Captivate - Cap Corps Blog

29 January 2012, 2:55 pm

"Transform Your World"

‘Transform your world,’ is the Cap Corps Midwest motto. We believe thatthe call to serve others is most deeply a call for us to re-connect with ourbest selves and that the world outside is transformed in as much as we take thetime and energy to understand and deepen the ways in which we seeourselves. Our inner work is asimportant, if not more important than our outer work, because what we give toothers is a reflection of how we see ourselves.

Over the end of last year and the beginning of this year, Ihad the privilege to go to Peru and Nicaragua to participate in retreats withour interna...Read more

3 January 2012, 11:11 pm

Hope

Hope is something that has been on my mind a lotrecently. I give credit to our monthlyformation for Cap Corps which asked us to spend time in reflection on thethemes of Advent. Being somewhat new to this whole Advent deal, I did a littleresearch prior to the big month so I could get myself ready. A theme thatcontinued popping up in internet blogs, conversations with friends, and onlineencyclopedias was that of hope.

I found myself turning to hope repeatedly this last month.As I struggled with decisions of what to do post-Cap Corps and worked ongraduate school applications, as our community moved physical locations andcontinued to work on our relationships with one another, and as I continued tocontemplate how I can be the best version of myself. At first I was frustrated. Hope seemed sopassive. Why couldn’t I have turned to something more proactive, likedetermination or comm...Read more

6 December 2011, 10:31 am

Life after Cap Corps, an alumni's reflections

The biggest decision of my life thus far was not thedecision to marry my wife or to have children or to go to graduate school orany of the few huge decisions that have had major impact in life in the pastfew years. No, the biggest decision Ihave ever made was a two-part decision: 1) to join Cap Corps for two years in Nicaragua, and 2) to stay in CapCorps after the first two months in Nicaragua when I wanted to pack it in. Staying in Nicaragua, “toughing it out,”building relationships with the Nicaraguan people, and getting to know theCapuchins gave me new confidence in myself and a new direction in how I wantedto live my life.

After returning from Bluefields, Nicaragua, I moved in withmy parents who had moved from the Dallas area to Worcester, MA. February is summer in Nicaragua and thetropical heat will melt you. Talk abouta change! On Monday I visited the beachfor the last time in Nicaragua. ByFriday, ...Read more

30 November 2011, 2:35 pm

Cap Corps Alumni Reflection Then and Now...Part 1

My name is Marcia and I am one of the Co-Directors for Cap Corps Midwest. I chose to become a part of this work because of the amazing experience that I had as a volunteer. The experiences that I had, the relationships that were built, continue to nurture me today.

I want to share with you one story that I found in an old email. I was in Cap Corps at EarthWorks Urban Farm of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen (http://www.cskdetroit.org/EWG/) from 2005-2007. Please excuse the roughness and lack of grammar clearness; I wrote this as an email to friends and want to share it with you as it was written. Thanks for walking with us on this journey! peace. Marcia---

19 May 2011, 12:52 pm

Learning to Serve, Heal and Renew

¡Hola to all!

So much in the fashion of most of my posts, this post is somewhat overdue, seeing how it is already late May and my Panamanian retreat occurred during the first week in May, and then I had this written out a week ago, it´s finally getting posted!

Tania (the other Cap Corps Peru volunteer) and I traveled to Panama for our international volunteer retreat with Cap Corps. It was a great chance to break up the daily routine and I was extremely excited to be able to leave the retreat with the always wonderful sense of renewal that every retreat seems to bring. I was also looking forward to reuniting and meeting the Nicaraguan Cap Corps volunteers.

The theme of the retreat was on Community which perfectly tied into the weekend´s gospel of doubting Thomas and Jesus appearing to the apostles. The focus on community was not just on the immediate community in which we are living as C...Read more

6 May 2011, 11:10 pm

Food for Thought

April 30, 2011

I had a completely different blog post I was going to submit, but then I attended the release of the new documentary about Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System, and the experience was so powerful that I feel the need to share some of my personal reflections sparked by the evening. I’m feeling blessed to have been in the presence of many beautiful people speaking their Truth this evening.

Tonight I’m thinking about transformation on an individual and collective level, and of course I’m bringing it back to food, as I often do. I’m reflecting on the importance of feeding ourselves good food, not just in the physical sense, but also in the mental a...Read more

27 April 2011, 4:10 pm

So Grateful!

Disclaimer: I'm not a blogger so bear with me :)

I wanted to write this blog to express how grateful I am to be a Capuchin Franciscan Volunteer Corps member. Looking back on this year I have so many things I am thankful for. Coming to Detroit was a huge step for me and also a very scary one, but looking back being in Cap Corp made the experience a lot less overwhelming, and Detroit turned out to be where I needed to be.

<...Read more

21 April 2011, 12:08 am

Simplicity. Part 2 to Mike Zang's Reflection

(In my work at the Urban Ecology Center) The entire sentiment is most importantly and overall, one of simplicity, so I really hate to dress it up in academic, over-complicated language; it doesn't need that to exist, although I suppose these days as an "adult" we need that to describe the feelings. I believe firmly that the coincidence between my role as a youth educator and a Franciscan volunteer I find to be no random chance. Both have me focus on simplicity in several ways. I see them both, and other aspects of my current life, as entwining lessons on simplicity; simplicity not just of lifestyle - but mentally and spiritually, too.

Simplicity here must be understood in the most complex of ways. This form of simplicity I speak has much depth; it has gone through volumes of words and thoughts and ...Read more

20 April 2011, 11:54 pm

Seasons to Home: A Haiku. Part 1-Mike Zang

a poorly drawn picture of myself and 6 year-old Holly writing haikus lives on the freezer door. It read -

dead fish belly up

the cattails are dead too

but spring is coming.

there lives an essence beyond words, almost mystical, when you kneel down on a wet grassy hillside as the snow melts off sleds and the sun begins to dip behind the western skyline. there lives a light refraction almost mystical just past mid-day when some first graders discuss nature openly, such as tree limbs silly waving, as our knees get sog...Read more

13 April 2011, 3:36 pm

Lenten Reflection: Being Aware

A couple of days before lent started, I vowed to

be aware of my actions and the actions of others.

Life in 'Ciudad de los niños' continues to be a challenge on the Self. In the past month, I have noticed a huge shift in the way I think and the way I go about things.

From being the shy, keep in the back ground girl to the more social, stepping it up girl. For a very long time, I kept to the background afraid to show others (especially, myself) what I am capable of doing. I feared sharing my ideas/opinions and just going for things.

Since, February I have been working in the pabellon called Niño Jesús. This house consists of k...Read more

30 March 2011, 4:05 pm

Math and the Mortician

Spring is arriving in South Chicago...slowly. Mother Nature made a feeble attempt last week to scare us with a dusting of snow, and temperatures have been hardly balmy, but I know it’s all over, Mr. Winter. It has been incredibly refreshing to spend time outside. I went for a run on Saturday and greeted all the neighbors who were out and about. And yesterday, Dan, Mariana, Amy (visiting for the weekend), and I took advantage of the sunshine and spent the afternoon at the beach, playing guitar and singing together.

The arrival of Spring also means we are starting to grow a garden! There is a sizeable plot behind the house from which we reaped some benefits from last fall, and we’d like to continue the work of last year’s Cap Corps Chicago. On the docket this year are tomatoes, onions, kale, strawberries, spinach, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, and var...Read more

25 February 2011, 11:51 am

The Boys are Back in Town

by Jeanette Vyhanek - Lima, Perú 2010-2012

(Jeanette at far right, pictured with friars from Perú and Cap Corps volunteer Tania Brown)

I have had that song stuck in my head for the first week that the boys of Ciudad de los Niños in Lima,...Read more

20 January 2011, 2:12 pm

in which certain illusions I had about myself are broken

by Mariana Lo, Cap Corps Chicago 2010-2011

One of my goals-in-progress (as opposed to New Year's resolutions, you know) is to continue my education, despite not being enrolled in any formal institution of learning. This mainly involves a lot of reading - luckily, I not only have access to the Chicago Public Library system, but also my roommates' books.

My reading for the last couple days was White Privilege, a collection of essays edited by Paula S. Rothenberg, which addresses the flip side of racism - that is, the unspoken advantages of being white. One of the pieces contained in it was one of th...Read more

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