“I believe that people your age want more out of life than just making money. I am convinced, after 9/11: when everyone saw how it is easy for life to collapse under a tower. What good is it to work every day of your life— to have a home, to have this, to have that— and to never have served?” Pastor Leon Schultz
Most often, we forget second chances; most often, we take them for granted. No matter how much we swear that we will never, ever take anything for granted again, we often do. It is only human, I suppose. But, perhaps, that is not an excuse. This evening, I ventured down to St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on Elmwood Avenue, in the South Side of Providence. Needless to say, I walked into a different world: An environment of slow urbanization, surrounded by low-levels of income, with a disarmingly charming church supported by wooden ceiling panels, glowing candle stands, and graceful, arched windows; beauty in the middle of relative despair. I cannot emphasize enough the feeling of serenity amidst the hubbub of traffic and yelling outside, or the willingness to understand and improve that shaded the atmosphere inside; the conscious attempt not to ask questions, but to accept.
St. Paul’s Church is home to two budding projects aimed to improve the standard of living in the surrounding area, using education as its mechanism; using the English language as its tool. I meet with Pastor Leon Schultz, a kindly gentleman with perpetually smiling eyes, and Mr. Julius Kolawole, a more austere, and reserved personality, but with no less goodwill or hospitality. These two gentlemen, along with Dr. William Oehlkers, a fellow congregation member and retired professor from Rhode Island College, are the masterminds behind the Church’s twofold initiative. The first is the English Language Learner’s (ELL) Program; the second is the Academic Resource Center. As a result, on Monday and Wednesday evenings, the church is alive with chants of “Walmart is my preferred convenience store,” or, “The barber shop is behind the police station”—the slow, pronounced formation of sentences by locals and refugees coming in for English classes.
The ELL program provides a standardized lesson-plan, guaranteed to improve one’s level of English. The Academic Resource Center (ARC), set up in conjunction with Minoo Ramanathan ‘ll and Ana Bermudez ’12, is an overarching entity that takes tutoring one step further; a center that caters to the youth, church congregation and the ELL. Unlike the ELL program, the ARC provides a more tailored opportunity: no matter what one’s level of English is, be it above or below average, individual tutoring sessions can be arranged. Specialized tutors are also brought in for other subjects, such as Physics and Chemistry, in an effort to provide an additional stimulus for local students. While still in the initial stages, this program has huge potential and a driven backing, including a partnership with the Department of Health and the refugee committee, especially the African Alliance.
Twenty-two years ago, St. Paul’s saw an affluent German congregation walk through its doors. Due to suburbanization, however, the Church was left with a congregation that consisted of a majority of elders, until, as Pastor Schultz put it, a new “life-blood” came in with a wave of African immigrants and their children. As a prime example of globalization and mobility, today the congregation consists of, approximately 62.5% of African Americans, a substantial percentage of whom have left the African continent because of the persisting climate of war. As a result, the refugees have a substantial presence in the neighborhood, and their struggles are emulated in the atmosphere. On arrival, each and every one of them is given a generic birth date in January; their previous identity starts to be erased while they are being handed American citizenship. After spending years in refugee camps, their skills—if they have any—are barely marketable due to language restrictions. Part of what the ARC invests in, Mr. Kolawole tells me, is an Extended English Program, where one is taught skills that most people do not think twice about, such as the filling out of an application form, or the right ways of picking up a phone call. Mostly, though, he says people attend the classes “[t]o get to a destination away from their apartments.” The majority of attendees are mothers, adolescents, or elderly gentlemen—those with no occupation, and health or social restrictions: those that have no reason to leave home, or every reason go wayward.
Coming to Church for class, then, is as much an excursion as any other— a fact that shows the startling monotony of their daily lives. Pastor Schultz tells me that they come in for classes because they feel a sense of camaraderie. Indeed, walking into an ELL classroom, this is certain. I feel like I’ve walked into an elementary school, in the most comforting way possible.
It is blatantly obvious that the people in that room come from all walks of life, and yet they sit together at round tables, seemingly oblivious to their differences outside the classroom. With a patient teacher grafting basic sentences on the white board, the adult students sit with their pencils, grammar books and friends, and prepare to learn prepositions. Their varied ethnicity is pronounced through their multitude of accents and drawls, but their effort and preparation to learn is the same. I do not remember the name of the elderly gentleman sitting across from me, but when he identified a preposition correctly, the smile on his face warmed my heart; the genuine delight was that of a child’s, but the deep lines on his drawn face showed that his life had been anything but rosy. There were also the two ladies donning glorious pink and red lipsticks, respectfully, who precisely and consistently gave their answers in lilting accents. My current struggles with numerous problem sets suddenly seemed mundane; to some extent, I didn’t want to leave that inner world where hope was constantly created. Mr. Kolawaole described it aptly to me during our conversation, observing, “When you see somebody smile…[S]ay thank you for what you do, it’s sufficient satisfaction.”
However, it is not all a cheerful imitation of Mind Your Language. In the main hall from which the ARC operates, mothers are scattered around the room with their respective tutors, with restless babies yelling in prams or young children scribbling on tables—the poverty and hardship of life is apparent. Their lack of ability to communicate is painfully obvious, and the program has a long way to go. But it does not lack initiative or drive. I believe the root of this drive lies in religion, faith and belief.
This is an additional facet that comes out in my interview with these two gentlemen: the importance of values. In this climate of economic downturn and adversity, their belief that faith and religion gets one through is crystal clear. But rather than waiting for religion to turn lives around, St. Paul’s Church has taken the initiative to act: an emulation of the thought, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ In a neighborhood that includes people from Eritrea, Bhutan, the Congo, Lebanon, Nepal, Nigeria and Liberia, among others, a difference in ethnic or religious background plays no part in the workings of the Church— a stark example of societal change and adaption.
I am introduced to Steven Nagbe, a 28-year-old of Liberian origin, with a tumultuous past including dropping out of college, getting involved with the wrong crowd, and spending a few years behind bars. He speaks frankly about being reinstated in society, being a father to a three-year-old son while still a freshman in college, and the constant struggle to keep his life in check. Speaking about his experience in prison, he states, “A lot of guys in there… they only wish for a second chance. And I was able to get that…I think about it every day.”
I mentioned before that we often take second chances for granted. Steven attests to the difficulty of sticking to the regime of a newly crafted life. Walking me out of the church, he speaks about the frustration of struggling to get by, and of the temptation to get rid of these newly acquired obligations. But, at the same time, he seems quietly determined that he is not going to let that happen—if for no other reason than that his son needs a father he can look up to.
Talking to Steven, I get a clear picture of how the grime of life can get the best of you—if you let it. On a larger scale, this is what St. Paul’s Church is trying to prevent: a grass roots scheme to provide some kind of uplifting in the lives of the congregation, that does not depend solely upon religious preaching. There are different methods of coping with struggle: these tutoring lessons provide one such way.
Second chances are at times overrated, because once one gets them, one needs to constantly work at keeping them; to constantly work towards a new life. The people I met today have an untainted view of the hardships and scarcity surrounding them, and an experience of life that we, on College Hill, hardly ever experience. Whether from prison or refugee camps, reinstatement and reinvention is no easy task—in this community’s economic climate, however, it is their only opportunity to escape social restrictions. One thing is certain, though: the community around St. Paul’s is filled with a raw energy that both frightens and explains at the same time, revealing the story of a group of people struggling to adapt to their second chances.