Back to Life

Me and Majia (aka the cutest kid on the planet)

Once my kids left California, I had a couple more days to hang out in LA before I had to get on a plane back to Camden. After dropping the kids off at the airport I drove to Brett's apartment in Long Beach and we went to a bar on second street. When we got to the bar, I immediately became aware of how tired I was and, after about an hour, I decided to head home and get some sleep.

The next day, I woke up and met Brett and Jason and a couple other people at the waterfall that we sometimes go to in Mt. Baldy. Being at the waterfall really reminded me of how much I miss living in California. After the waterfall, we went back to Joey's and went in the pool. I then went back to my parents house, showered and got ready to go out for Cory's (college roommate's) birthday. I met Jake at his apartment in Azusa and then we headed to a liqueur store to do some birthday shopping for Cory. We then met Cory and his girlfriend and Chris Sevier (another college roommate) and his wife Lindsey for dinner at a Mongolian BBQ. It was so much fun to have everyone back together and reminisce about our ridiculous college days at "The San Dimas House". After dinner, we went to T. Phillips which is a bar we frequented when we were students at APU. I had a blast catching up and hanging out with the guys. Sunday I went to a movie with my parents and then my dad and my uncles bought me dinner at Island's because I kicked their butts in our NCAA Tournament bracket.

Me going down the waterfall

On Monday I got on a plane back to Philadelphia. I arrived around midnight and went to bed. We had a pretty good week of camp and it was nice to be back in the normal routine after spending some really quality time with some of my kids in California. The weather was nice so we took the kids to the park for baseball or kickball most days.

Camp night at Chick-Fil-A

On Friday of my first week back, one of my co-workers convinced me to go salsa dancing in Philadelphia. There was a class at the beginning of the night and we learned enough to pretend like we knew what we were doing. There were a few guys there that were really terrible at it which I was thankful for because it made me feel a bit better about not really knowing what I was doing. I was at least able to fake it when dancing with other beginners.

I don't recall what I did the rest of the weekend (other than playing basketball on Sunday) because that was too long ago. Last week we had another really good week at camp. The weather was nice once again so we spent alot of time with the kids at the park. We had a work group of high school aged kids helping out at our camp which isn't always as helpful as you might think but it is nice that they take the time to come out for a week. At one point a kid was talking to Jeffrey (Riblet not Plankton) and Jeffrey asked him what video games he played. The kid said Call of Duty and Gears of War. Jeffrey laughed and then the kid said, "Why? What do you play? NBA?". Jeffrey kind of tilted his head to the side and then looked at me and said "Was that racist?". I responded, "Ya. That was a little racist". I knew the kid didn't mean it to be racist but I also knew that Jeffrey realized that it just came out wrong and wouldn't be offended. Jeffrey then proceeded to make fun of the kid for the rest of the week. He even brought NBA Live to camp the next day and started chanting "What do you play? N.. B.. A.!". At one point Jeffrey gave the kid so much crap that I thought the kid was goiung to cry. It was hilarious. At the end of the week the kid couldn't help but love Riblet and even got his contact info when he left.

Riblet being Riblet

Phillip (orange shorts) is back at camp playing basketball after having been shot.

On Friday night a group of us went camping at the Delaware Water Gap. We got there around 10pm, set up camp and then went for a 3 mile night hike to a waterfall. The moon was huge and lit up the sky pretty well. It was beautiful. We woke up on Saturday and went for a 10 mile hike to some lake on the Appalachian Trail. When we got back at like 9pm we went to a Bar in Philly that had the best burger in Pennsylvania (according to the food network). We got some truly delicious beers, some fabulous calamari and the angus burger with smoked Gouda, bacon and chili's. It was definitely one of the top 5 burgers I've ever had in my life and we are absolutely going to have to go back there before our time here in Camden is over.

On Sunday, we visited a church in Morristown that supports Urban Promise. Three other interns and I got to talk to an adult Bible study group about Camden and Urban Promise. One other intern and I sort of dominated the conversation and spent the whole hour and a half answering questions, rambling about stories we had from Camden and giving our personal opinions about things relating to Camden (dangerous territory considering both Mike and I tend to be very liberal compared to most church folk). Luckily for us, this group of about 20 people ate it up. They all said they were very moved bymuch of what we had to say and they are even now planning on organizing a day in the next couple of weeks to come visit our after school programs. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and wish we could have done more Q&A's for small groups at church's throughout the year. It seemed to be a very effective way to promote the ministry.

On Sunday night I played basketball with a bunch of men from the neighborhood (like I do every Sunday), watched a movie and then went to bed.

I am beginning to get a little stressed about what I am going to do in a month when my time here is over. I am incredibly excited to be going back to California but at the same time I am extremely sad to be leaving some of my kids. I do not know exactly what the next step for me is, whether I will be back in Camden or who knows where. It's exciting to have such freedom to decide what I will be doing next but I also have bill's to pay so it is a little nerve racking. Please pray for me.

P.S. The spring break video is finished and can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/chad.otoski?ref=search&sid=56900826.304958250..1#!/video/video.php?v=563432435211&ref=mf

I spent alot of time last night helping chad pick music and edit it. Enjoy!

Spring Break 2010.

Group Prayer

I got on a plane for California on the Tuesday before our kid's spring break started. My arm was still all bandaged from the gruesome skateboarding wound. I bumped it on the seat while getting one the plane and then it proceeded to bleed threw the bandage dripping blood onto my jeans. Other than that, the flight was nice and the blood washed out of my pants so it all worked out. Upon arriving in California, I went and chilled with some close friends who I had not seen in a while and then had dinner with my parents and went to bed.

On Wednesday I woke up, picked up Jake (college room mate who is still at APU and was on spring break) and headed to San Fransisco. Jake had decided to come with me for my interview and make a road trip out of it, . My cousin, who lives near San Fransisco, agreed to let us stay at her house to save us some money. We dropped our stuff off at her house and went to meet Jake's dad, who also lives in the area, for dinner. After dinner, we had a few drinks at my cousins house and went to bed early because I had to be up at 8 for my interview. On Thursday, we woke up, got breakfast at IHOP, and then I went to my Interview. The interview was for a job as a probation counselor at a juvenile hall in Martinez Ca. This job is exactly the kind of work I would love and I feel like the interview went really well. Please pray that the background investigation also goes relatively well.

After my interview, we went into spring break mode and found the nearest happy hour. Originally we had intended to head home Thursday night but we ended up meeting another friend from college (thanks for coming out Amanda) for dinner and staying the night. On Friday there were another couple of girls from college that wanted to meet us for drinks so we decided to stay another night. The girls ended up bailing on us but Jake called his friend Alexis, who told us she was having a girls night at her house in Vacaville, and we decided to stop bye. We had such a good time crashing the girls night, that we ended up staying and hanging out with the girls until Sunday morning when we had to rush back to be home on time for Easter lunch at my parents house. Easter was great and I truly enjoyed being back with family for the afternoon.

On Monday I woke up to several text messages that I had received in the middle of the night from excited kids telling me that they were boarding the plane to California. I then drove to LAX in my cousins Toyota Sequoia (thanks again Brett) to pick everyone up. My parents followed in their truck to pick up the luggage. When the kids got off the plane, I think I was just as excited to have them their as they were to be in California. After the kids fought over who got to ride with me in Brett's car and we rented the 15 passenger van for everyone else (we brought out 15 kids, 7 adult staff members, and one celebrity photographer) we headed to In-N-Out for lunch. The kids loved it. We then settled into my parents house, which they vacated for the week so that we could take over. After everyone was settled in, we headed to Boomers in Upland for some go-cart racing and some miniature golf. The kids absolutely loved the go-carts and at about 8pm we took them home, ordered some pizza, and let them swim in the freezing cold pool at my parents housing complex. At 11pm we called lights out and everyone went to sleep.

Albert aparantly smoking his french fry

Jeffrey AKA Riblet pretending he can drive

On Tuesday we woke up at around 9am, ate breakfast, and headed to Azusa Pacific University to play some football and basketball. After dunking on my after school program director, we took a short tour of the campus and the Alumni office bought all of our kids lunch at the cafeteria. We then headed to Burbank for a special tour of Nickelodeon Studios that was set up by Jerry (the celebrity photographer/former intern that set up our fundraiser in New York and accompanied us on our trip). The kids loved the tour and we even got to watch a couple of episodes of shows that hadn't aired yet. After the tour, we drove to Hollywood so that our kids could be in the audience of a Nickelodeon game show called Brain Surge. Only two adults were allowed to accompany the kids for the game show so all of the interns and Jerry wondered around Hollywood Blvd and waited for them to be done. Once they were out of the game show, we ate pizza at Shakey's and headed home. We got them to bed around midnight.

Going up to dunk on Albert

Jeffery, Duwayne, and Dave at APU

In the Hollywood Hills

This one is self explanatory

On Wednesday, we woke everyone up at 7am and made it to Lake Elsinore at about 8. When we got their my dad had already launched the boat and the Sea Doo and was waiting for us. We loaded about 7 kids into the boat and after a quick demonstration from yours truly, we let them try to wakeboard. One of my kids, who is tiny and a talented skateboarder, got up on his first try and road for 4 minutes, going outside of the wake and looking extremely comfortable. Between me doing spins and flips and Jeffrey being such a natural, it made it a little discouraging for the rest of the kids who struggled to get up (as one would expect them to). We then dropped off the first group of kids and let my dad get off the boat to take a break from driving. I loaded up the second group of kids and went out again. Two more kids were able to get up this time out, one of my 8th grade girls named Aliesha, and the only 5th grader we brought on the trip named Sandy. Luckily the kids did not get too frustrated with not being able to wakeboard and just enjoyed being on the lake. The whole time we were there, Chad was taking people for rides on the Sea Doo which really helped out a lot. The kids loved the Sea Doo and it assisted in keeping the people left on the shore entertained. In the end I was able to get 3 good runs in on the wakeboard which made me very happy and we packed up and left the lake around 3pm.

Jeffery AKA Plankton

Kids at the lake

Me showing off

Driving kids in the boat

After leaving the lake, we headed to my uncle's house where he had heated his pool and had prepared a BBQ for us (thanks Joey). The kids may have had more fun in that pool than they did the entire rest of the trip and the staff loved the tri-tip that they cooked for us (I think half of the kids might have preferred hamburgers but it's not always all about them). We then had a camp fire on Joey's balcony with an incredible view of the city below and Albert (my camp director) lead our spiritual discussion for the week. It was a great day and probably my favorite of the trip. We left Joey's house at about 9pm and got the kids to bed at about 10:30.

Rock Band at Joey's

On Thursday Chad and I woke up early with a car full of kids (we had a drawing to see which kids got to come with me in Brett's car) and headed to Disneyland to buy our tickets. After all kinds of drama and difficulties associated with buying our tickets, we were finally able to purchase them. In the end it worked out perfectly because, despite the 2 hours of struggling to get the tickets, we finally purchased them about 5 minutes before the rest of the group arrived. We took everyone to Space Mountain to start our day and the kids loved it. The problem was that Space Mountain is really the only legitimate roller coaster at Disneyland and the kids were thoroughly unimpressed with the rest of the park. After a couple of hours, we took the kids to McDonald's for lunch and then they waited patiently as Jerry argued with the Disneyland customer service staff for two hours until they finally switched all of our tickets over to California Adventure. As the kids went into California Adventure, Boston (the other after school program director) and I went back out to the van because he had lost the key. I called AAA and waited for about an hour for them to come out and make us a new key. Once that was taken care of, we headed back into the park and met up with the kids. The kids had an amazing time at California Adventure and when the park closed at 11, we finally headed home. We got the kids to bed at abut 1 am and decided to sleep in on Friday.

Excited to be at Disneyland

This is what happens when you bring a profesional photographer

California Adventure

I bought that sweet hat at Disneyland cuz my head was burning

They loved Califonia Adventure

Tower of Terror

We got up at about 10 am on Friday and let the kids swim in the pool before packing up all of their stuff and heading to the beach. We parked at the pier in Newport and let the kids hang out on the beach for about an hour. My parents came with us and bought everyone cheese on a stick from Jane's Corndogs. The kids were more impressed by the beach than I expected them to be. After the beach we got back in the cars and headed to Universal City walk for dinner. This is when everyone got a true taste of California as it took us 2 and a half hours in traffic to drive the 50 miles from Newport to Universal City. We had intended to eat dinner at a restaurant at city walk but because we were pressed for time, we ended up just eating at the food court. After we ate we drove back down to LAX and everyone (except for me who stayed until Monday) boarded the plane back to Philadelphia. The kids had an amazing time and all of them were sad to leave. One girl even said, "I'm not getting on the plane, I am staying in California and becoming a hobo". I told her that that was some good motivation to do well in school so that she could come back for college. She agreed.

Newport Beach CA

Playing catch with Plankton

I can't even relay effectively through words how incredible this trip was for our kids. We took two different groups of kids on this trip. One was from south Camden, the other was from East Camden. These two groups usually do not get along. By the time we left, they were a family. The week after we got back, the camp from south came to east Camden to use our gym. It was amazing to see how, instead of the usual complaining, the kids we so excited to see each other and were jumping up and down and hugging. That sort of thing really makes you realize how important these trips are. Some of our kids had never been outside of Camden before and never realized that the way they are forced to live isn't normal. It's not like that everywhere. It's trips like this one that give them that little bit of indignation about their circumstances that is needed to inspire them to change them. It is also incredible for them to experience white people (like Joey and Diana and Brett and Jason and my parents) who love them for who they are and don't immediately judge them because of where they are from. Prior to this trip, I thought that it was going to be great to take these kids on a fun trip that they would otherwise not be able to afford to go on. I never could have imagined how effective and important this trip was for so many deeper reasons.

I'd like to give some special thanks to a few people who helped make this trip as incredible as it was. First I would like to thank anyone who donated money (including Russel Simmons who came out to Jerry's New York fundraiser). Also I would like to thank my parents who sacrificed their house to give us a free place to stay and bought us breakfast everyday and put in so much work to help us out. I can't say thank you enough for everything they did for us that week. Thank you to Joey and Diana for letting us use their house and barbecuing for us, as well as for being so incredibly nice and accommodating to our kids. Thank you to Brett for letting me use his car. The kids were fighting over who got to ride in the Sequoia every single time we got in a car to go somewhere. Brett saved us a ton of money in not having to rent another van. Finally I would like to thank Jerry. Jerry was an Urban Promise intern 6 years ago and is now a famous celebrity photographer. He took it upon himself to help us with this trip and without him it would have never been possible. He helped us raise the money we needed and payed his own way to come hang out with our kids for a week in Califronia. He also provided us with some pretty kick ass pictures from the trip.

Jerry playing football with the kids

Jerry also got our kids some free shoes from South Pole