"Brenda Salter McNeil: Seeking the heart of racial justice" -- Dec. 27, 2006

By Caleb Breakey
Urbana Today

A three-sided, beige balcony mounts the brick walls in Ander­son Chapel at North Park Univer­sity (NPU) in Chicago, Ill. Below, a wooden floor aisle divides two sections of blue chairs.

At the front of the chapel are two platforms. The more elevated stage consists of a piano, drum set, and space for a worship team. The stage beneath belongs to preach­ers and speakers, a spot where Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil delivered a message of racial and ethnic rec­onciliation on Nov. 15. She spoke from Jeremiah 1:5 and used an il­lustration from a Disney film, The Lion King.

NPU freshman Rosa Baez couldn’t see any parallels between the message and the movie at first, but by the closing prayer, McNeil cleared all confusion.

“Like Simba and Jeremiah, there are times where we feel too young and ill-equipped for [God’s calling for us] - we run from it,” McNeil said.

Baez said she got the mes­sage, naming Simba’s gradual ac­ceptance of his role as king. “As young people, we have something to do on this earth,” Baez said. “We have a destiny to fulfill.”

McNeil is the director of Salter McNeil & Associates, a company which provides training, consult­ing, and leadership development in racial and ethnic reconciliation. She lives in Chicago with her two children and husband Derek, a graduate professor of psychology at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Salter McNeil & Associates works in three steps during its ministry at schools, organiza­tions, or churches, McNeil said: develop a Biblical vision, assess racial and ethnic strengths and weaknesses, and train between 10 and 12 people as part of a recon­ciliation team.

LaMorris J. Crawford is one of those persons trained. He recently graduated from Olivet Nazarene University, where he served as president of the Multi-Ethnic Relation Committee and is now employed by ONU as an associate director of transfer admissions. Crawford stays in touch with Mc­Neil, who left a lasting impression on him.

“I have never met my biologi­cal mother, and Dr. Brenda has be­come that to me,” Crawford said. “God has put her in my life for a reason, and I am blessed to call her ‘mom.’ Not only is she a dynamic speaker, but she is an example of love walking on earth.”

The training Crawford re­ceived from Salter McNeil & As­sociates makes him capable of de­veloping policies and procedures that change his campus’ climate, said McNeil, who will speak dur­ing the Dec. 28 evening plenary session at Urbana 06.

One reconciliation team is researching and working toward implementing an intercultural competent credit requirement. Just as Christian universities require chapel credits to de­velop its students’ faith, an intercultural compe­tent credit would help students of different cultures and races to mesh, McNeil said.

A wedding McNeil attended last week ex­emplifies her mission of reconciliation. An Afri­can American woman from Chicago, who never con­sidered interracial mar­riage before hearing Mc­Neil speak, married a white man from Minnesota. The couple met at a pri­marily Ko­rean church.

“I’m seeing people make life decisions - who they marry, where they go to church,” McNeil said.

“The gospel of reconciliation that we’ve been instructed with is be­ing evidenced in the way people are living their lives.”

Susie Becker, who first heard McNeil speak as a sophomore in college 10 years ago, said McNeil shaped her commitment to recon­ciliation.

“Her faith in God and her love for God’s people is inspiring,” Becker said. “She speaks the truth in love and always brings people into a place where they are open to God directing and leading them.”

McNeil believes a lack of racial and ethnic reconciliation hinders evangelism because the world has become more globally diverse. She noted how McDonalds works glob­ally, opening stores in the Middle East, Europe, Australia and sev­eral other locations outside of the United States.

“If we say that we’re supposed to be the light of the world, but McDonalds is ahead of us, then I think our message is in question,” McNeil said. “You make Jesus look bad, that’s the translation.”

She said the generation at Urbana 06 is called to the nations and to global reconciliation.

“They have to be careful not to run away from that,” McNeil said. “Hakuna Matata.”

"Health center provides emergency care" -- Dec. 29, 2006

By Caleb Breakey
Urbana Today

Brenda Lewis wasn’t ready for work. She had barely gotten out of bed. The telephone was ringing, and after she picked it up on Wednesday morning, she couldn’t put it down. It buzzed every two or three minutes with injury and health questions — a broken elbow, two sprained ankles, a jammed finger, flu symptoms, eye problems and a severe sore throat.

Lewis, 46, works as an ER nurse in Madison, Wis., and is the director of the Health and Wellness Center at Urbana 06. The Center — staffed by three volunteer physicians, a physician assistant, nurses and drivers — is located on the second floor in the Renaissance St. Louis Suites next to the America’s Center off of Washington Avenue.

Eye infections and the flu mark the most common cases that the center has treated so far, Lewis said. As of noon Thursday, the Center’s staff had treated 41 patients since the beginning of Urbana 06.

The Center’s doctors can write prescriptions, which are subsequently picked up at a pharmacy in St. Louis and brought back to the Center within two to three hours, Lewis said. The center also uses a medical van to take people to the ER if needed, such as when an Urbana 06 delegate broke his elbow this week.

“We’re kind of an extension of mom and dad,” Lewis said. “If you were at home, somebody close would take you to the ER.”

Suzie Jung slouched in a green chair at the center on Thursday, resting her head against one of its hefty, padded armrests. Jung, 24, had brought her roommate, Uc Le, to the center because Le woke up feeling ill.

The two met on Wednesday and are staying at Hyatt Regency with three other roommates. Their group didn’t switch the lights off in their room until 2:30 a.m. because they were planning which sessions they would attend today, Jung said.

They woke up at 7:30 a.m., and Le felt too groggy and nasally to walk to the breakfast room. Their room is often open to a connected room of Urbana 06 delegates, of which two have become sick, Jung said.

“Eventually, I feel it will spread,” she said. “Our whole floor might get sick.”

Even so, illnesses aren’t just sprouting from local viruses, said volunteer physician Richard Schamp.

“It’s not that things are going around, it’s that people brought it with them,” he said.

The flu, which lasts between 48 and 72 hours, can spread fast, Lewis said. The pharmacy that the center originally contracted with received more than 200 prescription orders within two hours on Wednesday, and relayed to the Center that prescriptions would be pushed back up to 24 hours, Lewis said. The Center contracted with another pharmacy soon thereafter.

Le, who left the Center with medicine, said she doesn’t plan to sit out any events at Urbana 06.

“That’s why I went to the doctor today,” she said. “I want to go to all the sessions.”

Hand sanitizers and handwashing are the most effective germ-attackers, Lewis said. She suggested that Urbana delicates wash their hands eight times per day. One of the reasons people get sick is from pushing themselves too much, Lewis said, depriving themselves of food, liquids, and sleep.

“If you try to drink from a big hose that’s pouring out fast, it can hurt you,” she said. “If you try to take everything in every moment of the day, and not get your sleep, and not hydrate yourself, that will harm you physically and could go into the spiritual, emotional and everything like that.”