Campus Ministry

I had a great time on the Newburgh immersion because I was able to connect with my peers and Mr. Ahrens and Ms. Shick. I was overwhelmed by the amount of hard labor it takes to build a house amidst such deplorable conditions. Moving rocks, breaking up muddy soil, digging 48 inch holes for fences took all of us working together to accomplish the purpose for our journey.

The Habitat volunteers all were senior citizens who took fewer breaks than we did. Dumpster Dave lived up to his reputation of directing us to sort all of the trash while teaching us to work orderly and safely. His love for the city was evident the first time I met him. Hope….that is the word that embodied all of these men. Each one of them and us made a difference. Most of these men have been working since 2001 and have completed 36 houses. That is a tangible difference in 36 families’ lives.

In coming back to Buffalo, I hope we can bring back the same spirit for our own city which in the same state of disrepair. We don’t even notice the despair and suffering just one mile from our school. We must change that! Driving by or looking at pictures does not change one’s heart. We have to get out into the neighborhoods, whether it is Newburgh and Buffalo, and feel the suffering and experience the hopelessness which exists so that we can empathize and try to figure out how to change the pattern of poverty.

When I first found out that I was chosen to go to Newburgh, I was excited that the Campus Ministry staff believed that I was ready to meet the challenges of an immersion trip. Just like Kairos, I knew that when I arrived to the parking lot on Sunday morning, I was going to return a different person. I did think that I was emotionally and physically ready for the trip. What I was unaware of was the sense of brotherhood that I established with the nine other students on the trip who I had not previously known.

When we arrived in Newburgh we saw abandoned houses, beautiful cars and a beam of light in the middle of the city which proudly marked the words Habitat for Humanity. For the next week, this was our headquarters. As soon as we started working, it was clear to me that these people did not need our help to accomplish the work at hand. These Habitat veterans knew more about this type of service than I could ever hope to know. But, they were receptive and were more than happy to have our help in performing these tasks.

This journey was not necessarily about how much we could accomplish, but rather an awakening for us and an insight into these societal problems and injustices which so many face.

In this week I learned from and about these people who we came in contact with. These Habitat volunteers were genuinely good people who sought better lives for other people. They always had a positive attitude and it gave them great joy to do what they could to help this impoverished community.

One day while clearing an empty lot, a man who was walking by seemed very grateful for our service. He said, “It looks good what you have done, but it is a shame that the garbage will be back within a week.” I was overwhelmed with some of the apparent negative attitudes of dismay and abandonment which exists in the city. The city may never recover…..that is a hard fact that I constantly had in the back of my head. This is disturbing to me and I will continue to think about how I can change my own life to encourage change in other people’s lives.

The entire Newburgh experience has been an eye-opening, inspiring journey. The effect on me as a person has been profound and greater than I ever imagined. Throughout the immersion trip, I was impacted by my classmates, fellow volunteers, and the residents of Newburgh.

The events I have experienced over the past week have been incredible. In the five days I have spent in Newburgh, I have probably learned more about poverty and community than I probably have over the past five years.

Though lacking technology and the comforts of home, simple living I have found to be much more achievable when immersed in the poverty of Newburgh and engrained within a community. After spending the days seeing the decay in Newburgh, as well as being part of the hope to restore it, the trivial matters of everyday life were suddenly exposed as insignificant. With the isolation of the house, life slowed down, no more of the daily grind of schedules and other distractions, offering peace of mind and time to reevaluate what really matters.

The people we have met throughout the week have been an inspiration for their love of community and Newburgh. Though faced with the poverty of the city, and what seem at first insurmountable odds, everyone is out there doing their part to save the city they love and incorporate that as simply a daily part of their lives, whereas we had only been at it for about a week. Looking back at all we accomplished, it is still had to imagine that we did it all in one week.

The poverty I have seen here has, for lack of words, been an eye-opener. At first glance, all I could say was that it was similar to Buffalo, but later I quickly saw that poverty enveloped the entire area and saw the degree to which it was oppressing the people. Cleaning up a vacant house in preparation for demolition, I was shocked and saddened of the condition of the house, knowing it was only recently vacant and that though unfit for man to live, someone had no choice but to live like this. Human feces littered the floor, shampoo still in the bathroom, evidence of that poverty was present, and that poverty was ongoing.

Newburgh has taught me that poverty will always be an enduring struggle. A man walking past the dump where we were cleaning remarked how in two weeks it would once again be filled with trash. It does not matter. Community comes together and together works toward ridding a burden, despite the difficulty, no matter the odds. Community will always be there to help and bring hope that someday poverty can be fixed.


Our friend in Newburgh, Octavio