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July 15, 2004 Dear friends, Welcome to the latest edition of your favorite "monthly" reading, the Loewen-Meyer email update. Today we'll be bringing you up-to-the-minute news from... April. (Ok, so it's July. Sorry.) Since we last wrote, we've been to Akron, Pennsylvania twice for MCC trainings, first in April for our general orientation to MCC, and again at the end of June for leadership seminar. We just returned from the Oregon coast at a Hostetler family reunion -- tough life. Carl's grandparents were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, so we decided we couldn't miss it. The Oregon coast is quite lovely, but we're still loyal to the Washington beaches. (Yes, there really is a state called Washington. And no... Seattle is not in Oregon.) More than anything else, the Akron MCC trainings gave us a valuable chance to connect with MCC workers headed out to various parts of the world. Comparing notes and getting advice from seasoned MCCers helped broaden our perspective on our work in the Oglala Lakota Nation (OLN). (A shout out to all our orientation friends, from Kenya to the Philippines and points in between - welcome to our update list!) Connecting with other MCCers in leadership positions also accentuated a sense of isolation we've been feeling in our MCC work. We are the only US service unit in a Native community, the only service unit in our region, and the only service unit supervised directly by MCC US (other US service units are under regional MCCs). Since MCC no longer does annual meetings of US Program Coordinators, there aren't spaces set up for us to share experiences with MCC colleagues working with similar issues. Fortunately, there will be a series of meetings over the next year to help work out how the MCC structure can best support OLN unit work - this will be one of the questions we can bring to those meetings. We've had a number of you ask us to explain more clearly what it is that we do. Our official title is "program coordinators." Since there are no other service workers in the MCC OLN project, right now we're coordinating ourselves. We do a little bit of everything, including budgets, finances, paperwork, and other general administration for the unit; relationship building with partners; granting decisions; lots of listening and learning about the area's history and current situation, culture, and language; deciding if and when to request more service workers, write their job descriptions, and supervise them if the positions are filled; vision and direction setting for the unit; and generally using our skills to assist our partners where we can. We work with a variety of Lakota partner organizations in areas such as economic development, restorative justice, treaty rights and sovereignty, Lakota cultural restoration, the environment, etc. In general, MCC does not run programs -- there are already Lakota people taking leadership in the community, so we do what we can to support their work. Something that's been on our minds a lot lately is the question of how to be accountable to the Oglala Lakota community that we live and work in. As white people and as outsiders, it's extremely important that we consult with local people about what our work priorities should be and how we should be interacting with the community. Too many times white people have come into the community with answers and have done more harm than good -- we don't want to be a part of that pattern. But asking for advice is more complicated than it sounds. It's often hard to get direct opinions from people. It's also hard to figure out which voices to listen to and to know how much of the community they represent. We could certainly use thoughts, advice, and prayers in this area. Well, that's about the extent of what you're going to get out of our still vacationing brains. We've been doing our best to shift gears this morning. We haven't received any "dear Carlissa" questions from any of you yet, unless they were in good disguise. So if you have a good one, send it our way and we'll try to give it our best answer for the benefit of all of our faithful readers. A huge thank-you to everyone who continues to read our updates and think of us from time to time. We really need and appreciate all of your support! Love, Karissa & Carl
