Philadelphia Praise Center

Advocating justice in our education system

September 4, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Mikah Ochieng, summer writing team

Philadelphia Praise Center is located in the heart of South Philadelphia, a neighborhood that captures all four corners of the world into a 20 block radius. If you know anything about South Philly, it’s that it’s constantly prone to social change. For over a century, the community has been heavily influenced by the Italian culture but recently it has become a cultural hub for the Hispanic and Asian communities. Like the 20^th century immigrants who came before them, this new generational wave of immigrants have experienced what it’s like to face the specific challenges that culture and language bring to one’s life. That is why there are people like Maria C. M. Byler.

Prior to moving to Harrisonburg, Va. this fall to pursue an M.Div. at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Byler played a tremendous role in the life of Philadelphia Praise Center (PPC) and the lives of countless immigrants who have struggled to acclimate to a new environment. As PPC’s on-staff social worker and in her position with Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition (SEEMAAC), an education, health, and social services agency, Byler committed to making the lives of others a better reality, both spiritually and economically.

Byler’s passionate and optimistic insight has always been a reliable source of inspiration for her work with students and parents in educational services. SEEMAC exposed her to various social services relating to education and school attendance for truant and absent immigrant students. Yet what Byler later discovered as she became more familiar with the educational system within Philadelphia both shocked and frustrated her in her work with students and parents.

On top of the overbearing obstacles that the Philadelphia school district is constantly facing, there remains the issue of deep discriminatory acts of segregation along economic and social boundaries. Byler discovered early on that the traditional motto of American education being “non-discriminatory and accessible to everyone” was simply not true for the people that she was serving. Commonly, Byler would work with bilingual parents who needed language services and programs in order to sufficiently interact with the schools that their children attended. Although these programs had been properly established, it seemed obvious to Byler that the system of education favored students whose primary language was English—educational equality was not accessible to Byler’s client families.

The problems of inner city education are most evident when comparing the education systems of the metro area and the surrounding suburbs. As one would expect, there are economic differences between the two demographic areas, economic differences that seem to be an injustice perpetuated by America’s oldest original sin: institutional racism. Byler has witnessed first-hand the lack of resources and opportunities that Latino and Asian families fail to receive as compared to families who send their children to schools in more affluent, suburban areas.

But it doesn’t have to stay this way, suggests Byler. The solution for this injustice is one that would positively revise the method of state and federal funding for education. Big-time legislators and hardworking parents can work together to provide immigrant students with the hope they receive from a good education, regardless of their nationality. All children, says Byler, should be recognized as unique and worthy of opportunity, not just educational opportunity, but opportunity in all of life.

Because God’s Kingdom is a manifestation of this hope, Jesus-followers are called to tear down the walls of institutional racism that seal away our community’s most powerless—our children—from the hope of an equal education.

Justice includes compassion and mercy

August 21, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Mikah Ochieng, summer writing team

Compassion rarely surfaces as a topic voiced in the same breath with justice. Justice, after all, is commonly acquainted with the tenets of fairness, that is, what is deserved according to a set of commonly held laws and beliefs. Displaying a form of affectionate compassion, it would seem in most cases, would fly in the face of the outcomes of fairness. Think about helping people that you know, by all accounts, shouldn’t deserve help–isn’t this a breach in the case of enacting justice?

I had this discussion recently with Bobby Wibowo, a 23-year-old man born in Indonesia, who is now living in Philadelphia where we are part of the same church, Philadelphia Praise Center. Bobby is a paralegal working mostly with immigration law. He tells me that despite the machine-like tenacity of our legal system, he believes that compassion is an integral component in treating people justly. Bobby believes that people of privilege and power in law-making decisions often need a change in perspective. He asserts that mercy should be a lens by which law-makers interpret the law and arbitrate on people’s immigration cases.

I ask why.

“People in power have their own agendas,” Bobby says, implying a critical disconnect between the worldview and power of the socially influential from the experiences of the socially marginalized or powerless. Bobby’s insight evokes the adage: one cannot possibly hope to understand the “other” without first walking a mile in his or her shoes.

But what would mercy and compassion actually look like in the process of immigration justice and reform? In the case of immigration, Bobby suggests, people who have an order posted against them for deportation should, in certain cases, be excused. Bobby lists some cases where the justice system should reconsider the sentence of those awaiting deportation on the basis of extraordinary circumstances: if a dependent family member is suffering from poor health; if the deportee is strongly involved in the community, is seeking asylum, or if children with U.S. citizenship would be involved in the deportation process. These are all factors that need to be considered in cases that include deportation as an option, Bobby asserts.

Bobby retains a lot of faith in the justice system but he isn’t blind to unjust rulings in cases that pass through his hands at the law office. While translating and organizing documents and files that have gone to trial, he sometimes comes across a case in which he thinks the ruling should have been more lenient. Maybe if the justice system would be more willing to extend a hand of grace, he reflects, and recognize that the human dignity of offending immigrants is equal to that of U.S. citizens, we might reach a justice that more reflects what Christ demonstrated with us.

Seeing God around every corner in South Philly

August 20, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

Summer Service Stories from Mennonite Central Committee

Last summer, Ardi Hermawan took MCC grocery bags, which are filled with non-perishable food and given to Anabaptist churches in Philadelphia to share in their communities, to the near-by Walgreen’s and handed them out to people who could use some food and appreciated talking to someone. It went well and so over spring break this year, Hermawan arranged to do it again with a group of his fellow students from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) who came to Philadelphia to spend their week. Hermawan is part of Philadelphia Praise Center (PPC), a multi-ethnic congregation whose members speak Indonesian, English, and Spanish.

Just a couple months ago, Hermawan returned home to Indonesia for a month-long visit. It was his first visit back since leaving for the U.S seven years ago when he was eighteen years old. Knowing there are many health needs in his home community, and that as a fourth year nursing student at EMU he has some knowledge about health issues, he set up a clinic in his house. For four weeks, people lined up in front of his family’s home at 6:30 in the morning to receive free screenings for things like high blood pressure and blood sugar levels. This was a service he could provide for those who didn’t have money to pay for these screenings elsewhere. In the evenings, he would give health lessons about diabetes, high blood pressure, and prenatal care.

Now, this summer Hermawan is a MCC Summer Service Worker with his church, Philadelphia Praise Center, and in his neighborhood. You can just imagine all the different things that he is doing. PPC recently finished their 3-week peace camp for 7-13 year-olds in the neighborhood. Hermawan was right in the middle of it all, teaching and sharing his understanding of faith, love, and hope, in very practical terms. He is also accompanying his neighbors throughout the day and throughout the events of their lives, whether that is taking someone to the emergency room, teaching people newly arrived from Indonesian how health insurance and hospital bills work in the U.S., or interpreting between a person and their doctor. Right now, he checks on a woman each day who recently had surgery and he is changing the bandages during this period of postoperative days.

Hermawan talks about how he is “so passionate” about connecting with other people; helping them, serving them, because he loves them. Simple as that. With a heart so wide open and a faith that follows where God leads, Hermawan is touching the lives of many people and is also being blessed by them. He watches and listens to his mentor, Pastor Aldo Siahaan of PPC, who, Hermawan shares, is so giving to the people around him, answering calls any time of day or night from people who are in need. Siahaan teaches that “we are to be there for people 100%, not 75%, not 50%,” Hermawan says.

As Hermawan accompanies people and shares life with them, he sees how he has been accompanied by others who love and guide him. He lost his father at an early age and years later came to the U.S. on his own. All along the way, there have been male mentors who have fathered Hermawan, from his cousin to Pastor Siahaan to Steve Kriss, a member of the PPC community and a staff member of Franconia Mennonite Conference. He shares that God is always there when Hermawan takes a step out in faith. This is what he is learning throughout his life and during this summer as he lives and works in his community as a MCC Summer Service Worker.

So, what is next? With four weeks left before Hermawan returns for his final year at EMU, he is helping PPC organize English classes for newly arrived refugee children in the neighborhood, making some space at PPC that is more kid-friendly, and interpreting between people and their doctors. Asked where he has seen God this summer, he replies, “Oh yes, God is around every corner.”

God knows why we won’t go to Phoenix

May 23, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Steve Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center (reposted from Mennonite World Review, by permission)

My church is made up of immigrants and migrants. We are political refugees. We have arrived here because of economic realities. We’ve been granted religious asylum. We’ve come to Philadelphia to find ourselves, to find flourishing space. We all landed in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Compassion for different reasons, and we’ve become the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation in the city.

This summer, though, we won’t be going to Phoenix to join with other Mennonites to discern and fellowship. We’re staying home from the MC USA convention because we’re honoring those among us who are undocumented and would risk too much in making the trip to Arizona. We know that bearing witness this summer is important, but we won’t put our most vulnerable members at risk by traveling there.

While other churches in our denomination wonder what it might be like to break the law to assist the undocumented, we have no question about our call to ministry. We know that Jesus ministered to those who were on the outside. We know that in taking that call seriously we must live in grace and recognize that our community of Mennonites includes both the legally documented and those who are underdocumented in the eyes of the law. We know that God knows our statuses and names, can count the hairs on our head and extends to us all the grace of daily bread.

Over much of our congregation’s history, placards up front in our worship space have called for immigration reform. They are underneath our cross, behind our pulpit and next to our drums. This call for justice is interwoven into the life of our congregation and our existence as a community. We are not insiders or outsiders based on our citizenship. We are a community of people who have decided to journey together as Mennonites in the very locale where the Mennonite seed took root in this hemisphere.

We applaud and seek to support the efforts of churches that take the issues of immigration seriously. Immigration reform will happen when the hearts of citizens change. We celebrate all that will be learned at Phoenix for those who attend. We hope the hearts of all in our churches will continue to be touched by the complexity of the situation and the simplicity of grace. I hope that somehow in this journey to Phoenix we’ll realize that immigrants — documented or undocumented — aren’t outsiders in our Anabaptist/Mennonite communities.

The journey to Arizona invites all of us to reflect on our own stories of migration. For many of us, a journey’s purity is polished in the retelling. We have not all landed on these shores willingly, legally or peaceably. The reasons for migration and the outgrowth of those realities are just as complicated now as when the streams of Swiss/ German/Dutch Mennonites made their way into colonial Pennsylvania — where Africans were being sold on auction blocks along the shore, ripped and trafficked from their homes across the Atlantic.

Early Anabaptists followed the invitation of the Spirit toward witness — knowing that at times it required actions that were contrary to the law and that risked relational harmony. This summer at Philly Praise and in other MC USA congregations across the country, our absence at Phoenix will be a witness to our denomination.

As we journey and seek first God’s sovereignty, may we also discover the breadth of God’s love and re-encounter the Spirit that binds us together across language, ethnicity, culture and status, inviting us all to be redefined under Christ.

Moved by faith … back to school

December 13, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Maria Byler, Philadelphia Praise Center

In Matthew 17 Jesus tells the disciples that with faith the size of a mustard seed they could move mountains. But at Philadelphia Praise Center/Centro de Alabanza de Filadelfia, something else is being moved by faith: adults are going to school. And I, as site administrator, get to witness the miraculous results.

This fall, 15 members of PPC/CAF started the certificate program of the Anabaptist Biblical Institute (IBA), an adult Christian education program coordinated by the Mennonite Education Agency and the Hispanic Mennonite Church. It consists of eight 12-week courses. Students complete workbook lessons on their own and meet weekly in group tutoring sessions. Tutors are pastors Leticia Cortés and Fernando Loyola. With God’s help the first course, Introduction to Bible Study, was completed in early December.

Each student is in a very different place with their education. One student is completing postdoctoral work, one dropped out of elementary school over 20 years ago. Most have begun to know Jesus within the last five years. But their varied experiences with school and church were overcome by the strength of their faith and their desire to learn more about God.

At the first class when asked about the homework, most of the students raised their eyebrows and shook their heads sadly. “Me cuesta leer tanto,” – “It’s hard for me to read so much” “No entendí todas las preguntas,” “I didn’t understand all the questions.” We struggled through the literary genres in the Bible and the difference between figurative and literal. But we also had great conversations about Hebrew identity, Creation, and even vegetarianism. Week after week I left the class amazed at what God is doing with these humble but eager followers. And the students left the class feeling as though they had merely scratched the surface of knowledge, and ready to deepen their understanding.

More than what God is doing inside each student is what God is doing with us as a community. We are each (including me) growing so much more than if we just read the lessons individually. IBA has become a very human place where we learn from the reading and also from our sisters’ and brothers’ life views. This includes experiences of members of the community during the course. We have had to cancel or rearrange classes because of illness or other church events – and those happenings make it into the class conversation. Students often bring their children, who participate in their own way. It’s giving us all practice in being a community of sharing and support as we learn together how to walk this life as Christians.

At the beginning of the New Year we start on the second course: Anabaptist History and Theology. For more information on what we’re studying, check out the Mennonite Education Agency website. Or, if you’d rather, contact me – I love to talk about this exciting work that God is doing in the church!

Thanksgiving at the beach … and other tales, part 2

December 6, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

Thanksgiving dinner at the firehouse
by KrisAnne Swartley, Doylestown

After Hurricane Sandy, our congregation held “storm kitchens,” where we gathered to cook for those without power. After the initial crisis passed, we asked ourselves as a missional mentoring group, “What’s next?” One of the young women suggested thanking our local fire fighters. For many in our group, cooking and serving food is our passion and gift, a way that we express love and care for others. So on November 27th and 29th, we served Thanksgiving dinner at two firehouses in Roslyn and Hilltown (Pa).

It is important to us as a missional group to bless those who help our community thrive, and these volunteers (can you believe this is still done on a VOLUNTEER basis??) do just that. We wanted to bless them from our faith perspective, while recognizing they may not share our beliefs or practices. They were very open to that and were genuinely appreciative of the prayer of blessing we gave them and the time we spent with them that night… as well as the food, of course!

I served at the Hilltown firehouse. Although the meal was outside of our comfort zone, we soon discovered that humor unites. Within moments of arriving with my big roasting pans and all the food, they were teasing me gently and I gave it right back to them. The joking created a comfort level that made us all feel safe in each other’s presence.

It took conscious effort for those of us from Doylestown to not just talk to each other, but to break out of our “clique” and begin to visit with the firefighters and their families. Once we did that, however, we made connections and shared stories and the conversation flowed freely.

Jenni Garrido, who organized the dinner at Roslyn, said the folks at the firehouse couldn’t believe someone from their neighborhood would take the time and effort to bring them a meal… they were floored by the generosity.

This felt like only a beginning. The firefighters are looking for connections and relationships within the community and are very open to more conversation and time together. A few of us are gathering to pray there on Friday morning. Who knows what more may come?!

PPC Thanksgiving — Members of Philadelphia Praise Center lead worship at Quakertown Christian School on Thanksgiving. Photo by Octavianus Asoka.

A Thanksgiving Retreat
by Aldo Siahaan, Philadelphia Praise Center

On a beautiful Thursday morning around 8 o’clock sounds of laughter and excitement could be heard from Philadelphia Praise Center’s building in South Philly. About 100 congregation members were anxious to depart for Quakertown Christian School, where we held a one-day Thanksgiving Retreat filled with sermons, games, fellowship, and other fun activities.

At this year’s retreat, PPC was fortunate to host not one, but two special guests from Indonesia. The guest speaker was Rev. Daniel Alexander, a well-known preacher in Indonesia who has been ministering in Nabire, Papua since the 1980s. In addition, Rev. Alexander also brought along Stevano Wowiling, one of the finalists from a recent Indonesian Idol, who led the congregation in ardent worship sessions.

Halfway through the day, members of Nations Worship Center joined us after spending Thanksgiving morning at Salford Mennonite Church. The Thanksgiving Retreat ended with dinner at a nearby Chinese buffet.

2012 Peace Camps: Love on a Local Scale, part 2

August 27, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Samantha Lioi, Minister of Peace & Justice

Just as Salford Peace Camp planners work from their awareness of local needs, newer, urban Anabaptists continue to nurture and shape their children’s imaginations toward creative peacemaking.

Philadelphia Praise Center planned a two-week Peace Camp which stretched into three this summer by popular (eager parental) demand. They met from noon to 4pm, providing a nutritious lunch for the children, all of whom live within ten blocks of the church building in South Philly. Ardi Hermawan of PPC, a senior nursing student at EMU hired by his home congregation for the summer and summer Ministry Inquiry Program intern Erika Bollman worked together to develop the program.

This fall Erika enters her second year of Eastern Mennonite University’s Conflict Transformation masters program—but she is studying peace at the policy level and came into the summer with no experience working with kids, so there was much to learn. She had spent a year in Indonesia, however, with SALT (Serving And Learning Together) between college and grad school, so she brought some cultural understanding and was able to speak with parents in Indonesian. This was particularly helpful since she and Ardi went house to house picking up and dropping off all the children at the beginning and end of each day.

Ardi was inspired by his experience in the Bronx over Spring Break with nine other EMU students through the college’s YPCA (Young People’s Christian Association). Visiting, singing, and sharing stories with patients who are HIV-positive at a clinic and spending time with a woman at a “day care” for elderly folk whose families could or would not care for them, Ardi was amazed by the compassion and connection that can form quickly between two strangers.

In response, Ardi added the theme “faith, hope, and love” to PPC’s Peace Camp during the final week to help the children learn how to do something for the neighborhood. “South Philly [looks] very fragile and broken from the outside,” Ardi reflected. “From the inside, I think there’s something God really wants to do [that has been left] unexplored.”

In its third year, PPC’s Peace Camp introduced the children to a different hero of peace each day, beginning with Anabaptist reformer Menno Simons and including Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony, Mother Teresa, and the local founder of what he hoped would be “a peaceful woods,” William Penn. Pastor Aldo Siahaan chose stories from Scripture according to the theme of the day, teaching about God peacefully splitting land between Abraham and Lot, the just resistance of the Egyptian midwives in refusing to kill Hebrew babies, and the four friends who cared for another enough to carry him to Jesus to be healed. (Gen 13, Exod 1:15-22, and Luke 5:17-26)

They worked on a tight budget, but they still managed to offer several field trips to broaden the experiences of the children who tend to live very locally, grounded in the richness of their Indonesian, Latino, and Vietnamese cultural contexts. They visited the justice and peace-themed exhibits of the Liberty Museum, toured the aquarium in Camden, NJ, created a scavenger hunt throughout South Philly, and one day even handed out cupcakes in local businesses and to passersby on the streets. “The kids were so excited to give away those cupcakes,” Erika recalled, as they were able to connect with people in their neighborhood through simple, joyful generosity.

PPC’s content included appreciating diversity and difference, caring for each other and the earth, and learning to resolve conflict peacefully. “Three weeks is not enough to transform them,” Erika said, “but I hope they get the concepts early on, so as it comes up again and again, they start to think it’s really possible [to choose peaceful ways to engage conflict].”

Indeed, Ardi saw God at work in the minds and hearts of the children they worked with. “These kids… if you listen to them, you’d be amazed. When they open up and are very vulnerable to you… when I listen to them I think, Wow, God has something to do with these kids, and it’s part of my job to give guidance.”

Philly Praise clearly reached beyond themselves this summer, drawing ten kids from a local daycare and thirty from the neighborhood who are not regular participants in the congregation. These children—from many cultural experiences and some of different faiths—became so attached to one another during Peace Camp that PPC chose to welcome them back for a “reunion” every Friday until August.

And it wasn’t only the children’s faith and imaginations that were being formed. “I think a lot about the purpose of my life,” says Ardi. “What do I really want to do with my life? I had the chance to serve at PPC and got to apply some of what I learned in the Bronx. [During that trip] we realized this life is not about ourselves, but it’s about God and how you build some connection with other people.”

← Previously, Salford Next week, Ripple-Allentown →

On realizing what it means to be a Mennonite

August 22, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

To Mennonite Blog #12

by Aldo Siahaan, Philadelphia Praise Center

In the past week, Muslims around the world ended their 30 days of fasting for the month of Ramadan. It was around this time of celebration, five years ago, that I realized that I am a Mennonite.

The church I pastor, Philadelphia Praise Center in South Philly, officially became part of Franconia Mennonite Conference in the middle of 2007. The leaders and I were still learning to know more about Mennonites that year and what our membership in the Conference might mean.

I am originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, where Christians are the minority. In Philadelphia among Indonesian immigrants, however, there are more Indonesian Christians than Indonesian Muslims; still, I have Muslim friends.

In the month of Ramadan 2006, knowing the feeling of being a minority, I offered the Indonesian Muslim community the use of our worship space for prayer during their holy month. I spoke with one of the leaders but she never called me back with an answer.

A year later, Ramadan 2007, the same leader called me and asked, “Aldo, do you remember that last year you offered us your church so we can pray? Is the invitation still open?” I told her that for me personally the answer would be yes, but that I would need to talk with our congregation’s leaders first.

After I shared my conversation with the leaders and members of the church, no one objected. The leaders and I remembered, though, that we were now part of Franconia Mennonite Conference and we didn’t know if opening our church building would be the right thing to do according to Mennonite values.

In conversation with Conference leadership, I asked carefully, “Is opening the church building to Muslims a Mennonite way?”

Steve Kriss, our conference minister, responded, “Aldo, that’s what Mennonites do. We build relationships with people, our neighbors, even other faiths. We forgive. We share what we have.”

I realized that that this was Mennoniting—following Jesus’ command to love one another (John 15:17).

Next week, Franconia Conference Director of Communication and Leadership Cultivation Steve Kriss will reflect back on the summer of blogs. Have there been any insights that have touched you, made you think, connected with your experience? How do you “Mennonite”? Join the conversation on Facebook & Twitter (#fmclife) or by email.

Philadelphia Praise Center

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