Serve Well Blog

"How do we let the city be our classroom, and the world our teacher?" Asked Ron Ruthruff. 

At the Krista Foundation Annual Mentoring Conference, former, current and future service volunteers gathered to discuss the "Beautiful Struggle" of hope, tension and grace that we live out in an increasingly diverse and rapidly changing world. We asked the question: How do we encourage and recognize hope in surprising places, in the gifts and perspectives most different from our own, in companions persevering together to love the world?

By sharing the ways his own transformation through encounters from the streets of Seattle to the slums of Calcutta, Dr. Ron Ruthruff challenges us to listen, unlearn, and be transformed. Part 1 begins with a 90 second introduction by Krista Foundation Executive Director Valerie Norwood. 

 

Watch Part 2 (Ecumenism and loving the city)
Watch Part 3 (Cities can tell us the best and worst about ourselves)
Watch Part 4. (How do we DO all of this? Listen and (un)learn...)

Ron Ruthruff is the author of The Least of These: Lessons Learned from Kids on the Street. He has worked for 26 years with homeless and street-involved youth and families as Director of Ministry and Program Development for New Horizons Ministries. He and his wife, Linda recently opened a nonprofit Seattle café called Street Bean that provides job training and employment for young adults working to exit street life. Ron has lectured in Kenya, Guatemala, Cambodia and India and speaks across the nation on topics including high-risk youth and early intervention strategies; street culture and sociological aspects of prostitution; adolescent culture, development, and trauma; and urban missiology. Ron serves as adjunct faculty at Bakke Graduate School and guest lectures at a variety of seminaries and colleges.

Excitement is building for the KF's Annual Memorial Weekend Conference! This conference brings together Krista Colleagues, spouses, and invited guests.

Guest Day (Sunday) is open to the public who want to celebrate or learn more about our mentoring community-including mentors, parents, and other friends of the Foundation. Register if you'd like to come!

TO REGISTER click http://kfconference2011.eventbrite.com/

A Beautiful Struggle: Recognizing Hope, Embracing Tension, Living Grace

Troubles produce endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. -Romans 5:3

Keynote Speaker: Ron Ruthruff has worked for the past 26 years with homeless and street-involved youth and families as Director of Ministry and Program Development for New Horizons Ministries. He and his wife, Linda recently opened a nonprofit Seattle café that provides job training and employment for young adults working to exit street life. Ron serves as adjunct faculty at Bakke Graduate School and guest lectures at a variety of seminaries and colleges.

Save-the-Date:
Memorial Day Weekend, May 27th - 30th 2011
(Lodge open on Friday evening, the 27th)
Clearwater Lodge, outside of Spokane, Washington
Krista Colleagues, spouses and children are welcome!

GUEST DAY is Sunday, May 29th. Come for Brunch, the Keynote & Krista Colleague Commissioning. Guests are welcome to sit in on afternoon workshops and share a festive dinner.

A special 10th anniversary welcome back to our Krista Colleague Class of 2001!

Come and reconnect with old friends, make new friends, be encouraged and encourage others as we continue to learn what it means to be a "Global Citizen"!

To register click http://kfconference2011.eventbrite.com/

The Krista Colleague Cohort Program is the heart of the Foundation. Nominated by professors, pastors, and other community leaders, 15 "Krista Colleagues" are selected each year. These young adults are committed to a sustained period of voluntary or vocational service of at least 9 months and motivated to serve by their Christian faith.

Often applicants are college seniors applying to do service after graduation with a variety of service organizations. After formal service and debriefing, Colleagues take an active role in mentoring newer Colleagues.

Older Colleagues consistently express appreciation for the formal trainings and conferences to prepare for and integrate service, but also for the friendships they form with Colleagues and older mentors through the Foundation network.

Acceptance as a Colleague includes a $1,000 Service & Leadership Grant to be used at the intersection of vocational interests and commitment to serve.

Nominations are due by March 20th, so nominate today!

Click here for nomination criteria or nomination forms!

Questions? Please contact Program Director, Stacy Kitahata

Please LIKE, POST, and SHARE this link with any potential nominators.

-The Krista Foundation

No. Seriously. Greetings!

Have you noticed the world is full of thousands of spoken and unspoken ways to meet, greet, or just acknowledge someone?
In intercultural service assignments, whether in U.S. neighborhoods or international settings, we adapt to local ways of meeting somebody, entering a room, or just passing a stranger.

Watch this video prepared by 09 Colleague Brandon Adams, and be sure to post your short paragraph response below:

 

Here's some quick food for thought from Sean Rawson, a volunteer with Jesuit Volunteers International:

"Nicaraguans almost always greet everyone in a room upon entering, either individually or collectively as a group. This usually means a handshake or a cheek kiss for old friends or new acquaintances alike. Even if somebody enters a conversation or a meeting, he or she generally interjects at least a "Buenas tardes" to those present. To my North American-educated mind, this initially came off as extremely rude; I'd be having a conversation or even presenting some point in a workshop, and someone would walk in late with a public "Buenas!" distracting me and the rest of the group from whatever was being discussed. As time went on during my first few months here, I began to realize that this wasn't just a group of inconsiderate youth, but in fact a great example of the beauty of cultural diversity.

Anyhow, I've been working on learning from my Nicaraguan co-workers, friends and acquaintances to recognize that human relationships are worth taking a few seconds out of a busy schedule to make someone feel recognized."

How about you? Share a custom or a story about the greetings you've learned or observed in service.

(Comments may not post immediately, as they'll go through a moderator to prevent spam.)

 

 

Teresa Rake ('05) has developed a lifetime of insight on the beauty and tensions of intercultural communication as the biracial daughter of a Bolivian mother and Caucasian American father. After graduating from Biola University, she moved into an intentional community in Seattle's richly diverse White Center neighborhood and discovered a church dedicated to serving the neighborhood. Then she volunteered for a year in Brazil through the Mennonite Central Committee, training families to address urgent needs related to water resources. Now back in Seattle, she continues her relationships in White Center as an elder in the local church and invests in the lives of their high school youth group.

In White Center, Teresa noticed that the kids, having grown up among varied minority and immigrant communities, engaged in honest conversatoins about race and shared experiences without usually offending each other. In contrast, she recently worked for an organization in a less diverse part of town and found that, despite the best of intentions, there were clear, awkward communication gaps resulting in stereotypes and misperceptions of the population that the organization desired to serve. She wondered: "How do we create space to talk about race and acknowledge our privilege without getting defensive?" Amid her growing desire to understand these gaps, Teresa participated in a Krista Foundation sponsored facilitator training for an intercultural communication tool called Photo Language, which helps participants both listen to others and share about their own experience of tender subjects such as race and privilege.

Read more about Teresa on her bio page.