester have been amazing. The stories I have heard from everyone here are amazing. They have been filled with plenty of stress, being tired, and tested by more than one way, but everyone, in the end seemed to be very happy.
My first day was not very hard. My Monday was full of laughter and joy. And how could it not when you are in charge of 3 year old pre-school children, and Dance Dance Revolution.
I have been posted at Nazareth Elementary. Most often I have been working with the “Pre-3” class that they have there (three year old preschoolers) and it has been nothing less than amazing. My first experience was reading with the children, which was a blast. It is nice to have an attentive audience to provide gasps and laughs throughout the story. Perhaps my favorite experience this entire week has been P.E. with these children. By this point we have developed a relationship. By relationship, I mean that every time I walk by the children excitedly scream “MR. BIEDERMANN!” , but of course in their high pitched word slurring ways of three year olds. Also, their P.E. class consisted of a rockwall that the school has downstairs by their gym, and Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).
One memory I am confident that will be with me until the end of my days, is a group of 12 three year olds, standing behind the three participants of the game, dancing and singing along with the music. It was possibly the most heart-warming experience I have had.
Although not everything was a DDR experience so far, it has been an amazing experience thus far over all. I look forward to coming home and sharing stories of the week with all. Have a great spring break. I know I am.
Cheers,
Travis Biedermann
Elyse’s Update
Elyse’s Update from Big Ol’ KC
Finally getting time to blog!! It has been such a busy week so far… full of driving, math and new adventures! I have been journaling and have lots of stories but Colleen tells me I should only write the highlights… So here goes!
So, we finally got here (it’s a longgg drive! But thank goodness we took it in two chunks- the first night we stayed in Denver and went the rest of the way the next day. We also took lots of stops – mostly due to Laura’s weak bladder… that girl would never make it on one of my dad’s roadtrips…where if we have to go to the bathroom, well gotta wait till the next gas station…). We have been having oodles of fun so far!
I am going to just hit on my school stories…seeing as what this trip is about☺ I will start out by saying Cristo Rey High School is very different than high schools we are familiar with. There are several things that make it so unique: It is a private Catholic school created only six years ago. It was designed as a college-prep school for culturally diverse students and aimed at giving them experiences they otherwise would not have. Being private, the school costs about $9,000 a semester. So if these students come from family’s that don’t really have that kind of money to spare, how do they pay for it?? That is where Cristo Rey’s awesomeness is evident. Upon entering the school, students are given a job in town and one day in their week, they go to their work sites. The money they make in their job goes to pay for their education. Pretty cool right? I wish I could write more about the history and what makes Cristo Rey unique but I better move on- P.S. though, you can check out a little more about the school from the following link. They were features on 60 minutes- they’re famous! But check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ev8kmPnzaY
Focusing on what I’ve specifically been doing…
I am helping out in Ms. Hotop’s Algebra 1 and 2 classes (boy, who made that placement?? 1+1= uh… just kidding but I am not the greatest at math…). Regardless, it has been actually really cool so far! Talk about blast from the past- we’re working on factoring binomials and graphing… exciting! Just wanna say really quick how happy I am to be in Ms. Hotop’s classroom. It is truly a privilege… This teacher has such an evident passion for what she does and that just radiates off her and rejuvenates and excites her students. Another difference at Cristo Rey is the classroom conversation. Ms. Hotop’s classroom is full of learning- you can hear it. If the students do not understand something, heck they “hold up” the teacher and ask for clarification. Ms. Hotop has impeccable classroom management though and can flow these, what some would view as interruptions, into a teaching point.
In short, even though I don’t enjoy math, I loved being in the classroom.
OK, sorry you’re probably getting tired of reading my blog but last thing I have to say- Today was especially awesome because I made a new friend!! Mrs. Hotop asked me to help a girl with her homework and I am so happy she did. (Ms. Hotop probably wasn’t though as we didn’t really get much homework done…shhh…). Her name is IKeyla and we decided I am pretty much the Montana version of her in a sense. We have a lot in common and have many of the same philosophies about life. I got to hang out with her in between classes and felt almost as if I was back in high school myself.
We already are making plans for her to come see what Montana is like☺
But enough from me, Nate is waiting to blog and I have to go make a sandwich for our transition over to Leavenworth tomorrow.
I will hopefully have time to blog again soon and give you more updates!
Thanks for reading!
SLFT (Still Looking For Todo)-
=]Elyse
What Brings Us Joy?
Hello!
Today we spent the day in the school, once again. Once again, it was amazing. I have been in Ms. Hotop’s algebra 1 and 2 classes helping students with math problems. It has taken me some time to remember how to do some of the math problems, as it has been about 6 years since I have done algebra!! Thank God for Tessa, our math genius, for helping me to understand how to factor equations. Elyse and I also helped Ms. Hotop grade math quizzes and tests. Late in the morning, several of us, including myself, had the opportunity to tutor a student in math one-on-one. Math is the subject that many, many students at Cristo Rey are really struggling with and the school needs lot of extra hands to be able to give the students one-on-one opportunities to work on their math skills.
Anyway, the students here are very welcoming and curious about us Montanans. I have received very interesting questions. One student asked me if there were gangs and ghettos in Montana or if people fight in Montana. It was interesting to see how Montana is such a different world from a place such as urban Kansas City. It also shows how small of a perspective the students at Cristo Rey have on the rest of the world; their neighborhood is all they really know.
When we got back from school to the Xavier house, we helped the Sisters with yard work. We had fun doing it, too. We laid fertilizer on the lawn where it was needed.
Later this evening, we had the privilege of going to the home of Sister Irene, Sister Vicki, and Sister Therese. They fed us a wonderful homemade meal of grilled chicken, baked potatoes, green beans, and a fabulous chocolate cake with fruit. They were very welcoming to us. Sister Irene, who is about 80 years old, is planning to add us all on facebook! Together after dinner, we had a prayer session that focused on what brings us joy. It was wonderful. When we got back to the Xavier house, we went to adoration in the church across the street. It was a good time together.
Looking forward to more tomorrow.
-Laura
The Sandwich Window
Today I began the day, bright eyed and bushy tailed at 7am morning mass at the church that is right around the corner from the Tau house, where our group is staying. Directly following this was breakfast and morning prayer. During the prayer, we were asked to write why we were on this trip on a paper cut out hand. I wrote: “I love humanity and I think that God reveals the beauty of compassion and love through others” this took up almost the entire palm. Next, my group of five students and one student leader (an intermixed group of Minesotans and Montanans) headed off to the Mercy Franciscan St. John Organization, otherwise known as the sandwich window. This center provides many services for the community, including job training for those who have not had the opportunity to be trained using computers with Microsoft word and Excel, counseling services to help at risk teens not become involved in gangs, they have a room filled with clothes for people to take, and they hand out lunch every day to about 150 people through a window in the side of the building. I had the opportunity to work the window and got to interact with many different people. The highlight of my day was when a homeless man named Gregory struck up a conversation with me and Shelby Goodrich, another student on the trip. He told us his life story and he kept asking us why we came all the way from Montana, that it was such a long way from here to there and that we should be sitting on a beach somewhere in Can Cunn. Shelby simply replied, “Because we love it, we love getting to meet people like you and we love to serve God”. It was an amazing experience because he was so happy to talk to us and have us hear his story and life advice, to do what we love and appreciate the little things in life, and it was a great experience for me because I feel like I really made a connection in someone else’s life today. Maybe that’s just the naïve college student talking in me, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, all I know is that God works in ways that you would never expect and today was a clear example of that for me. At the end of the day we were asked to write one thing down on our paper hands that we did today that we didn’t want to forget. I wrote “Today I shook a man’s hand and listened to his life story and advice”. Funny how God works through our hands.
Anyways, have a great day Carrollians reading this blog, looking forward to the rest of the week of service!
Peace,
Maddie Woodruff
Finally, A Word from Cincinnati
We’ve had quite the journey thus far. Even just through our travels to Cincinnati. Today we had a free day and visited the Krohn conservatory. There was an entire greenhouse devoted to cacti and desert plants. I couldn’t help but think of my mother. I just wanted to take picture after picture. However, not having a camera was a problem. This caused me to ponder what I really wanted. I wanted her there with me. I wanted my mom to share the experience with me. This has been the case countless times in the past couple of days. . The tunnel in the Detroit airport, the cacti in the Krohn conservatory, the Xaiver campus library, the sun’s rays breaking over a fluffy bed of clouds; all different places, sights, and activities; all reminding me of different people I care about. Further reflection made me realize, the people I think of have touched my life in such a way that I wish to share my experience with them. Just thinking of them has changed my perspective, even if ever so slightly. As a result I have brought these people with me. All of us have brought different people, experiences, and skills to Cincinnati. They shape what we see and ultimately our actions.
Even though my friends and family cannot experience everything directly with me, when I return home, I will bring back all the experiences, sights, and people who have touched me while I have been here. Even though we haven’t officially begun our service, my life as already been impacted.
Tomorrow we being our service, and perhaps we won’t giving so much of our labor as we will give the more intangible things. As for right now, we are simply enjoying each other’s company and getting to know the group of Minnesota students we will be living with and serving with over the next week. Thus far I have no regrets about the trip. I am so glad to be here, and so excited for tomorrow. On the other hand, perhaps I didn’t need to sacrifice a clean pair of jeans by sliding into first during kick ball.
I pray this blog finds you all well,
Amy Reagor
P.S. I can’t wait for you all to meet the woman in the airport, the friars living next to us, and the gigantic campus library.
A day of Hope
Hey Everyone,
Its Monday night here in Rochester and the day is just winding down, we just finished our evening reflection and prayer and are getting ready to settle into an evening of games with these “crazy sisters” as they have been affectionately labelled.
I am serving this week at Hope Hall, a school where everybody has an auditory processing delay and more often than not it is coupled with some other health issue or learning obstacle. In addition to that, 87% of the students at this school live at or below the poverty line. I have been very blessed in being able to serve at Hope Hall for the last 2 years on this headlights trip as well. This being my third year at Hope Hall I had some sort of an idea of what to expect, but of course you can never know everything. This year I am working in the middle school’s social studies classroom (Hope Hall is grades 3-12) so I had 2 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes. I had some experiences today that really impacted me in a way that I have never seen at Hope Hall. I worked one on one with a boy named Dustin that had just transferred to Hope Hall last week. He is a 7th grader, but at the public schools in Rochester he was locked in a room and served as an aid to severely handicapped kid, he has never really received an education of his own, so his reading level is that of maybe a 3rd or 4th grader. I worked with him on a worksheet to get him caught up with his class and on his homework. It was easy to see that he was discouraged by all that he didn’t know but I could also see that for the first time in a long time he had hope that he might be able to succeed. It was a huge blessing to be able to see that moment in his life. I definitely felt that God used him to show me just how blessed I was in the privileges i had growing up and still have today.
The other moment today that truly touched me was when a girl I had worked with last year asked for my help on her homework because she remembered me, and as she told everybody she encountered when I was around today “she took a picture with me last year.” I cherish the pictures I take with my classes every year but I had no idea that they cherished those pictures, pictures that they never saw after I left the school last year, I had no idea the students remembered those pictures, or even the fact that I had been there before. I don’t know if she will remember me 5 or 10 years from now, but I know I will never forget her excitement or the joy I saw in her that had come from an interaction with me. I saw God in her face today, she found joy in the simple things, and she will never know how much her memory of a simple item such as a picture meant to me.
Hope Hall is a place that has changed my life, it has given me hope, it has made me consider my circumstances, it has encouraged me to open my eyes to the lives of the people around me, it has shown me love, it has shown me joy. I will miss Hope Hall after I graduate this spring more than almost anything else I got to experience during my 4 years at Carroll.
Just while writing this, I was able to have a conversation with 3 girls on our trip that I would never have had if I hadn’t had these specific experiences at Hope Hall. Hope Hall has been a blessing in my life, and I hope that someday you all have a chance to visit a place as wonderful as there, and to know people as compassionate, loving, joyful, courageous, giving, and determined as the people there.
Thank you all for your prayers and support!
Love and Peace in Christ-
Andrea!
ps playing signs with the sisters is incredible!
A day of Hope
Hey Everyone,
Its Monday night here in Rochester and the day is just winding down, we just finished our evening reflection and prayer and are getting ready to settle into an evening of games with these “crazy sisters” as they have been affectionately labelled.
I am serving this week at Hope Hall, a school where everybody has an auditory processing delay and more often than not it is coupled with some other health issue or learning obstacle. In addition to that, 87% of the students at this school live at or below the poverty line. I have been very blessed in being able to serve at Hope Hall for the last 2 years on this headlights trip as well. This being my third year at Hope Hall I had some sort of an idea of what to expect, but of course you can never know everything. This year I am working in the middle school’s social studies classroom (Hope Hall is grades 3-12) so I had 2 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes. I had some experiences today that really impacted me in a way that I have never seen at Hope Hall. I worked one on one with a boy named Dustin that had just transferred to Hope Hall last week. He is a 7th grader, but at the public schools in Rochester he was locked in a room and served as an aid to severely handicapped kid, he has never really received an education of his own, so his reading level is that of maybe a 3rd or 4th grader. I worked with him on a worksheet to get him caught up with his class and on his homework. It was easy to see that he was discouraged by all that he didn’t know but I could also see that for the first time in a long time he had hope that he might be able to succeed. It was a huge blessing to be able to see that moment in his life. I definitely felt that God used him to show me just how blessed I was in the privileges i had growing up and still have today.
The other moment today that truly touched me was when a girl I had worked with last year asked for my help on her homework because she remembered me, and as she told everybody she encountered when I was around today “she took a picture with me last year.” I cherish the pictures I take with my classes every year but I had no idea that they cherished those pictures, pictures that they never saw after I left the school last year, I had no idea the students remembered those pictures, or even the fact that I had been there before. I don’t know if she will remember me 5 or 10 years from now, but I know I will never forget her excitement or the joy I saw in her that had come from an interaction with me. I saw God in her face today, she found joy in the simple things, and she will never know how much her memory of a simple item such as a picture meant to me.
Hope Hall is a place that has changed my life, it has given me hope, it has made me consider my circumstances, it has encouraged me to open my eyes to the lives of the people around me, it has shown me love, it has shown me joy. I will miss Hope Hall after I graduate this spring more than almost anything else I got to experience during my 4 years at Carroll.
Just while writing this, I was able to have a conversation with 3 girls on our trip that I would never have had if I hadn’t had these specific experiences at Hope Hall. Hope Hall has been a blessing in my life, and I hope that someday you all have a chance to visit a place as wonderful as there, and to know people as compassionate, loving, joyful, courageous, giving, and determined as the people there.
Thank you all for your prayers and support!
Love and Peace in Christ-
Andrea!
ps playing signs with the sisters is incredible!
First Day of School
Hello everyone! It is Monday morning in Kansas City and the weather is B-E-A-UTIFUL! We finally got to Kansas City around 7:30pm after two days of driving. There have been many fun stories about the trip so far, such as 25 miles left of fuel, with the closet gas station 30 miles away. It took us two days to figure out that we could actually plug the iPod into the car Fred was driving, and then that started a new adventure because the media player had voice command on it. Fred being Fred, had an interesting conversation with the voice command computer.
Today we woke up around 5:45, so we could leave our area of residents around 6:45. We then experienced the crazy city driving from Kansas City, Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri, where Colleen had to do split decision making in order to merge four lanes of traffic. Arriving at the school we were all excited and ready to start the day off.
We were first introduced to the student body of about 400 students, and then we began orientation for what we are scheduled to do here. I get to help in Chemistry classrooms, which I am super excited for. Although we are all excited to start, there is no one more excited than Tessa is about teaching math. At one moment she was as pink as her very bright pink shirt.
While most people have a classroom to be at during 2nd period, or were able to help with other work around the school, I had the pleasure of writing one of the first blogs about the experience. I am truly excited for this opportunity, and I cannot wait to get into the classroom next period. This school is one that promotes excellence, work ethic, community, and faith.
Have a wonderful week,
Tony Rosales
The Connection
Greetings everyone! It is a brisk and sunny day in Rochester, NY. We are about to head out to our service sites for the first time! I will be working in an innercity soup kitchen for most of the day, then going to visit elderly throughout the community. I will be working very closely with Sr. Lorraine and couldn’t be more excited.
Upon arriving in Rochester an overwhelming feeling of joy seemed to work its way onto our faces. It was a long day getting here starting at 4:30AM, with three flights, and two long layovers. The Sister’s of St. Joseph of Rochester drive a big white van, and we were all very excited to see it at the end of the day. We came home to a wonderful warm meal and smiling hello from four of the sisters. With fun stories along the way, we had made it to our destination.
Throughout the long day the Rochester crew got to know each other through laughter and naps on the plane. When you get a group of people together to serve, it is almost like there is a unique connection. As the night went on and turned into morning, another wonderful day approached. We prayed over the city of Rochester and the sites which we’ll all be working at. Taking time to slow down and reflect on what it is we were here for and further allowing us to serve to our fullest ability. Through the experience so far, I have discovered that going on a ‘service’ immersion trip is not only about immersing yourself in service; but, also in the loving grace of Jesus. With morning prayer sessions, and nightly reflection with prayer I believe He is bringing us together in a very special way. When you open your heart, small miracles seem to happen. I cannot wait to see what He will bring into our lives today while serving and being together.
Peace and Blessings from Devan in Rochester!
Good Morning from Rochester!
It is Monday morning here in Rochester and most of our group is on their way to their service sites. Taylor and I have a little bit of time before we depart for St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center. I thought I would attempt to summarize our time since departing Helena early Saturday morning.
We arrived in Rochester, NY on Saturday evening after stops in Minneapolis and Detroit. With each leg of the journey, the group’s excitement level grew. Srs. Donna and Marilyn met us at the airport and we happily crammed ourselves into the short bus for the drive to their home in the Southeast section of Rochester, observing the city lights along the way. Srs. Lorraine and Barbara had a warm meal waiting for us on the stove after we found our rooms and made our beds quickly. We spent the evening getting acquainted in the house and our hosts and played many rounds of Catch Phrase.
Sunday morning brought with it a day of opportunities. Our group joined Sr. Marilyn for mass at a local parish. The celebrant talked about mountain top experiences during his homily. I couldn’t help but think about this trip to Rochester as a mountain top experience for myself. This is my second trip to Rochester with Carroll students and often look back at the trip last year as one of several peaks in my life over the past year (a series that includes marrying my wife, Brittany, who is also on the trip this year and the adjoining of our families). After lunch and some relaxation, Srs. Donna and Marilyn led our group on a tour of service sites as we “Prayed the City” and prayed for the sites and our group members serving at the locations. It’s more than amazing to see the impact that the Sisters of Saint Joseph have throughout the city of Rochester. From a daycare center, schools, a neighborhood center, and a soup kitchen to name just a few, these women serve so many throughout the city. (See photos of our service sights at http://www.tumblr.com/blog/carrollheadlights).
Sunday evening was spent in community: dinner with Sister Mary Lou, the congregation president, evening reflection and several hours (and the accompanying laughs) of games in the living room. All of us were amazed at how quickly the time went by.
All of a sudden it is Monday morning and all of us have shared morning prayer together and wished each other well as we have departed to serve this community. I’ll be excited to hear about the experiences later today.
Thank you for your prayers and help along the way. This is an incredible experience for these students. Brittany and I are fortunate to share this experience with them. I look forward to sharing more throughout the week.
Dan (dminor@carroll.edu)
Carroll College Campus Ministry 