At 11 we left the rain and cold of New York City and started to travel to Gordon College in Massachusetts. We arrived in MA and had a community dinner at a local church, where we ate, sang and worshiped. This was a very interesting place to be, as the town that we were in was Salem. Thats right, the Salem. Oubviousally the name has been changed, but being in a place that had so much history was both amazing and eerie, for some reason. My friend Neil met me at the church and drove down (up?) to Cambridge and ate, it was really good to see a familiar face. The next day, we drove to Harvard and ate with Congressmen Michael Huffington. We drove back to the hotel and at 2 we headed over to Gordon. We ate dinner with students and faculty and talked for quite a while with them. I had the schools Chaplin and the President of the student body, which was really good. It was good to be able to hear the Chaplin’s point of view on this issue and what she does when she has Queer students come to her. She is a very open person and that is a really good resource for the students. I also spoke to the student body president quite a bit and from this I found out about an amazing publication that is being distributed on campus, called “If I told you” and it is a zine containing the stories of Queer students on Gordon campus. He was talking about it and said that he was able to read it and it really changed the way be viewed the issue on his campus. It is one thing to hear people’s stories, but hearing stories from people and places you are familiar with, is very much different. I am very excited for this zine to be distributed on campus, I think it will change a lot of people’s views on the issue and open up their minds.
After dinner, we had a panel discussion in the chapel, which drew a huge crowd, something around 500 people. The Loving Like Jesus group did their presentation and the school had its chance to respond. Then we had a Q and A and a lot of great questions were asked, which I think were addressed very well. At the end of the presentation, I started to talk to one of the students who is publishing the zine and we ended up talking for about an hour. We talked so long that when we were done, everyone had already left the chapel and neither of us had noticed. We had an amazing conversation about Gender, Gender Identity, Feminism in the Gay rights movement, Feminism in general and a lot of other really amazing topics that I do not get to speak about very often. We left the school around 11 that night and were back on campus the next day at 8.
The spiritual violence group did their presentation to a packed dining area and then the school had its response. The responder was absolutely amazing and I think that he had a lot of really amazing things to say. I don’t think we have ever had such a wonderful response and I doubt we will ever have one this good. After this, the group split up and went to various places: one group spoke to the faculty about a safe spaces program at school, one group talked about neuro science and Queer issues, one group went to a Christian leadership class, one group to a sociology class and the last group spoke with the Student Government Association. The riders left over stayed in the eating area to talk to students, which is what I was a part of. From what I hear, all the groups had good conversations in the classes. We stayed in the eating area all day and all ate lunch and eventually left the school around 2.
Overall, it was another amazing day on campus. From what I have experienced and from what everyone else has said, this school seems to be one of the most responsive schools we have been to.
As usual, photos cam be found here.
Love,
Adam.