The theology for ministry discussed above is the base for what I do and learn in the real world doing community service. Being in community service is one of the most important responsibilities a human being can have. Community service means helping people, contributing to a specific community, making it better. This ultimately leads to improving people 's lives.
At the on campus service organization Underwings, I was able to make contact and do some community service at the Dolores Mission site. Underwings Praxis acts as a bridge between LMU students and Dolores Mission. The site that I have been participating is a facility established opposite to the Dolores Mission School on S Guess St. This is a small gathering place for old and ill people
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The Dolores mission site is one of the many sites in LA providing people with either disability or lacking social justice a home for them to participate and build upon. Even though it is a scarce and small community, the nuns as well as the participants really has done a good job to establish this community full of like-minded people who can help and encourage each other through the ravages of life. Holding the art class there has provided us with the opportunity to communicate with the people, share thoughts with them and everything. This reveals one of the core needs of the people at Dolores Mission: to communicate and be more understanding about their everyday problems. From the stories I heard and my personal experiences I had, particularly with Richard, I know that what the people at Dolores mission have to go through everyday is stress. According to Pamela Coper-White, “Suffering is the starting point of all pastoral and practical theology.” Suffering is defined as our inhalation and interpretation of pain, either physical or emotional. So it is really obvious that suffering is something vital to the developmental process of a human being. Stress is a state of emotional tension from very divergent and adverse circumstances. Stress is one of the main causes of suffering, especially in the modern world where there are a lot of factors (work, relationships, wars, lack of time, etc.) leading to stress. It then becomes a question at hand of how we cope with stress and suffering. Different people cope with this in different ways based on their understanding of the problem. Some want to solve it, some want to find its root. All in all, we do not want to turn away from our suffering, but we want to face it and cope