Human Solutions (Winter 2022)

Human Solutions FINDING PEOPLE WHO EMBODY ANSWERS IN OUR COMMUNITIES.

The “Moses moment” Pastor and former law enforcement officer Shawn Moore spreads the message of racial reconciliation through South Minneapolis.

He’s one of 11 human solution Bethel University journalists found in the Twin Cities.

A B E T H E L U N I V E R S I T Y ST U D E N T M AG A Z I N E | VO LU M E 1 S P R I N G 2 0 2 2 | S A I N T PA U L , M I N N E S OTA

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Our solutions 6 Home but Not quite home

18 Precious life and

incredible flight

30 Seeing the

After leaving his family behind in Cuba as a young adult, Tony Oliva has become a beloved and respected figure for the Twin Cities community he continues to enlighten.

Brittney Yohannes spends her days using her drive to preserve the natural world to mobilize volunteers.

Northeast Minneapolis pastor serves her community by providing meals and shelter for homeless people in the area.

20 The line

34 All in on

10 A place that

doesn’t need us

Artist Jeff Wetzig builds an off-the-grid house in Wisconsin in order to escape the noise and combat consumerism.

14 Gasping for

invisbile

between beauty and suffering

American Sign Language

Eydie Shypulski teaches students in social work to focus on beauty and justice.

Tiffany Moore teaches students to adapt to those different from them.

22 Empowerment

36 Seeds of

breath

from experience

reparation

Emergency room physician associate works at the front lines COVID-19 pandemic.

A study abroad experience for Virginija Wilcox results in a job helping other students experience other countries as well.

Community activist Melvin Giles works to promote peace through his gardening and peace bubbles.

26 The “Moses

About this magazine

17 Octogenarian

freshman pastor

Raquel Judith Tapiero is an 83-year-old freshman in a Bethel’ Intro to Bible class.

And that’s not even among the five most interesting things about her. She’s survived civil unrest in Panama, asylum in New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. Now, she clings to hope and miracles to help others survive trauma.

moment”

Pastor and former law enforcement officer Shawn Moore spreads the message of racial reconciliation through South Minneapolis.

Human Solutions magazine is a final project of the Fall 2021 Feature Writing class at Bethel University. Students pitched story ideas, reported and photographed in the field, and wrote and designed this magazine.

Financial and moral support was provided by the Bethel’s Frogtown-Summit University partnership and the Johnson Center for Journalism and Communication.

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Letter from the Editors

Makenzi Johnson

Emily Rossing

Practical, not passive

M

akenzi doesn’t know how to change a tire. If she were to end up in her red Nissan Rogue pulled over along the side of I-94 with a flat tire, or even worse, a tire that suddenly popped, she wouldn’t know what to do. She’d probably sit in the driver’s seat in shock for a couple of minutes, then start crying because of panic and then call her dad. He knows how to change a tire, but what good will it do to simply call him when he isn’t there with me to actually help?

In the pages that follow, you’ll meet people who aren’t complaining about problems, but are getting their hands dirty and finding ways to fix them. They aren’t trying to make a solution, they’re embodying it.

You’ll meet a pastor who couldn’t sleep in her warm bed at night knowing there were people within a mile who were shivering in the cold. So she did something about it.

Emily had a close friend lose her dad in the past year. To suicide, actually. It was unexpected, and Emily didn’t have a clue how to console her — she doesn’t think she did a good job. She wishes there were more she could do, but she doesn’t know how without sounding cliché or suffocating her friend. It’s a hard thing to watch, and left Emily stuck, not knowing how to handle the dilemma.

For Makenzi’s tire changing problem, she could do a quick Google search or watch a Youtube video tutorial. That would solve it. For Emily’s friend’s problem, bigger solutions are required.

You’ll meet an artist who looked at America and saw a consumerism problem, so he found ways to make art with trash.

You’ll meet a healthcare provider who took a courageous leap to work less in a pandemic because she had to prioritize her mental health.

You’ll meet a gardener and a bird caretaker, a former baseball star, an ASL teacher and more.

All of these people share one thing in common, besides area of residence: an internal need to do what they can for their community.

These are people living out their talents. They are noticing the issues in their neighborhood and going beyond “Minnesota nice.” They are redefining this phrase to mean being practical, not passive. They are teaching us that when problems arise, big or small, we don’t just find solutions, we become them.

The Twin Cities face real, systemic and hard problems. The past few years have brought a national spotlight to the Minnesota metro area regarding healthcare, racism, environmental issues and more. After the CNN and FOX cameras are gone, we as the Twin Cities citizens are left to deal with the aftermath. It’s up to us to figure out how to deal with our problems.

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Human Solutions Staff

Emily Rossing Editor, Writer

Caden Christiansen Marketing Manager, Writer

Ariel Dunleavy Graphic Designer, Writer

Makenzi Johnson

Molly Wilson

Logan Murphy

Sarah Bakeman

Editor, Writer

Rachel Blood

Copy Editor, Writer

Copy Editor, Writer

Soraya Keiser

Podcast Host, Writer

Marketing Manager, Writer

Joy Sporleder

Podcast Host, Writer

Makenna Cook

Graphic Designer, Writer

Vanna Contreras

Photo Editor, Writer

Photo Editor, Writer

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Tony Oliva sprints out of the batter’s box at Metropolitan Stadium after a base hit. The Twins hall of fame outfielder had a career batting average of .304, winning three batting titles during his 15-year career. | Submitted by The Minnesota Twins

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Home but not quite home

After leaving his family behind in Cuba as a young adult, Tony Oliva has become a beloved and respected figure for the Twin Cities community he continues to enlighten.

By Caden Christiansen

T

ony Oliva walked past the glass cases in his living room holding the Silver Slugger awards, Gold Glove, replica World Series Trophy and hundreds of signed baseballs to a black cabinet on the far corner of his living room.

A two-foot-tall silver trophy rested at eye level on the shelf, engraved in Spanish on the rectangular trophy plaque. The room itself holds enough baseball lore to make a fan’s blood pressure surge, but this trophy shined brighter than the smile on Oliva’s face when he pointed to it.

“I have no idea what that’s from,” he said with a smile. “They used to give me those trophies all the time back home.”

For the last 50 years, home for Oliva has been a three-level tan house with a long and skinny front yard bearing his son Ricardo’s city council sign. The corner house in the Bloomington, Minnesota cul-desac is shaded by several trees, but open enough for anybody who wants to wave to the Twins legend.

Oliva frequently makes his way down to Tony Oliva Field off highway 169 and Old Shakopee Road to watch high school, legion and youth baseball games. He used to watch his grandkids play, but they grew up years ago. He greets grandparents who watched him take the field at Metropolitan Stadium in the 60s and 70s, and gets certain pleasure from young kids yelling his name from across the stands. Even at age 83, the baseball diamond is where Oliva wants to spend his time.

“For some reason, people feel impressed that I go over there.”

– Tony Oliva, Twins hall of famer

“For some reason, people feel impressed that I go over there,” Oliva said.

Oliva grew up as the third oldest of 10 siblings, on the local town baseball fields and the field his dad constructed on their 120 acre tobacco farm in Pinar Del Río, Cuba. His father was a talented baseball player in the amateur town leagues, and Oliva and his three younger brothers followed suit.

As kids, the Oliva boys went to school and worked long hours harvesting tobacco and taking care of the cows for their father. For a kid in Pinar Del Rio, there was nothing to do, outside of school and work, but play baseball.

At age 15, Oliva’s effortless left-handed swing was noticeable. Working the farm had helped him grow stronger as baseballs began to shoot off his bat harder and faster. He had to travel to neighboring towns to play organized baseball because his town didn’t have the players or the resources to field a team. Oliva had always dreamed of playing baseball in Havana where the most talented Cuban players competed, but as he watched teammates and opponents get scouted by major league teams, his confidence grew.

In February of 1961, Oliva signed a professional baseball contract with the Minnesota Twins and arrived in Fernandina Beach, Florida in April for Twins rookie camp. Making his major league debut in 1962, Oliva would spend 15 years with the Minnesota Twins winning rookie of the year in 1964, a gold glove in 1966, three batting titles, and was voted an all-star eight times. Widely viewed as one of the best Minnsota Twins players of all time, Oliva’s famous No. 6 was retired by the Twins in 1991 and after 45 long years, Oliva will be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in July, 2022.

Oliva has spent the last 60 years in the United States. He lived out his dream playing major league baseball, met his wife Gourdette in a Minneapolis hotel, had three children and has become a beloved and respected figure in the state of Minnesota. But before all of the accolades, Oliva endured the same

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prejudice and racism that many in the United States endured during the 1960s.

Upon first arriving to Twins rookie camp in Fernandina Beach, Florida, Oliva was turned away by the assigned hotels for incoming players for the color of his skin and was forced to stay in small, cramped housing for people of color. His late arrival to camp gave him only 10 at-bats to show his skills during his first tryout, and despite his hitting prowess, Oliva was not given the same opportunities as his white teammates to showcase his abilities. After only five days of intrasquad scrimmages during tryouts, Oliva was released from the team and was told to pack his bags to return home.

Oliva knew if he went back home there would be no opportunity to ever come back. Joe Cambria, the man who had scouted Oliva and helped bring him to the United States, had other plans. He was able to convince the Twins Class A Charlotte, North Carolina team to take Oliva in while the team tried to find a suitable place for him to play.

When Oliva arrived in Charlotte, the Class A manager Phil Howser agreed to give him a place to stay and to pay him $2.50 a day for meals as long as he came to the ballpark to run 25 laps across the outfield a day and continue to work on his hitting and fielding skills.

“I walked all the way from the black neighborhood, to the white neighborhood, to the ballpark every day, four miles and back,” Oliva said. “If I take a taxi, I don’t eat.”

After six weeks of reliving the same day, Oliva was signed to the Twins rookie league in Wytheville, Virginia, but the racism he faced did not stop. On the way to one of his first games in rookie league, the team of 40 players stopped for lunch at a small town restaurant. As Oliva and the other players of color sat down to eat, the manager of the restaurant approached and told them to sit in the back of the restaurant isolated from their teammates. Oliva, who at the time did not speak any English, was confused by what was happening and followed one of his Nicaraguan teammates to the bus where they sat and waited for the other white teammates to bring them food.

“We never stopped, after that, in any restaurant,” said Oliva.

Prejudice was something that Oliva endured during his first few years as a ball player in America, but despite its frequency, it didn’t bother him. Being a major league player was his dream. What really tugged at his heart was missing his family in the stands at his games and late nights on the baseball field with his brothers.

“It’s so hard to leave your family behind,” Oliva said. “I still think about Cuba every day. God gave me a special attitude.”

With poverty and political tyranny still impacting the lives of Cuban people since its communist conversion in 1965, Oliva worries about the state of his

“I turned to God and I said, ‘Really?! No. 6?!’”

Tony Oliva chats in the Twins dugout with fellow Twins hall of famer Rod Carew. Two of the best hitters in Twins history, the two former ball players still find time to work with young players and spend time around the team. | Submitted by The Minnesota Twins

– Will Healy, former Park Avenue Methodist Church pastor

HOMETOWN:

Design e d by A ri e l D un l eav y

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PINAR DEL RIO, CUBA

home country. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his wife Gourdette have made numerous visits to Pinar Del Río to see Oliva’s family members. Despite not being able to visit the last few years, the couple still sends food and money to families in need on the island every month.

Former Park Avenue Church pastor Will Healy recalls meeting Gourdette and Tony Oliva for the first time after moving from Northfield, Minnesota to preach at Park Avenue. After extending an invitation to the congregation to come to the altar for prayer, Healy was astonished to see the hall of famer walking up the aisle.

“I turned to God and I said, ‘Really?! No. 6?!’”

Healy said. “I always wanted to be No. 6 growing up, he was my favorite player.”

After serving as his pastor, Oliva and Healy have become close friends. In 2018, Healy officiated Oliva and Gourdette’s vow renewal for their 50th wedding anniversary at Target Field and he occasionally stops by Oliva’s house to watch baseball games.

“I found out that they are delightful, plain folks who are so gregarious and accommodating and welcoming,” Healy said.

Major League Baseball has finally cemented Oliva’s name into the most prestigious honor the game has to offer, but it is his service to the community, colorful stories and vibrant personality that will be remembered by a state he has chosen to call home. The life he has created for himself and his family in Minnesota is something he is grateful for, but there will always be a special place in his heart for Pinar Del Rio and the island of Cuba.

The last time Oliva and Gourdette flew to Cuba a few years ago, the couple visited one of Oliva’s brothers who still lives next to a neighbor’s tobacco farm. They had arrived just in time for tobacco harvest.

“I told the guy to give me the knife and showed my wife what I used to do here,” Oliva said. “Looking like I never forget.”

CAREER BATTING AVERAGE

220

CAREER HOME RUNS

1,917 CAREER HITS

1964

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

2021 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

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A place that doesn’t need us Artist Jeff Wetzig builds an off-the-grid house in Wisconsin in order to escape the noise and combat consumerism.

By Sarah Bakeman

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would sit around having coffee in the mornings, and we would start to dream about things.”

Years earlier, when Wetzig was buying his first house, he decided he wanted a fixer-upper. After three failed attempts at restoring a home to his liking, he figured he didn’t like picking up after others’ sloppy work. He then spent mornings with Christy in their Minneapolis home, filling quarter-inch sheets of grid paper with sketches of houses they’d entitled “coffee dreams.” Sometimes they added a garden or solar panels, or they wondered how many acres of wilderness would surround them.

“We wanted to live in a place that doesn’t need us,” Wetzig said. “When I was living in our house in Minneapolis, I was aware that the property needed me on some level. I had to mow the lawn because the property and neighbors require it. But when your neighbors are squirrels and deers and bears, they don’t really need you to do anything.”

After the Wisconsin property had been purchased and coffee dreams turned into finalized plans, Wetzig spent mornings pedaling over the Lowry Bridge and down East River Road to Bethel University, where he works as an art professor. In the span of a decade, he went through a fixed gear bikes that didn’t agree with his knees and an ELF solar and pedal powered hybrid vehicle, but mainly relied on his three-speed bike.

The commute took 50 minutes, but sometimes 40 if he had the right mix of motivation and green lights. Pedaling meant he’d accomplished something before he’d even started his workday,

eff Wetzig held a chainsaw in one hand. He revved it up, focusing his eyes on the shady maple tree in front of him.

It wasn’t diseased like the other trees he’d cleared, nor was it dangerously leaning toward the timber frame house he’d built. In fact, Wetzig usually spent his mornings tapping the tree and making coffee from the sap.

Despite being the family’s “yard tree,” as of last year it had become an obstacle for the newly-installed solar panels on the side of the house. Its lofty branches filtered the sun, leaving little power for the chest refrigerator inside. As the chainsaw ripped apart the bark, his wife and two kids shed tears.

“It was a hard thing to cut a friend,” Wetzig said. “I didn’t have time to cry. I was trying to not die from a chainsaw.”

In 2011, Wetzig and his wife Christy bought a plot of rocky, wooded land in Wisconsin. They wanted a summer escape from their Minneapolis home that required nothing more than a tent, a car ride and some food. As they spent the night, sounds of traffic and music were replaced by the ambient noise of a gentle breeze and unknown animals rustling in the darkness.

The startling sound of wildlife inspired Wetzig’s first project: a screen house.

It was a tiny, screened-in building with a stove inside, built next to the maple tree. It allowed them to store pots, pans and sleeping bags as well as providing peace of mind as they tried to sleep.

“It allowed us to go there a lot more,” Wetzig said. “If we kept enough wood in the stove, it would be comfortable. Then we

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especially if he had to slosh through snow and ice.

As cars whizzed by, the morning bike ride forced Wetzig to move a little slower. He saw objects such as soggy couches, busted workout equipment and pieces of plywood littering roadsides. No matter how dilapidated or weather-damaged they were, the objects had one thing in common: a handmade “free” sign attached to the surface. Wetzig would squeeze the handlebars of his bike, pull out his phone and snap a picture before continuing on his way.

After months of foraging for free items, Wetzig began to turn the photos into artwork using a watercolor variation of Japanese woodblock printing. He found himself becoming fascinated with the objects themselves, but also imagining who the owners were and why the objects had become so worthless to them.

As he gained more photos than he could possibly use, the project’s roots became clear: consumerism.

“There’s a beginning of that euphoria of getting a new thing,” said Wetzig. “At the end of it, it sits out on the curb and you hope somebody will just take it away so you don’t have to deal with it… putting it out on the curb with a free sign allows [us] to assuage guilt.”

On the seat of his bike, Wetzig identified the question of American consumers: “can abundance be enough?”

He decided he wanted his Wisconsin home to be an experiment with the question “can enough be abundance?”

Between work days and art projects, Wetzig spent weekends on his land in Wisconsin. The screenhouse was soon accompanied by a kiln with a timber frame surrounding it. It served as a workspace for his potter wife, but also as a practice run for the larger-scale timber frame that would become the family home.

Starting in 2016, Wetzig spent his summers commuting to the property, working until he missed his kids too much. Usually, that meant three-day spurts. Nonetheless, he finished the foundation and the timber frame.

After two years of commuting back and forth, Wetzig and Christy bought the old firehouse in the nearest town, converting the first floor into a studio, the second into an apartment and leaving behind Minneapolis, their home and the art and culture surrounding it.

“It meant that I could sleep in my own bed and get even better

sleep at night,” Wetzig said. “And I could start earlier in the day and work later in the night and still see my family.”

Wetzig spent hot summer days strapped to the top of the timber frame, filling in the roof. He calls the day the roof was completed the biggest day of his life, besides his wedding and the birth of Mercy and Abel, his children.

The summer of 2019 was spent plastering the inside and outside of the house, leaving a white finish and the individual hand strokes visible on the walls. Initials and handprints were left carved into the doorway. When the plaster dried in the fall, Christy was ready for the next step.

“It’s a house, it’s time to move in,” she said. “If you wait until you’re ready to do things, you’ll wait forever.”

So they loaded the car up with the necessities: mattresses, clothes and Legos. Mercy and her younger brother, Abel, wouldn’t consider the tool-filled building a home without the brightly-colored plastic bricks.

Two years later, the tools have been cleared. Upon entering, the main floor of the house has no walls separating rooms. An alternating wooden staircase leads up to Mercy and Abel’s rooms in the loft. A stove sits in the middle of the floor, warming the two worn, red antique armchairs in front of it. Mercy recalls her parents taking her to a history museum and seeing the same model of chair in an exhibit.

“I sit in those every day,” she said.

To the right of the stove, there’s a piano keyboard, a bed for Wetzig and Christy and a couple of rows of books containing stories, recipes and school materials that Christy teaches the kids.

A rope hangs down from the ceiling, and Abel will often climb it to nestle himself in the crevice of the “Y”-shaped beam. The supporting beams were left raw, resembling tree trunks growing through the floor.

“To cut down trees … means you are affecting the landscape for years,” Wetzig said. “All the trees we cleared became part of the house.”

To the left of the stove, there’s a kitchen lined with roughedged wooden shelves made by Wetzig. Jars filled with mushrooms foraged from the property are placed in rows above stacked plates and cups sculpted by Christy: the ones that failed to sell.

Pl ants f rom Wetzig’s garden

ra s pbe rr i e s

h aze l n ut s

g a rl i c

ha zel nu ts

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m a p l es

apples

shiitake s

“The people who buy most of their things at Target and Walmart, they think [the pottery] should be perfect, like machine made,” Wetzig said.

At the back of the kitchen there’s a doorway overlooking the screenhouse and the stump of the maple tree.

The building has been made into a home since the family’s 2019 arrival. A greenhouse sits out front, preventing their collected rainwater from freezing in the winter. Patches of berries, nuts and mushrooms are grown throughout the property. On the side of the house, there’s a pizza oven built from the leftover bricks from Christy’s kiln.

The couple plans to build a screen porch on the side of the house. That project comes after Wetzig rebuilds the shabby,

dilapidated shed he calls “a trial for an artist [to see].” But that comes after he finished building a sauna in the backyard, wiring the house, fixing up his studio, making bookshelves, grading his students’ assignments and putting a wall in to separate his bedroom from the rest of the main floor.

For now, one of Wetzig’s winter projects will be building a kitchen table for the family to sit around. He’ll use the wood from the maple tree he cut down a year ago. Wetzig hopes the tap marks will be visible as the family eats dinner.

Des i g ned by Joy Sp o rl ed er

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Above: The Wetzig timber-frame home stands in its second year of being a full-time residence, with solar panels, a greenhouse and a water tank out front. | Photo by Bryson Rosell

Gasping for breath Emergency room physician associate works on the front lines COVID-19 pandemic.

By Emily Rossing

T

he case count doesn’t stop rising.

Greta Sowles has been watching it slow down over the past six months, but it still rises. Ebbs and flows, like the waves on a heart monitor, but always there.

In the summer, when the Fairview South emergency room fills with chest pains, headaches and massive cuts, Sowles is also dealing with sick patients from a now preventable disease.

In late July, the healthcare provider has her back to the wall of the ER hallway, willing herself to hold tears in. Sixteen patients. Thirty-minute appointments. No lunch break. The shifts have been flying by. She hasn’t had more than one consecutive day off in weeks. The bubbling feeling in her chest won’t disappear. Another COVID-19 patient. Another patient yelled at her for not being able to cure them. She walks past the lobby full of desperate people who might have to wait overnight to be seen due to staff shortages.

There’s only so much she can take, and she’s been past her limits for a while now. Her N95 mask hides her face slightly, but not enough to hide her exhaustion. The dark circles under her eyes are highlighted by the tears that slowly drip down her face.

A coworker leads her out of the main hallway and around the corner.

“Hey, you’re doing a great job,” he says.

Sowles wants to hear it, but she can’t. Not now. She feels like the 30-year-old patient she had who contracted the virus and had a tube breathing for him. Sowles is gasping for breath too, in a different way. She’s drowning. And no one she’s serving seems to care.

Greta Sowles’ life includes holidays and family gatherings spent outdoors, because she can’t risk contracting a deadly virus and bringing it to work. It includes treating patients who incessantly complain. It includes going days without speaking to her husband, because she’s always working. It includes spending Wednesday night with seventh grade girls, after working with angry patients for hours on end. It includes heart attacks.

It includes legos lodged in kids’ noses. It includes burnout. It includes perseverance. It includes the discovery that giving more, might mean doing less.

As a five-year-old, Greta looked at pictures in anatomy books, not Dr. Seuss. Growing up with three sisters, Sowles learned to forge her own path. She was always interested in medicine, but she liked words too. So she did both. In college, she was Edi-

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tor-in-chief of the school paper while balancing reactions in organic chemistry. When it came time to think about post-undergrad, she originally thought about attending medical school.

“That’s what the smart girls did,” Sowles said.

Without studying for the MCAT, she thought she’d just apply to become a physician associate, or PA, first. Getting it would mean only two years of school and about half the amount of debt that med school would bring, with a large amount of the same medical freedom. To her surprise, she was accepted. She finished her undergrad at Bethel University May 16, 2015, and enrolled in PA classes just two weeks later.

Naturally, Sowles picked the area of medicine that many consider to be the most challenging. Her first job out of school was working in the emergency room. The learning curve was uncomfortable, involving trial and error every day. Her husband, Jared Nelson, has never seen her at work but was there to help her process during her first year on the job. Nelson recalls what Sowles was like during the first year of her career, while the two were engaged. “[She] would come home and just be in a rough state because [she] felt incapable or incompetent,” Nelson said.

But she wouldn’t let herself stay there. As time went on, so did Sowles’s confidence in herself. For three years, she worked in three different Twin Cities emergency rooms as a physician associate. In that time, she grew proficient in diagnosing patients, prescribing medications and dealing with the stress of work in a healthy way.

Sowles and Nelson got married in 2018, and both picked up running as a way to exercise and connect.

In their first year of marriage, they ran the Twin Cities marathon together, finishing in step. The couple also got involved at their church by being youth mentors for middle schoolers. By the beginning of 2020, Sowles actually felt like she had the work-life balance down.

Then, on a grey March day, everything she knew flatlined.

On day one of the stay-at-home order, Sowles was almost eager to go to work. A brand new virus, and not one she had learned about in school. She watched the movie Contagion to get in the spirit and was surprised to find the set very familiar. She spied the name of her emergency room on a badge of one of the doctors in the film. Little did she know, she would be fighting a real life contagion in that very ER for months following.

“I went into healthcare to do exciting things, like help people to fight pandemics,” Sowles said.

Enthusiasm wore off quickly as reality took its place.

With a new dress code including a full gown, gloves, face shield and N95 mask, Sowles encountered those most sick with COVID-19 who needed emergency assistance. For the first few months, ERs were relatively slow because people who would normally come in feared the new virus covering every surface of a hospital. By winter, the disease was so widespread in Minnesota that ERs didn’t have enough beds for the sick.

Then the vaccines came.

Finally, a breath of fresh air.

Sowles was among the first to get the vaccine in December 2020, thinking it might finally be a turning point in ending the pandemic. She initially thought everyone would rush to get it so life could return to the way it was.

When that didn’t happen, her attitude changed. Sometimes, she finds it hard to not be bitter towards those who refuse the vaccine for non-medical reasons, knowing that they’re a main barrier to ending the stress on the healthcare system right now.

“I never thought it would be such a fight to end this,” Sowles said.

Once the Health Department deemed it safe again to go out in public, Sowles noticed the ER beginning to return to what it was before COVID-19. She began seeing

Left: Sowles pictured outside the Fairview South Emergency Room while on shift during Thanksgiving weekend. In her profession, there is no such thing as being off for the holidays.

“But holidays aren’t usually too busy,” Sowles said. | Photo by Hannah Hobus

Right: Sowles (middle) talks with her two mentee students at a Wednesday night gathering at Upper Room Church in Edina, MN. Sowles and her husband, Jared Nelson, have been involved in the group for the past few years, acting as mentors for some of the youth in the church. | Photo by Emily Rossing

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more of the regular stuff, the “bread and butter” of the ER, as her coworker Peggy Heppner calls it.

Abdominal pain. Chest pain. Dizziness. Headaches.

Lacerations.

But the COVID-19 cases didn’t stop either. Add a pandemic to a busy ER and you get overworked healthcare providers.

Sowles vividly remembers not being able to take breaks to eat or use the bathroom.

Twelve hour shifts on her feet.

Getting home, exhausted, finding Nelson asleep.

Waking up before him to go to her next shift, and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving.

“Other than that there was no conversation,” Sowles said.

She missed what she wasn’t doing. She wasn’t indulging in her favorite pastimes, like going to wineries or playing cribbage with her husband. She wasn’t meeting with her mentees from church. She wasn’t going to bar trivia. She wasn’t getting to visit her nieces and nephews as much as she wanted. She wasn’t sleeping well.

But this is the life she chose. The patients come first.

Before loved ones, and too often, before mental health.

The atmosphere at work and the public view of healthcare workers didn’t help either, especially when compared to the first half of 2020. From an emphasis on teamwork in the workplace to being short with one another. From being praised as “healthcare heroes” to receiving a slew of expletives from patients who feel their medical freedom is impinged upon when encouraged to get vaccinated. Sowles believes everyone is just tired, but it still makes it hard to do her job well.

“I’ve never had patients be more rude to me than they are now,” Heppner said.

Nearing the end of her rope, Sowles knew something needed to change.

After talking to her sister, Esther O’Donnell, Sowles decided it might be best to give herself more time off.

Still, it was hard for her to pull the trigger. Sowles knew that if she cut back her hours, someone else would have to pick them up. Hospitals were already understaffed.

She thought of the patients waiting overnight in a lobby to be seen despite an open bed across the hall, but no nurse available to board them. Or the man who waited in the lobby for three hours to be seen while actively having a heart attack.

She didn’t want to contribute to the problem.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if she would pick up shifts when she feels like this ... she gets filled by that,” O’Donnell said.

Eventually, Sowles obliged, and so did her supervisors.

She cut down to working at 80% of a full-time schedule, giving her another day or two off during the week. Even in the past year, she’s made it a priority to take weekend trips with her husband or visit her nieces and nephews in Waconia. She’s hoping some extra time off will grant her more of these rejuvenating sessions, allowing her to come back to work as a good, positive provider.

She hasn’t seen a drastic change yet, but a small one. The extra days allow her to go for runs and train

Sowles takes out a spleen on her clinical rotation at Abbott Northwestern while in PA school at Bethel University. This was her general surgery rotation, which she enjoyed and sparked her interest in emergency medicine. “The nice thing about the ER is you can see a bit of everything,” Sowles said. | Sumbitted by Greta Sowles

for marathons like she used to. One Wednesday, she bakes cookies to give away to all the hungry kids at youth group. The slow mornings are starkly contrasted from the work environment she described as sometimes being “toxic.” With even just a little more time away, her hope is to be more present with patients and colleagues while at work, remembering to have more grace for everyone.

One afternoon away from the hospital, Sowles moseys around the kitchen of her home in St. Louis Park. It feels refreshing to move slowly. The glossy white cabinets reflect the sunlight streaming in from the windows.

On the opposite wall, there’s a baby grand piano taking up half the room that she hasn’t played in in a while. She

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used to love playing. Maybe she’ll pick it up again on one of her off days. Nelson sits at the kitchen table near her. They’re discussing the details of an upcoming trip they are taking to Florida. He’s attending a conference there, and Sowles is spending some of her precious days off to join him.

Sowles sets her espresso on a textbook labeled “Advanced Trauma Life Support.” She has a recertification exam on Monday, and begins to justify why she is studying on her day off to her husband. He just laughs and shakes his head.

“She’s gonna pass with flying colors,” Nelson said.

Des i gne d by Arie l Dunleavy

Raquel Judith Tapiero Story by Vanna Contreras

Raquel Judith Tapiero is an 83-year-old freshman in Theology Professor Juan Hernandez’ Intro to Bible class. She’s survived civil unrest in Panama, asylum in New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. The storm blew her family to Apple Valley, where she is a pastor at Divine Love Center Church. She says her life experiences and faith kept her anchored in the literal, political and otherwise metaphorical winds of life, including an eye cancer diagnosis. Now, she clings to hope and miracles to help others survive trauma.

Watch this video for more information on Raquel Judith Tapiero. | Video by Vanna Contreras

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Precious life and incredible flight Brittney Yohannes spends her days using her drive to preserve the natural world to mobilize volunteers.

Lilly th e co ckatie l, p erc h ed o n Yo h a n n es’ f i n g er, sprea ds h e r win gs i n p rep a rat i o n to f l y to h er cag e. | P h oto by H a n n ah Ho b us

By Rachel Blood

B

rittney Yohannes trekked through the undeveloped marshland of Lino Lakes armed only with a field guide and a curiosity about the world. At only six years old, her heart broke at the sight of a Canada Goose limping through her backyard.

After naming the bird Hobbles, Yohannes ran inside to tell her mom about the animal in need of help.

“What can we do?” she asked.

“Nothing, really,” her mom shrugged. Yohannes didn’t know of any rehabilitation programs that could help the bird.

Yohannes was helpless. She had to leave it.

So she dedicated the rest of her life to making sure that never happened again, the decision serving as the take off point of a flight through loss and life.

Yohannes lives with her husband, Abdiwak Yohannes, and two-month old daughter, Soliliya, but those aren’t the only heartbeats under her roof.

Inside, the chatter of Yohannes’ three adopted birds– two cockatiels and a little brown finch– fill the air. The muted bawks and clucks of three chickens join the noise from the backyard.

The bars of cages rattle as the birds fly around and land on top of them. With a high-pitched whistle, they move to Yohannes’ finger and peck at millet– seeds on a stick, their favorite treat.

For Yohannes, the wild doesn’t stop at the front door.

Yohannes is the kind of woman who never leaves the sounds of fluttering wings and irritated squeaks. These noises are the soundtrack of her life. Tomorrow, she will rise and drive to Roseville’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where hundreds of birds and deer and rodents and all

sorts of wild animals recover before placement or release into the wild.

As a kid, Yohannes sat perched on her kitchen counter with a journal in her lap, scrawling “Views From the Window” as she observed the natural world that she so loved. Inside and outdoors, Yohannes extensively observed every bird that nested in her yard, along with the amounts and types of food in each backyard bird feeder.

That book has grown into a collection of field guides and observation journals lining a birdhouse-topped shelf in a room of her home next to two cages and a tree Harriet the cockatiel likes to climb. The room is exactly the sort that Yohannes would have dreamed of a child – a living, breathing aviary.

“I felt really connected to the seasonal changes and when [the animals] would nest and what they would do over the winter,” Yohannes said. “I so appreciate growing up that way because I feel like it really translated into my love for wildlife that I have now.”

Yohannes has served as Volunteer Programs Director at the WRC for one year. After interning for the WRC while studying at Bethel in 2010, she spent 2011 to 2013 on staff there rehabilitating birds. The most notable WRC resident during her time as an intern was a pileated woodpecker who had been hit by a car and suffered severe neurological trauma.

Every day, Yohannes walked into the red-paneled building across the street from Muriel Sahlin Arboretum worried that the woodpecker hadn’t made it through the night. Every day, he surprised her.

She fed him and cleaned his cage, and over the course of several weeks, she watched him regain his balance,

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relearn to forage for food and fly again. Although the woodpecker wasn’t able to navigate the air well enough to be released into the wild, he was placed in the Minnesota Zoo in an enclosure he could navigate freely.

WRC employees and volunteers refrain from naming wild creatures in an effort to not become overly attached or breach the line between wild and domestic. The zoo gave the pileated woodpecker a name, but Yohannes can’t quite recall what it is.

“That was the patient that made the biggest mark on my life, just seeing how he could turn around from really horrible circumstances,” Yohannes said. “We were able to give him a second shot at life.”

Although Yohannes loves all wildlife, birds hold a special place in her heart.

“I think the fact that birds can fly is incredibly special,” she said. “I think we’re all, as humans, a little bit jealous of that. We create superheroes who can fly, and I think everyone kind of envies that a little bit. The perspective on the world that they must get … is just incredible to me.”

Yohannes also finds the resilience of avian life inspiring. Black capped chickadees survive harsh Minnesota winters with nothing but the feathers on their wings, and Yohannes respects that.

Following her time at the WRC, she attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for a master’s degree in conservation biology. After a number of other environmental and animal-related jobs, Yohannes returned to the WRC last year. With no experience managing people, she took on a job where she was responsible for 30 interns and several hundred volunteers.

“WRC needed Brittney for this position,” Mammal Nursery Director Carly Portinen said. “She has been so beneficial to this organization and has helped bring organization to WRC. … It is so refreshing to work with someone who is so dedicated and devoted to their work.”

Together, Yohannes and Portinen spend their days bringing on volunteers and coordinating schedules for various moving parts of the WRC. The WRC is the busiest wildlife hospital in the world.

It started as a U of M student club in 1979 and has since grown into a massive flagship clinic taking in injured and orphaned wildlife. Staff and veterinary technicians give surgery and medications and the rehabilitation team prepares animals to be released back into the wild.

“It’s a really unique place,” Yohannes said. “Busiest in the entire world, which is pretty cool to claim.” At any given time, the hospital hosts a few thousand birds, squirrels, turtles, foxes, rabbits and other wild creatures in need of rehabilitation.

Overseeing about 600 volunteers during the peak of the season, Yohannes spends time getting them on board and plugged into a position that lines up with their goals and aspirations as a volunteer. She answers volunteers’ questions and serves as a sort of human resource for them.

“I just have such a passion for volunteers in Minnesota,” Yohannes said. “It’s really wonderful to work with people who are already motivated and excited. The minute that they walk through our door, they can’t wait to get to go work with animals, take care of them, even the dirty work of cleaning and feeding. Their attitude is what I love the most about working with them on a day to day basis, and it motivates me to look through my work [through] fresh eyes and get to see the really impactful aspects of what we get to do.”

As a Christian, Yohannes feels a deep responsibility to

L i l ly Li l l y wa s bro u g ht i nto th e Ani m a l H um a n e S o c i ety w i t h a l a rg e h ea d wo un d, p re su m a bl y fro m a c row at ta c k, a n d a do pte d by Yo h a nnes a f te r re h abi l i tati o n .

preserve the life around her.

“My faith really fuels why I’m interested in conservation in the first place,” she said. “This is God’s creation. It’s his artwork. It’s his masterpiece, and to see it trashed by people who … don’t have compassion is really heartbreaking to me.”

In addition to her role at the WRC, Yohannes has been a foster volunteer for the Animal Humane Society since 2015. In the last five years, she and her husband have fostered about 50 animals ranging from kittens to pregnant guinea pigs to birds.

A friend discovered a stray cockatiel behind the Harriet Alexander Nature Center, somehow having escaped its enclosure and in need of help. Taking her name from the place she was discovered, Harriet was handed over to Yohannes, who adopted her.

Lilly, also a cockatiel, came into the Animal Humane Society with a huge head wound and a damaged foot, likely having been attacked by a crow. Yohannes adopted her, too.

Chestnut the finch also came from the Animal Humane Society. He spends his time basking under a light placed over his cage. At one point, Yohannes owned four finches, two cockatiels and three chickens.

“There’s a whole world out there to explore and learn about, and we walk by it and through it every day and often don’t pay enough attention to it,” Yohannes said. “I really believe that people don’t want to take care of the environment if they don’t know about it.”

Her work in the conservation field has given Yohannes perspective on why it is important to care not only for avian life, but for all life: domestic animals, wildlife, people, the environment. She believes that conservation starts with curiosity and encourages people to explore the world around them with open minds.

In 2007, Yohannes heard and latched onto a particular

Har r iet S h e was found behi nd H a r ri et A l exander Nature Ce nter and adopted by Yo h a nnes. Har r i et ’s hobbi es i n c l u de eati ng mi l l et and steal i ng the war mth f rom Ch e stn ut ’s cage l i ght.

set of lyrics from Angels & Airwaves’ “Rite of Spring:” “Every day I wake / I tell myself a little harmless lie / The whole wide world is mine.”

“I really try to live every day like anything is possible, even though I know that’s not true,” Yohannes said. “I think when I choose to live that way, it makes me live more intentionally.”

In July 2020, Yohannes and her husband lost their one-year-old son, Judah, to a medical condition.

As For someone who knows life is precious, taking advantage of the time she has is important to Yohannes.

Without living intentionally and hopefully, Yohannes doesn’t think she would have taken the leap from intern to Volunteer Programs Director right out of college.

On a Friday afternoon, Yohannes walks through her living room and grins at her cat, Tucker, who has taken up residence in Sololiya’s baby cradle beside a pillow illustrating the anatomy of a cockatiel. Beside the cradle, Tucker’s sister Skye yawns with her paws stretched out in front of her. The two cats have been a part of Yohannes’ life since she was 16, when she was finally allowed to adopt her first pets from a shelter.

One room over, three birds wait for Yohannes to hold out her arm and offer the day’s food. Because of their owner, they don’t have to limp around the woods scrambling to escape predators or going hungry. Because of Yohannes, they are alive. They are happy. They are home.

Now, other people come to Yohannes with injured squirrels, heron chicks and rabbits in their arms, asking those same four words: “What can we do?”

This time, Yohannes has an answer.

“Bring them to the Wildlife Rehab Center.”

Des i gne d by Joy Sporlede r

C hest nut A brown S oc i ety Fi nc h adopted f rom the A ni mal Humane S oc i ety, Chestnut enjoys baski ng under hi s cage l i ght, unl ess Har r i et and Li l l y are bl oc ki ng i t, whi c h he f i nds r ude.

Tucker and Skye B iologica l siblin gs, th e se two cats we re a dopte d from a sh e lte r w h e n Yoh a n n e s wa s 16. Th ey we re h e r first pets a n d a re n ow 15 yea rs old.

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The line between beauty & suffering Eydie Shypulski teaches students in her social work classes to focus on beauty and justice.

By Ariel Dunleavy

E

ydie Shypulski stood on a street corner in Khartoum, Sudan. Hungry animals roamed around the city. People, usually men, without homes sat or lay on the ground. It was noon, the sun high in the sky and 120 degrees in the shade. It was common to see suffering on the streets in Khartoum. Where Shypulski stood she noticed a young woman laying on the ground.

The woman looked to be no older than 20 years old. A baby held in her arms. Above them was a window the size of a two-car garage door. It was full of gold — a gold backdrop, gold necklaces, gold urns, gold medallions and gold bracelets. People walked in and out of the store buying gold, not even glancing at the woman on the ground. As Shypulski looked at the woman she wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or dead. Most likely sleeping.

She hoped she was right.

To this day Shypulski considers this her “watershed moment.” Watching people walk past the suffering happening in front of their faces and doing nothing. She felt a divine light pour down on her in that moment and she knew that she needed to do something to help that woman and others like her.More than 30 years later Shypulski has worked in a shelter for people experiencing homelessness, helped provide blankets to the unhoused in the winter and now runs the social work program at Bethel University.

Growing up, Shypulski loved spending time outdoors in the forest, at a park or in a big empty field in the middle of Ottawa, Canada. She would walk around the forest admiring the natural beauty of the world around her, careful to not disrupt it. She would never pick flowers from the yard and was always saving the spiders in the house by bringing them back outside.

Shypulski was born in France and lived in various places as she was growing up. Her dad worked for the United Nations so their family relocated all over the world. By the

time Shypulski was 18 she had lived in Belgium, France, Canada and the Soviet Union.

After taking a poetry class at Asbury University Shypulski decided to get her undergraduate degree in English Literature. The class showed her the beauty and expression that literature held and how beauty and suffering are so closely intertwined.

Then came the woman in Khartoum.

Shypulski said she has always had a drive to protect and help and that is what she does.

“I just think it’s in my DNA,” Shypulski said.

Shypulski decided that she wanted to pursue a career in social work, so she went to Saint Louis a few years later to get her Master of Social Work degree (MSW.) In Saint Louis she worked at a homeless shelter where she saw people suffering up close. The people she met there didn’t have access to insurance or anything that could help stabilize them. Shypulski saw this cycle of systemic oppression against those who are unsheltered and saw God work through her and within those in the shelter. The shelter had an optional church program that led people to Christ. It helped to heal them of any addictions they may have battled and worked to bring them stability within their lives.

She saw Christ in her work patrolling the streets during the winter for people experiencing homelessness. She would provide blankets, soup, a bed to lay in and connect them with services that could give them resources.

“I wish I could do that for every single suffering person,” Shypulski said.

A mentor once told Shypulski that she can’t do everything herself, instead she needed to train others how to help.

“That’s a way to have an even greater impact,” Shypulski said. “I feel like that’s the art of what happens in social work classes.”

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Shypulski wants to bring her experience from her time in the field to her work in the classroom. She serves as chair of the Department of Social Work in Bethel University’s undergraduate college and is changing the work they do by making the masters program “justice focused.” She wants to equip Bethel students with the knowledge of how to take people who are suffering and move them towards hope.

One of the core values in social work is social justice.

Justice, however, is not at the center of what most social work education programs focus on. With justice at the center of everything that the Bethel MSW program does, it is unique compared to other MSW programs within the United States.

Shypulski is trying to teach her students how to work in social work without being a part of the problem, which she says are how social workers are often seen. She aims to teach students to listen to the stories of the people they work with and recognize the beauty among the suffering.

“There is a very thin line between beauty and suffering,” Shypulski said.

As she encourages her students to remember this when listening to the stories of the people they help. Shypulski said this will allow them to help restore hope in the lives of the people who have suffered.” “[She] sees the need for social workers in our society that are justice informed, so when we interact with any individual or community we are able to have deep context for the work that we do,” said Gracie Grussing, her former teaching assistant.

Grussing has experienced how Shypulski is able to integrate spirituality within her social work practices and encourages students to do the same. Just as she saw God work through the lives of the people in the homeless shelter in Saint Louis and how she felt God’s presence on that street corner in Khartoum.

“She nurtures students’ spiritual growth and helps them to see the beauty and dignity in each person they work with,” Grussing said.

Shypulski is working with students to deconstruct what they believe about social justice and why. With this new foundation students try to understand justice as God sees justice and to know the difference between social justice and biblical justice. So they are able to work with social justice in mind and help those who are suffering.

“It’s really important that as people of faith, especially social work practitioners, that we understand that we serve all people,” Shypulski said. “All of whom have been created in the image of God, and are deserving of human rights.”

Des i gne d by Arie l Dunleavy

Eydie Shypulski sits at her desk in her Lakeside Center office. | Photo by Ariel Dunleavy

“I just think it’s in my DNA.” - Eydie Shypulski, Bethel University Social Work Department Chair

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By Makenzi Johnson

Em p o wer me nt from ex A study abroad experience for Virginija Wilcox results in a job helping other students experience other countries as well.

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V

irginija Wilcox wanted to be grounded.

The girl next door couldn’t play one day because she had been grounded. Wilcox had never been grounded. She asked her mom why and her mom responded that it was never necessary. Wilcox was a good kid and her mom trusted her. This sense of trust her parents had in her and her brothers established personal responsibility, resilience and empowerment from a young age — traits that would impact her for her entire life.

Growing up in 1980s Lithuania under Soviet Union control, Wilcox saw strength and resilience all around her.

Like most families at the time, Wilcox’s parents struggled to make ends meet, often working multiple jobs such as growing vegetables to sell at the market, raising animals for slaughter or helping others with chores at a farm.

“They were taking it for what it is and making the best out of it,” Wilcox said. “No one was complaining, just doing what they had to do.”

When Lithuania gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Wilcox saw the difference in her new way of life. Families could go to church, new goods came into the market and the country slowly rebuilt itself.

“Everyone was really grateful that the country was independent and we could do our own things [now],” Wilcox said.

Wilcox has always had a force within her that told her to never give up, but didn’t know where that drive came from. Her 89-year-old grandmother, Aldona, is her greatest role model. Aldona’s toy as a child was a beet

xp e r i e n ce 23

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that she carved a face into. She used empty matchboxes to build structures. She survived multiple government occupations, a World War and drove a horse and carriage to the market to sell grain alone at eight years old — to Wilcox, she is the epitome of resilience.

“What she told me was shocking, but also very empowering, because then I understood a lot of things about myself,” Wilcox said.

Nearly seven years later,with the knowledge of where her own drive and strength comes from, she started her dream career. After a robust interview process and a job offer, the Wilcox family packed up and moved to Minnesota. Wilcox has worked in the Bethel University study abroad office as Associate Dean of International and off-campus programs since March of 2021 — her resilience and drive influencing her every day.

Wilcox studied at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania, earning her undergraduate degree in English philology and linguistics, studying the morphology and etymology of words and sentences.

She loved learning about it but didn’t know what she wanted to do with the degree. That changed one day when she was sitting in a large psychology lecture hall, overhearing some students talking about studying abroad. She was curious, immediately going to talk to the man in charge of the study abroad program to get more information. That day was the deadline to apply for all study abroad programs — she filled out an application on the spot.

“Of course I applied,” Wilcox said. “It was a competition. Only three people could go abroad, and I was selected. And I could choose where to go.”

There was only one program that went to the United States. Wilcox chose it immediately, head filled with visions from the movie “Home Alone” — big cities like New York City, Los Angeles and Miami.

“I had limited knowledge of the United States.

I’d never been there. I had no family there. I literally assumed the entire United States is these big citylike locations,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox arrived in Spearfish, South Dakota, in mid-January, temperature in the teens with 17 mph winds. This wasn’t Hollywood.

“It was a shock, a really different take. But after that initial shock, I really loved it,” Wilcox said.

She didn’t care that she wasn’t in a big city like New York or in 80-degree weather like Miami. She just loved the different educational experiences and opportunities. She loved it so much that she extended her stay by a year, meeting her now husband, Mark, during this time.

She and her husband married two years after

Wilcox first arrived in South Dakota. They debated going back to Europe while still in their undergraduate programs, but with his track and cross country schedule, it didn’t work out. She ended up transferring full-time and earned her undergraduate degree from Black Hills State University, soon starting work as an office assistant in the international office.

“Then things really lined up,” Wilcox said. “I felt something so strong, like it could be my calling, but I felt like I needed more time and practice to get there.”

She worked in the office for two years while her husband finished his degree, after which both of them applied and were accepted into the graduate program at University of South Dakota on the other side of the state, in the town of Vermillion, population 10,000. Wilcox studied English literature and teaching English literature to American students, but quickly realized that teaching wasn’t her calling — international education was. That was all it took for Wilcox.

“I never looked back. When I work in the field of international ed, I feel at home. I don't really count hours,” Wilcox said. “It's my thing.”

Wilcox and her husband stayed in South Dakota, raising their two daughters, Luka and Adria, and waited for a perfect job opportunity with study abroad and international studies to open up. If an opportunity opened up, Wilcox and her husband would follow it, as Wilcox’s career was more niche than her husband’s job as a physical therapist. One night, Wilcox checked Linkedin and saw that a job at Bethel University was recommended to her — it was perfect.

––– Nikki Kang, Assistant Director of the study abroad office, says Wilcox starting in March of 2021 helped them to get caught up with the various programs being canceled or halted due to COVID-19. “[Wilcox] has been the mastermind of our process,” Kang said. “We’re catching up, sending 100 students abroad over interim, 25 over spring semester. We went from zero to 100. It’s insane.”

The work Wilcox does at Bethel includes finding new study abroad partners for the university, evaluating existing partnerships between programs, visiting travel sites and discovering what a student’s experience will look like, where they will live and what the academic settings are like.

She believes her main responsibility is advocating for students, helping them overcome obstacles that could potentially hold them back from studying abroad. Some of these obstacles include financial aid, COVID restrictions and talking with parents

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who are hesitant sending a student abroad.

“She takes everything that she knows and she's experienced…which I think is vital because if you haven't studied abroad, it's hard to advocate for it,” Kang said. “She breaks through barriers.”

Wilcox has found a career that she loves, a passion for helping students to “get out of their bubble.” Her own study abroad experience was life-changing and she wishes every single student would have their own life changing experience.

Wilcox believes that it’s hard for high schoolers to answer when they get asked, “What do you want to be?” or “What do you want to study?”

“Unless you're one of the lucky ones who knows what they want to do at age four … Most of us need time to figure out what our calling is,” Wilcox said.

“It's hard to know that when you are surrounded by the noise of all these influences.”

Wilcox believes that noise – whether from parents, grandparents, friends, their hometown, or others – does not necessarily need to be followed.

“How can you know what your true, inner voice is telling you if you're surrounded by this,” Wilcox asked.

Wilcox argues that after high school, the first time students have freedom to be themselves is when and if they go abroad. She believes that there is no better time than a student’s undergraduate career to study abroad.

“No other time in your life will you be given a chance like this,” Wilcox said. “The experiences you get being part of a different cultural and academic setting, witnessing how academics are run in a different country, meeting students and hearing their perspectives … It’s so empowering and life-changing.”

She says students will make friends they stay in contact with for the majority of their life. She even found a husband. The impact of these connections and the different academic experience is everlasting, helping a student to find their voice and calling.

Wilcox's sister-in-law studied abroad in Spain more than 30 years ago and still stays in touch with the other students she was with, speaking fondly of the experience and country. Wilcox is confident that other students will feel that impact, too, in their own ways. “[Studying abroad] is the biggest gift you can give yourself or your parents can give you,” Wilcox said. “I'm already starting a savings account for my daughters … So they can go abroad, too.”

Wilcox won’t find herself being grounded any time soon.

De signed by Arie l Dunleavy

Wilcox, her husband, Mark, and their two daughters, Luka and Adria stand over the town of Vilnius, Lithuania, during a family trip in 2021. | Submitted

by Virginija Wilcox

For more on Wilcox’s journey, Check out this video

by Logan Murphy

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Shawn Moore, Pastor of Living Spirit Church in South Minneapolis, preaches to his congregation about the good news of the gospel, and racial reconciliation. |Photo by Vanna Contreras

The “Moses moment” Pastor and former law enforcement officer Shawn Moore spreads the message of racial reconciliation through South Minneapolis.

By Joy Sporleder

I

n a sm a l l p h i l o s o phy c l a ss at Beth e l Un i versi t y i n St . Paul , S h aw n M o o re wa s to l d h e sho u l d j o i n a s e m i n a r y. H i s pass i o n fo r Chr i st a n d fo r pe o pl e h a d bro u g ht h i m to this m o m e nt . Wi t hou t que sti o n , h e acce pte d.

His n ewest ca l l i n g wa s to m i n i str y.

As a B l a c k m a n rai s e d o n th e stre ets of Minnea p o l i s a n d a s a fo r m e r po l i ce of fi ce r, Mo o re see s b ot h si de s of th e ra c i a l te n s i o n that ex i st s b et wee n pe o pl e of co l o r a n d l aw enforce m e nt . H e ma de th e c h o i ce to us e h i s voice to sp ea k u p abo u t ra c i a l re co n c i l i ati o n i n his h o m e c i t y – a c i ty fi l l e d w i th ri ots , rubbe r b ullet s, tea r g a s, a l o ote d Ta rg et, a n d bur n e do ut ap a r t m ent co m pl exe s .

Grow i ng u p a ro u n d 3 6 th a n d Po r tl a n d, Mo o re ha s b e e n a p a r t of th e S o u th M i n n eapo lis co m m u ni t y fo r h i s w h o l e l i fe, h e h a s s e e n and ex p e r i en ce d rac i a l i n justi ce s i n ce h e was young . “ I d i d ex p er i en ce s o m e bad po l i c i n g i n th e fo rm of ra nd o m sto ps h e re a n d th e re,” M o o re said .

However, Mo o re was al s o ra i s e d w i th a ce rtain am o u nt of respe c t fo r l aw e n fo rce m e nt. “ I u n d ersto o d t h at i f I g ave th e po l i ce a

reason for a stop they woul d i ndeed do so,” M oore sai d.

He c hec ked hi s brake l i ghts and hi s headl i ghts, he came home as soon as the street l i ghts tur ned on and never stayed out past the c i ty ’s cur few for c hi l dren. Hi s tabs were al ways up to date, he never hung out wi th a bad c rowd af ter dar k. “ ...and even though I di d al l of these thi ngs, I was sti l l stopped, but I knew I wasn’t breaki ng any l aws that coul d get me ar rested, ” M oore sai d.

S c hool had never been of muc h i nterest to M oore. “ In hi gh sc hool , I needed to get out of my home. I needed to do somethi ng di f ferent,” M oore sai d.

The mi l i tar y prov i ded hi m wi th what he was l ooki ng for: an oppor tuni ty to l ear n a ski l l and “see the wor l d ”. He joi ned the Nav y.

He was stati oned out of Guam and wor ked as a secur i ty spec i al i st on the USS Hal eakal a.

He woul d spend 6 months i n Guam and spend the other 6 months of the year travel i ng f rom por t to por t. He travel ed to Chi na, Japan,

Hawaii, Th e Ph ilippin e s, a n d Austra lia on ce a year u ntil h e lef t.

Af te r four yea rs a broa d, Moore return e d f rom th e milita r y a n d be ga n workin g in se cur i ty at th e Ma ll of Ame rica . H e eve ntua lly became th e lea d tra in e r in h is de pa r tme nt a n d taught ove r 1 00 of fice rs in de -e sca lation a n d hands-on skills for seve n yea rs. At th at point, M oore de cide d to go ba ck to sch ool a n d get hi s associate’s de gre e in law e n force m e nt. H e became a cop a n d worke d in B rooklyn Ce nte r for th re e yea rs.

Fol l ow in g h is time in B rooklyn Ce nte r, M oore fe lt th at in spite of h is ca re e r, h e wanted to fur th e r h is e ducation . H e atte n de d Bethel Un ive rsity, w h e re h e pursue d h is love for pe ople a n d th e dif fe re nt th e ologie s th at they hold. “ I don’t pa r ticula rly h ave a love for th e ology, howeve r, I do h ave a Love for h ow dif fe re nt peopl e view th e ology. Wh ich sh a pe s h ow peopl e view th e world. I a m ve r y inte re ste d in how pe ople’s worldviews a re sh a pe d, be ca use of the ology,” Moore sa id.

Hi s profe ssor e n coura ge d h im to atte n d semi n a r y a n d pursue th at love to th e n ext

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Shawn’s travels with the military

Japan

China Hawaii

The Phillipians Guam Pastor Shawn Moore gives a sunday morning service to both his inperson congregation and also to his congregants watching via live stream. | Photo by Vanna Contreras

step. The t ra nsi t i o n f ro m l aw e n fo rce m e nt to p asto r wa s n ot d i f f i cul t fo r M o o re.

Th i s wa s w h at he ca l l s h i s “M o s e s M o m e nt.”

In t h e B i b l e, Mo s e s i s an I s rae l i te ra i s e d amon g Eg ypt i a ns. Wh e n th e ti m e cam e fo r so me o ne to te l l Ph a ra o h to l et th e I s rae l i te s g o, Mo ses wa s t h e o n e ca l l e d by G o d. H e was in a u ni q u e p o si t i on w h e re h e was re s pe c te d by the Eg ypt i a ns an d th e I s ra e l i te s e qu al l y. “ I ca n say, ‘ Not o n l y do I k n ow w h at yo u ’ve ex p er i en ce d . I ’ve d o n e w h at yo u ’ve do n e.

I’ve d o n e t h at j o b.’ S o I h ave a ce nte r stag e with t h o se t h at a re l aw e n fo rce m e nt,” M o o re said . “At t h e sa m e ti m e … I ’ve be e n l i v i n g i n Minnea p o l i s my w h o l e e nti re l i fe. I ’ve h a d bad ex p er i en ce s w i t h l aw e n fo rce m e nt of fi c i al s g row i ng u p. I have th at ex pe ri e n ce a l s o.”

Th e si m i l a r i t i e s b etwe e n l aw e n fo rce m e nt and p a sto ra l l ea d e rs h i p m a de th e tra n s i ti o n easy fo r Mo o re. B oth th e l aw a n d m i n i str y have to d o w i t h t h e k i n g do m of G o d a n d th e mora l i t y of Je su s. H e i n c l u de s rabbi s , m i n i sters a nd sen i o r p a sto rs i n h i s def i n i ti o n of l aw enforce rs. “ The 1 0 co m m a n dm e nts , th e cove n ant, thes e a re a l l r u l es an d re g ul ati o n s th at are sup p o sed to d i c tate o ur l i ve s s o th at we h ave

Australia better outcomes,” M oore sai d.

A s a pastor, M oore has fel t cal l ed to speak up on the topi c of rac i al reconc i l i ati on. He bel i eves that i t i s i mpor tant for ever yone to be on the same page on what rac i al reconc i l i ati on tr ul y i s before i t i s attempted. “ Rac i al reconc i l i ati on i s not goi ng bac k and f i xi ng the broken rel ati onshi p.” “ You can’t f i x somethi ng that has been broken f rom the begi nni ng,” M oore sai d.

M oore al so bel i eves that i t i s i mpor tant to real i ze that you shoul d not be apol ogi z i ng for the past but that ever yone i s responsi bl e for thei r ac ti ons.

M oore l ooks at rac i sm as a br i c k wal l between “you and me.” That wal l i s kept i n pl ace by systems, l aws and pol i c i es that are sti l l causi ng har m to peopl e of col or. M oore hopes to be a di smantl er of thi s wal l , even i f he can onl y take down a few br i c ks i n hi s l i feti me. “ You’re not goi ng to say, ‘ Hey, I’m sor r y for thi s system. That ’s al l sc rewed up.’ No. You go to the system and say, ‘ You can’t be here any more because you’re putti ng up a wal l between me and the person on the other si de, so I’m goi ng to deconstr uc t thi s bui l di ng,’ ” M oore sai d.

Accordin g to Moore, ra cia l re con ciliation is accomplish e d by de con structin g th e syste m s that a re e n a blin g ra cism . For h ea lthy re lation shi ps to grow, th e syste m s must ch a n ge.

Now th e lea d pa stor at Livin g Spirit Un ited M eth odist Ch urch in South Min n ea polis, M oore se r ve s a n d tea ch e s th e sa m e communi ty t h at h e wa s ra ise d in . H e be lieve s th at i t i s i mpor ta nt for h is con gre gation to be equi ppe d to se r ve th e com m un itie s th at th ey l i ve i n .

A s a pa stor, Moore is a ble to do exa ctly what h e wa nte d to do w h ile in law e n force ment. “ I wa s n eve r a pa r t of th e h ea lin g or closure of any of my ca se s. I wa s a lways a n a ctive agent of e n force me nt, n eve r a cata lyst for system ch a n ge. Th at ’s w hy I lef t,” M oore strive s to e n a ble h is con gre gation to not on ly pour into ea ch oth e r but a lso into themse lve s. He se e ks to e quip th e m w ith th e power of th e gospe l so th at th ey ca n grow person a lly w ith Ch rist a n d be e n a ble d to look outsi de th e ch urch a n d m a ke con n e ction s wi th p e ople n o m atte r w h e re th ey a re at.

Des i gned by Joy Sporlede r

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Seeing the invisible Northeast Minneapolis pastor serves her community by providing meals and shelter for homeless people in the area.

By Molly Wilson

P

a sto r B ec ky H an s o n wa l ke d i nto t h e re d b r i c k c hu rc h at 1 2 2 9 Lo g a n Ave n u e i n 2 01 9 and sta r ted c r y i n g .

Sh e t u r n e d to he r fe l l ow Hop e Aven u e b o a rd m e m b ers : Pa sto r Pa u l O l s e n , Rev. Kim Step hen s a n d H eath e r Carls o n. H e re’s h ow s h e be st reme m b e rs t he re st of th at co nversat i o n a n d th at day: “ Th i s i s i t ,” she sai d.

Ste p hen s fel t i t , to o. Th i s b uildi ng i s w h e re t h e n ew s helte r fo r H o p e Ave n ue wo ul d b e, t he nex t ste p to grow i ng t he ho m el e ss m i n istr y, w hi c h ha d b e e n wo r king exc l u si ve l y o u t of El i m Churc h i n No r t hea st M i n n e ap o li s u nt i l t h i s p o i nt.

Th en Ca r l so n saw th e dea d rat. “ Th e b at h ro o m s we re rea l l y g ro ss a nd I wa s wor ri e d i t was not u p to co d e,” Ca r l s o n said .

Bu t t h e b u i l d i n g s i ts i n th e m i ddl e of a l l the i ssu e s H o p e Ave n u e wants to co n f ro nt by creat i ng a sh e l te r. S o m eti m e s g a n g s h o oto u ts hap p e n t h e nex t st re et ove r a n d th e pe o pl e invol ved r u n t h ro u g h th e pro pe r ty.

Th e tea m co n si de rs i t, bu t ul ti m ate l y i t i s just to o ex p en si ve to re pai r a l l th e da m a g e and g et t h e b u i l d i n g u p to co de. Th ey l o o k at other, c hea p e r p rope r ti e s , but n o n e of th e m are t h e sa m e. No ne of th e m a re 1 2 2 9 Lo g an Ave. Ha n so n kn ew Go d wa s cal l i n g h e r to bui l d

a shel ter, but i t had to go on hol d for a whi l e so she coul d care for the exi sti ng mi ni str y at El i m Churc h. There she gets to c reate a pl ace f ul l of God ’s l ove and bel ongi ng ever y Saturday when they come to El i m for a f ree hot meal of breakfast bur r i tos and cof fee. S he asks ever yone before they l eave i f they got a new set of c l othes and a bagged l unc h. In the wi nter the bi g questi on i s “ Do you have gl oves, a jac ket, and boots? ” S he never l ets them l eave unti l al l the essenti al s are taken care of. “ We joke about oursel ves bei ng as ‘Cheers ’

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– a n old T V sh ow a bout pe ople h avin g a pla ce w h e re eve r yon e kn ew th e ir n a me,” H a n son sa id.

Wh e n th e Min n e sota w in te rs get pa r ticula rly ba d sh e ope n s a sh e lte r in th e ch urch gym . He r tea m sets up cots a n d a lon g ta ble for a ll th e treats ch urch m e mbe rs brin g in . N o a pple s or ca rrots th ough , sh e lea rn e d th at ea rly on w h e n a wom a n n a me d Lyn e lle N e rison looke d at h e r a n d sa id, “Pa stor B e cky, we don’t h ave te eth .”

Th is is a stor y a bout lea rn in g j ust be ca use a proble m se e ms invisible doe sn’t m ea n it ’s gon e. It ’s a bout a ccide n ta lly in spirin g a con gre gation to sta r t a n on -profit a n d a bout B e cky H a n son va luin g h e r moth e r ove r th e fa m ily se cret. It is a bout a roun d of a ppla use from me n sh e would h ave be e n sca re d of in 20 06, n ot liste n in g to h e r pa stor w h e n h e was w ron g a n d h e lpin g som e on e ch a n ge th e l oc ks .

Han son h a s be e n tea ch in g h e r th re e c hi l d re n a bout h ome le ss pe ople sin ce th ey were little. Sh e would ca rr y tube socks a n d food in h e r m in iva n , a n d w h e n eve r th e fa mily wou ld come a cross a h ome le ss pe rson th ey wou ld pull ove r a n d on e of th e ch ildre n wou ld h a n d th e m th e gif t.

In 2006, H a n son set out to give a se rm on on h ow h ome le ssn e ss wa s n ot a n issue w ith i n a mile of Elim Ch urch sat. Sh e took h e r

2006

Hanson and Elim Church starts Hope Ave after she gives as sermon about the issue of homelessness in Northeast Minneapolis. They go out and give away breakfasts on Sunday Mornings.

2007

Starts a Bible study and starts serving breakfast.

2007-08

After serving homeless people for two hours one Saturday Hanson sits with her team to talk through and changes that need to be made, the progress on the new shelter and how to help with some of the issues people who came have been facing. | Photo by Molly Wilson. s o n’s f r i e n d , Er i c k S ko g l u n d, w h o was a s e nior at St . Jo hn Un i ve rs i ty, w i th h e r to s h o ot a vid e o p rov i n g t h at th e re we re h o m e l e ss p eo p l e i n No r t h ea st M i n n ea po l i s . H a n s o n a n d Sko g l u n d wa l ked to Sa i nt A nth o ny Bo u l eva rd and fo u nd a row of 2 5 -fo ot eve rg re e n tre e s with p e o p l e sl ee p i n g un de rn eath th e ca n o pi e s whic h we re t h e l en g th of a co u c h . “ N ot hi ng a b o u t t h at day prove d m e ri g ht.

I saw h o m e l e ssn e ss upf ro nt. Pe o pl e we re i n d esp e rate nee d , co l d as i t was al ready N o vemb e r, h u ng r y,” Han s o n sai d. “ Th ey we re n’t ad d ic ted , j u st p e o pl e. I t rattl e d h ow I saw th e needy a n d to re d ow n my pre s uppo s i ti o n s .”

Th e n t h ey wa l ked Th e H i l l o n th e co r n e r of Was h i n g to n a n d D ow l i n g Ave N w h e re s h e encou nte red a m a n n a m e d Steve Eg g e rs g l u s .

He s h owed t hem h i s te nt h i dde n be h i n d a p rint i ng co m p a ny. Th e co m pany di dn’t k n ow he wa s t h e re. “ Steve a n d ever yo n e e l s e wante d to tal k to us . Th ey saw t hem s e l ve s as i nv i s i bl e,” H a n s o n said .

Sko g l a nd co m p i l e d a s i x- m i n u te v i de o of inter v i ews w i t h t he s e pe o pl e. “ I j u st l o o k at t h i s eve r y day a n d I wo n de r ‘d o th ey even ca re? ’” A m a n i n sweats h i r t, jacket a nd b r i g ht b l ue N ew Yo rk h at as k s . “A re they t r y i n g to ca re? Do th ey want to ca re? ” Th e sa m e m a n star ts c r y i n g an d says , “I ’m

f rom M emphi s, Tennessee. I came here wi th a constr uc ti on company. They went non- uni on and l et go of al l the peopl e. I’ve been stuc k here ever si nce.”

The enti re ti me Hanson has a comfor ti ng hand on hi s shoul der.

“God ’s here. He gave me sunshi ne today.

I was thanki ng hi m ear l i er for the beauti f ul war mth today,” a woman si tti ng i n the grass on cardboard and newspaper sai d. “ The sun i s good. It feel s wonder f ul and I thanked hi m for i t twi ce today.”

S he expl ai ned that she usual l y stays i n a c hurc h shel ter at ni ght and gets a meal there.

If she coul dn’t, she woul d sl eep under the cardboard she’s si tti ng on.

When the congregati on at El i m Churc h saw i t, they wanted to do somethi ng. “ It made me uncomfor tabl e,” Leadershi p Team Chai r Br i an Tur nqui st sai d.

In her ser mon, Hanson menti oned some of the common mi sconcepti ons and thoughts peopl e, i nc l udi ng hersel f, have when they see homel ess peopl e.

I don’t want to get i nvol ved.

It ’s too muc h of a commi tment.

I woul d l i ke to hel p thi s person, but I thi nk i f I gi ve them money they are just goi ng to buy al cohol wi th i t.

Hanson wasn’t setti ng out to make a mi ni s-

35 Baptisms

2011

Two men from gangs are baptized

2017

Pastor Paul Olson becomes lead pastor at Elim Church

2018

Create a shelter team to start shelters during extreme cold

2018

Hanson’s son moves to Washington DC and his house becomes a transitional home called Hope Homes

2019

250 people coming to breakfast weekly

2019

Hope Ave is moved from the 3rd floor to the basement and people stop coming

Feb 2020 May 2020

Open a temporary shelter during the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic with the church next door Strong Towers Parish

2021

Hope Ave is moved to Saturdays

2021

Hope Ave Twin Cities opens a shelter at 1229 Logan Ave.

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tr y sh e j u st wa nted to h i g h l i g ht a n i ss ue s h e and h e r fa m i l y were vag u e l y aware of. Th at week i n t h e i r sta f f m e eti n g th e pasto rs ta l ke d ab o u t t h e i ssu e a n d h ow th e i r co n g re g ati o n wante d to hel p.

A fel l ow p a sto r Joyce Po l ey l o o ke d at H an so n an d sa i d , “ Yo u preac h e d i t, yo u dea l w i th it.”

So, H a n so n sc h e du l e d a m e eti n g fo r th e cong re g at i o n to co m e to g eth e r an d tal k m o re ab o u t t h e i ssu e a n d w h at th ey co ul d do abo u t it. An d so t h ey sta r te d g o i n g o ut i nto th e comm u ni t y to h e l p by prov i di n g fo o d at Th e Hill. “ I wa s t he ver y b e st Jo n a h yo u co u l d imagi n e,” H a n so n sa i d, refe rr i n g to th e Bi bl e chara c te r.

Wh e n H a n so n wa s g row i n g up i n M a n ka to d u r i ng t he 1 9 6 0 s , h e r fam i l y ’s s etu p wa s typ ica l fo r t he t i m e an d i t wo rke d. H e r dad went to wo r k at Mi n n e s ota State Un i ve rs i ty, Mankato ever y d ay to tea c h Phys i c s a n d El e ctrical Eng i nee r i ng . H e r m o m staye d h o m e to clean a n d ra i se t h e i r s eve n k i ds . “ Th e ho u se wa s a l ways i m m a cul ate a n d ho me m a d e su p p e r wa s s e r ve d pro m ptl y at 5:3 0 p. m . ,” H a nso n sai d. “I do n’t k n ow th at she en j oye d i t . I t was w h at ‘wo m e n di d ’ i n th e 19 40 s- 6 0s. Sh e fou n d pur po s e i n car i n g fo r her fa m i l y.”

Ha nso n rem e m b e rs s i tti n g at th e ta bl e w i th her m o m . Sh e wo ul d dri n k a Ta b w h i l e h e r mom e n j oye d a cu p of cof fe e. Th ey al ways liked g o i ng to vi si t H an s o n’s g ran dpa, but when he d i e d h e r m o m sta r te d dri n k i n g .

Hanso n wa s i n ni nt h g ra de. Be ca us e of th e d rink i ng a nd t h e Ch arcot- M a r i e -To oth di s ea s e her m ot h e r wa s fa c i n g , H a n s o n sta r te d ta k i n g over h e r d u t i e s: ra i s i n g h e r yo un g e r broth e rs and c l ea ni ng .

CM T i s a d i sea se th at caus e s n e r ve e n di n g s to d i e i n t he feet , t h e fi n g e rs , th e n o s e an d othe r p a r t s of t he b o dy. Th e n e i g h bo rs k n ew why H a nso n’s m ot h e r h a d to be i n a w h e e l chair, b u t t hey d i d n’t k n ow abo u t th e a l co h o l ism. I t wa s t he fa m i l y s e c ret. N o o n e o uts i de of th e fa m i l y co u l d k n ow.

It wa s a n u nsp o ke n r u l e, bu t w h e n , at 1 7 years o l d , H a n so n cam e h o m e to f i n d h e r mom o n t h e f l o o r i n th e bath ro o m a f te r hittin g her hea d , sh e k n ew h ad to do s o m e thing to hel p w i t h t h e di s eas e h e r m oth e r wa s strug g l i n g w i t h. Sh e drove h e r m oth e r ove r to a reh a b fa c i l i t y so s h e co ul d detox .

In t h e p ro cess, sh e ex po s e d th e i r fam i l y secret her p a re nt s h a d s pe nt s o m u c h ti m e hid ing . When her d ad g ot h o m e an d fo un d o u t ab o u t w h at H a n so n di d, h e wa s f u r i o u s . H e told h e r she ha d to l eave h o m e a n d we nt to g et her m ot her f rom detox .

Hanson moved i n wi th some of the gi r l s who had graduated hi gh sc hool the year before and had an apar tment. “ I have greater compassi on for those wi th addi c ti on i ssues, and I’m not shoc ked by peopl e ‘ fal l i ng of f the wagon.’ But I am al so aware that there i s a way out, and that i s Jesus,” Hanson sai d. “ M y di vorce was a greater i nf l uence. Hope Avenue was bi r thed the wi nter af ter my di vorce. I ‘saw ’ peopl e who hur t. I drew near them out of thei r need…but mi ne too.”

In 2019, when Hanson founded the Hope Avenue shel ter, she knew that the env i ronment was goi ng to be Chr i sti an and safe. That meant no dr ugs, sexual advances or steal i ng.

The shel ter woul d al ways be a pl ace where homel ess peopl e coul d have the best ni ght ’s sl eep because they are not wor r i ed about any

“This is God’s calling. No questions and you’d better get on board. This is what’s going to happen.”

- Heather Carlson, former member of the shelter board of these probl ems shel ters usual l y have.

If somebody broke the r ul es, Hanson asked them to l eave. No questi ons asked.

In 2020, when that shel ter l asted for three months i nstead of a few days, she knew she needed some hel p. Hanson hi red M oni ca Ni el son to r un the shel ter. Ni el sen di dn’t have the same val ues as Hanson.

Her mai n focus was getti ng peopl e i n. S he di dn’t care about the dr ug exc hanges i n the bathrooms and the r umors of sexual abuse.

S he di dn’t care that no one coul d sl eep wel l for fear of thei r bel ongi ngs bei ng stol en.

Heather Car l son knew thi s had to stop. S he approac hed Hanson and they f i red Ni el son.

They l ef t to go tel l the peopl e stay i ng i n the gy m. When they di d, the men and women stood up and star ted c l appi ng. Hanson hadn’t met many of them yet. They were gl ad to have the safe shel ter they al ways requested bac k. A pl ace where they cannot be tempted by dr ugs, abused or stol en f rom.

Those deal i ng dr ugs, abusi ng and steal i ng ei ther stopped or l ef t. S ometi mes of thei r own accord. S ometi mes because Hanson tol d

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them to leave.

Whe n Ha n son told h e r pa stor at a ge 26 that God h a d ca lle d h e r to min istr y, h e told her th at, be ca use sh e’s a wom a n , h e r idea of enterin g min istr y e ith e r ca m e out of n ot truly bei ng save d or worse, sh e wa s liste n in g to Satan.

S he did n ot let th at stop h e r. “ I always kn ew th e day would com e th at I woul d go to se min a r y,” H a n son sa id.

In 1998, at a ge 4 8, Ha n son sta r te d at Bethel Se min a r y in St. Pa ul to get h e r Ma ster ’s of D ivin ity w ith a n e mph a sis in Pa stora l M i ni str y. Wh ile th e re, H a n son took a cla ss about th e wome n in th e B ible ta ught by Lin nea Win quist. “ By th e tim e th at cla ss wa s ove r I j ust fe lt l i ke I h a d be e n lie d to for yea rs – told th at wome n couldn’t do, wome n couldn’t be, women co uldn’t follow G od in th is way. It wa s j ust ear th-sh atte rin g,” H a n son sa id.

Jun a il Fre e ma n An de rson sta n ds outside El i m Ch urch in N ove mbe r 2021 at th e ta ble where brea kfa st is se r ve d. H a n son is be side her as th ey ta ke a look at th e locks th at ca m e f rom Ha n son’s son’s old h ouse th at wa s be in g used a s a h a lfway h om e until re ce ntly. Fre e man An de rson’s mom h a s be e n locke d out of her house by h e r da ughte r-in -law. H a n son is of fer in g n ew locks.

Whe n th ey rea lize n on e of th e locks th ey have a re dea dbolts, sh e a n d Ha n son m a ke a pl an: Mon day, th ey a re h ea de d to H ome D e pot. H ope Ave n ue w ill pay for it. All Fre e m a n A nderson n e e ds to do is se n d a picture of th e cur rent locks so th ey ca n get th e right kin d and f in d som e on e to in sta ll th e m . “ It is n ot th e skill set G od gave me, but if you ne e d to lea d some on e to Ch rist brin g them my way,” H a n son sa id In a 2021 me etin g w ith th e B oa rd of H ope Avenue, H a n son fe lt G od ca llin g h e r to follow a l ead for a ch urch th at wa nte d to ope n a shel te r. Sh e ca lle d th e ch urch a n d th e lea d pastor, Je sse Willia m s, picke d up th e ph on e.

He says h e n eve r usua lly doe s but G od wa s tel l i ng h im: Th is on e is impor ta nt.

Thi r ty min ute s late r th e tea m wa s at th e proper ty.

1229 Loga n Ave. “ S h e is some on e w h o wa s ca lle d by G od a n d i s l i ste n in g,” Ca rlson sa id. “G od told h e r sh e was goin g to do [th e sh e lte r] a n d it wa s ‘get out of th e way or j oin it.’”

Through disea se, sexism a n d ba d a dvice God h a s a lways provide d a path for Ha n son to fol l ow H is ca llin g.

Des i gne d by Joy Sporlede r

Participating with others to build the Beloved Community that Dr. King dreamed about. The mission of the Bethel FSU Partnership is to build and nurture an intentional, mutually beneficial, long-term relationship with stakeholders in the FSU neighborhoods and Bethel University.

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All in on American Sign Language Tiffany Moore teaches students to adapt to those different from them.

By Makenna Cook

Mahtomedi High School teacher Tiffany Moore stands in the front of her classroom in front of around 30 students during the sixth hour, the last hour of her high school day. | Photo by Makenna Cook

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A

s one of the Deaf teachers signed his high school algebra lesson to his seven students, Tiffany Moore shrunk into her chair. She watched from the back corner of a first hour math classroom on her first day of student teaching at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf. It was just math, but she felt like she barely understood the numbers.

‘Holy crap! I can’t handle this,’ Tiffany Moore thought to herself.

She hadn’t used American Sign Language in three months.

Throughout the school day Moore began to feel more comfortable with the language difference. In her last class, the teacher was a CODA, or Child of a Deaf Adult.

His signing used a structure closer to spoken English.

“I just melted into my chair, I was like, I understand 100% of what’s happening here,” Moore said.

Moore grew up being taught that if she was going to do something, she needed to go all in. Being immersed in an environment where she was the linguistic minority was her version of “all in”.

Moore grew up in the small town of Somerset, Wisconsin in a time where American Sign Language was rarely offered in schools.

After seven deaf babies had been born in the area, the district hired a deaf and hard of hearing teacher to work part time with those students and part time teaching American Sign Language. From the first class, Moore was hooked.

“It was just something that I was good at. Something I understood. It’s a way of communicating that I like. I knew that from the very beginning,” Moore said. “So while I didn’t say, ‘I’m going to do this for my life,’ it was always in the back of my mind.”

During January of her sophomore year at Augustana University, she returned to her district’s elementary school for her first practicum to work with the younger Deaf siblings that had recently started preschool. As Moore walked into the classroom of three four-year-old boys, the love and excitement from them is what she remembers most.

“Not very many people in their environment knew how to sign, so coming in as an outsider, but still knowing how to sign, was just so positive,” Moore said. “They loved having another person who signed, a big person who signed.”

That positive feeling is what she fell in love with. She has seen it play out repetitively throughout her whole career, whether it be thousands of families driving to Faribault, Minnesota to attend the Deaf schools homecoming football game or seeing the smile on her hearing students faces as they recall moments that they were able to communicate with Deaf customers while serving ice cream at a local ice cream shop.

Moore stood by the wooden door of her first floor classroom at Mahtomedi High School. Students sat in swivel chairs with desks attached to them as they chatted out loud with their peers. Moore flicked the light switch twice then clapped her hands together. The room fell silent. It was time for class.

Moore isn’t afraid of silence and she doesn’t let her students fall asleep in it. Flickering lights, clapping hands, and stomping feet on the floor are all just part of the routine. This routine has been Moore’s entire career.

Mahtomedi High School placed ‘American Sign Language 1’ in their registration booklet to get a number of how many students were interested. Over 100 students responded positively. They needed a teacher.

Moore had never considered teaching American Sign Language until Mahtomedi High School contacted her.

They knew she had a degree in Deaf/Hard of hearing

education and that she had been out of the workforce for a few years to raise her children. They wanted to start a Sign Language program.

After acquiring her ASL teaching license, Moore began at Mahtomedi High School in 2015 with four full class periods of American Sign Language 1 students.

“I would take my books home to study. Not because I didn’t know sign language, but because I didn’t know the why of it. In order to teach it, the why of it is very important.” Moore said.

Through teaching, she came to another realization – English teachers focus on the four aspects of language: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. ASL only has two of those, speaking/expressive and listening/receptive.

Even after teaching ASL for seven years Moore still spends hours on Pinterest and American Sign Language teacher support Facebook groups collecting and developing activities where her students can speak and listen.

“When you take away half the possibilities, you really have a lot of time to play with,” Moore said.

Activities range from describing articles of clothing

from the piles in the school theater costume closet to writing out their schedule for the week and communicating with one another to try and book an appointment.

“The program has grown over the years. When it first started, Mrs. Moore was not teaching it full time,” Mahtomedi High School counselor John Atkins said. “It has grown to include college level ASL coursework and college credit through MSU Mankato.”

Moore put in the work to build the program from four classes of American Sign Language 1 to six classrooms ranging from ASL 1 to ASL 5. By the end of the four year high school program, students have enough skills to fulfill college language requirements, and earn college credits during their time in high school. More importantly to Moore, they are able to adapt when they come across someone different than them.

“There’s a whole bunch of students who I know are going to remember ASL. They’re going to be able to list it as a special skill on their resume,” Moore said. “And perhaps at their place of business later in life, they’ll be the go to person who has just enough ASL skills that Deaf clients can be funnelled to them. I think that’s very valuable.”

But Moore knows that’s not the case for some of her students. Her goal teaching American Sign Language is not for every student to remember all of the vocabulary for the rest of their lives.

“My goal with my students is that when in life, they meet someone that they don’t expect, someone very different from them their mind stays flexible and they can absorb and handle and do what they can do.”

Her life experience in the Deaf community showed her that flexibility is what the hearing community needs the most. Teaching American Sign Language gives her the opportunity to be “all in” on making that change.

Des i g ned by Arie l Dunleavy

Check out this video for more information about Tiffany Moore. | Video by Makenna Cook

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Seeds of reparation Community activist Melvin Giles works to promote peace through his gardening and peace bubbles.

By Soroya Keiser

M

elvin Giles tells angry people to put their hands in dirt because the dirt can calm them down.

Washed away, shoveled away, thrown away dirt. Because dirt is Giles’ lifeblood. Without dirt Giles would not have tended his family garden as a child, growing collard greens and peppers and tomatoes until it became a hobby and not just a chore. Without dirt Giles would not have remained as connected with his neighbors whom he bugged until they would install a box garden in their backyards. Without dirt Giles would not have started the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance, bringing fresh fruits and vegetables to the Rondo community in St. Paul starved of green. Without dirt Giles would not have begun planting the seeds of reparation.

Giles and his family – mom, dad and three older brothers – moved to the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul, now known as the Frogtown and Summit-University neighborhoods, in the late ‘60s, just as Interstate 94 was being completed. At the time, I-94 wasn’t a sign of racial discrimination to Giles. It was a winter playground.

Vivian Mims, Giles’ long-time friend and neighbor, recalls sledding and playing “King of the Hill” on mounds of dirt covered in snow left on the highway to await the thaw that meant continued construction.

Every thaw also meant gardening. Giles’ dad, Reverend Robert Giles, was an avid gardener, and gardening was a requirement for the Giles sons. After Giles’ mom died when he was 12, gardening became father-son time, and Giles learned to love tending the shoots and weeding the rows.

Another neighborhood activity was always football.

Football on the blacktop of Wilson Junior High. Football

in the side yard. Football on Aurora Street. Football as a running back and defensive back for Central High School. Football. Football. Football. Sometimes Giles and his friends would pretend to be Alan Page, one of the Vikings’ defensive line of dirt-smeared “Purple People Eaters” who eventually became the first Black man to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Or Bobby Hayes of the Dallas Cowboys, a black man and the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Two people who showed Giles that success was possible for people who looked like him.

“For a Black kid, that meant something without even knowing that it meant something,” Giles said.

Driving through a Chicago suburb on the way home from a funeral with his brother Metric, Giles was stopped by the police and told that he and Metric looked like the suspects of a robbery. Soon six police cars were surrounding Giles’ blue Chevy Nova SS. Every piece of luggage was searched, but all the police found were the Giles’ dress clothes from the funeral. That didn’t stop the police from escorting the brothers to the convenience store they had supposedly robbed, searching their luggage once more and finally letting them go after the owner said it wasn’t them.

Driving with his brothers, Giles has been stopped countless times by the police. Oftentimes officers didn’t explain why.

Giles has lost count of the number of times a gun has been pointed at his face.

Giles started off college studying economics and history at Clark University in Atlanta, Georgia. — a breath of fresh air from St. Paul. Dubbed a “Chocolate City,” Giles became part of a Black community unlike any he had experienced before.

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Giles watches as urban gardeners pick beets at Live Organically. | Photo By Soraya Keiser

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Charles Ave. University Ave. Aurora Ave. Central Ave.

Lexington Ave.

Saint Anthony Ave.

Marshal Ave. Dayton Ave.

“The first thing on my mind wasn’t that I was Black,” Giles said.

Realizing that he was having too much fun and might not be able to graduate on time, Giles transferred to Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for his last two years. He switched his majors to community development and criminal justice, both of which he uses now.

If Atlanta were a breath of fresh air, Sioux Falls was the stuffiest room Giles had ever walked into.

A few months into his first semester, Giles sent some photos home to his dad. With the photos he wrote, “I’m using color film, but everything here is black and white.”

In an economics class Giles received an F on a paper where he argued that America used the slave trade to boost capitalism. He almost got expelled from the institution after sharing the idea that race plus abusive power equals racism in a sociology class.

One night three white men showed up at Giles’ apartment door and told him to get out of the neighborhood.

He was determined to make Sioux Falls a more welcoming place for people of color, so he didn’t stand down. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.

A few years later, Giles returned home when his dad got sick. Interested in community development, he got involved with Catholic Charities, which at the time had a Frogtown neighborhood location on the corner of

University and Dale. He took care of the family garden when his dad couldn’t.

Despite working for a charity, Giles was told by his Catholic Charities administrator to focus more on uplifting the community.

“He gave me instructions not to do charitable work,” Giles said. “He gave me instructions to do empowerment work.”

This means Giles doesn’t want to give vegetables to his neighbors — he wants them to actively participate in growing their own. He doesn’t want to show off the peace pole in his side yard — he wants people to have their own. He doesn’t want to blow bubbles to ease tense meetings — he wants people to blow their own.

Through his work at Catholic Charities, Giles got involved in the Bethel/Frogtown and Summit-University Community Partnership. He attends Partnership Advisory Committee meetings and currently works closely with Tanden Brekke, Assistant Director of Community Engagement at Bethel University. Giles not only has been the most consistent attendee of PAC meetings for the past 22 years, but he has constantly been inviting community members to attend and become involved.

“Melvin is that connector,” Brekke said. “On an ongoing basis he is a positive voice for the Partnership in the community.”

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Map of the community gardens in the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance.

He continues to be a community organizer through the Partnership and helped start the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance in 2014. Still the co-facilitator of the UFGA, Giles collaborates with community gardens and backyard box gardeners to promote reconciliation, peace and justice through the growing and sharing of food in the FSU communities.

This means Giles has hosted garlic plantings, peace celebrations and garden clean-up parties. He has toured organic farms, spoken in social work classes at Bethel University and worked with the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA to install a rainwater catchment system in the Aurora St. Anthony Peace Garden.

He also helped to garner support and funds to build a land bridge across I-94 — a project championed by ReConnect Rondo, a local organization. The vision is to have a large park built over the highway that allows the neighborhood to become one again. Many community members hope for the bridge to include greenhouses, a walking path and an outdoor theater. Giles also wants a lazy river in the land bridge.

“It will help people relax,” he said. “It will help people to breathe. It will help people just to be.”

Grounded in racial and environmental justice, he thinks the land bridge would heal the concrete scar

that cuts through Rondo and has displaced more than 500 homes and 300 businesses.

The work means moving a lot of dirt.

Giles mostly desires peace in his community. For him, peace comes in the form of bubbles. Of little balls of soap that shimmer in the light of an angry meeting. Of a hand reaching out to pop each one. Something that brings peoples’ attention away from their grievances and to the beauty of bubbles.

“I prefer bubbles instead of bullets,” Giles said.

Giles uses his bubbles when co-facilitating with Diane Dodge the Reconciliation Lunch Group, an open forum that meets monthly to discuss a variety of topics relevant to the community. When moments regarding the construction of the Light Rail, neighborhood politics, the murder of Philando Castile, I-94 or the murder of George Flloyd have gotten heated, he has stood up and started blowing bubbles into the air.

“It has helped break the tension for a moment,” Brekke

Me lvin G ile s h a s a Sa n kofa bird pa inte d on th e side of h is ga ra ge. Th e sym bol of th e Sa n kofa bird origin ate s from G h a n a a n d re min ds pe ople th at th ey must go ba ck to th e ir roots in orde r to m ove for wa rd.| Photo by Soraya Keiser

said. “Not to distract or avoid, but to loosen us all up to go back to the topic.”

Giles always has a bottle nearby for easy blowing. In his coat pocket, in his backpack, sometimes on a string around his neck. Giles’ bubbles have become his trademarked metaphor, so much so that he even leans into his nickname Peace Bubbles.

Peace is bubbles. Peace is community. Peace is dirt.

Giles knows the beauty of dirt and the things that come from it. He knows that if dirt can bring a grieving father and son together, it can bring a grieving community together. He knows that getting kids involved in community gardens helps them along the trajectory of a healthy lifestyle. He knows that green spaces can bring joy to a community ravaged by redlining and the creation of I-94. He knows that dirt is healing.

Des i g ned By: Joy Sp o rl ed er

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A BETHEL UNIVERSITY JOURNALISM PROJECT IN CONJUNCTION WITH BETHEL FSU

TO D O N AT E TO H U M A N S O LU T I O N S O R B E T H E L F S U PA RT N E R S H I P: E M A I L F S U @ B E T H E L . E D U