Shmackin' and choppin'

Tonight Wes, David, and I had a pretty cool walk around some of the neighborhoods of Lancaster city. Wes asked us if we wanted to take a walk because he had a lot on his mind and he wanted to think and pray. I asked if we wanted to walk downtown and Wes said he didn't really want to talk to people too much, so we just started walking along with no real destination in mind, saying hello or "how you doing" to people sitting on their porches as we passed by.

We said hello to a couple of guys sitting on their porch, both white, one older and one younger, and they said something we couldn't hear. So I hung back to hear what they said.
"How you doing?"
"We need more whites around here," says the older man.
"We'll protect you," the younger man encouraged us.
"OK."
They were far away and it was tough to hear so we all smiled at them and walked away, not immediately realizing what they had actually said. It was shocking to hear such blatant prejudiced comments from a couple of strangers. But God had more to teach us on that walk. Race was definitely a theme.

We walked by a group of 5 or 6 young black boys, about 12 years old, fixing a bike. We said hi to them, which is what we do to just about everyone we see in the city and they said hi back.
"Are y'all church people?"
"What was that?"
"Are you church people? Are you with a church?"
"Well, we do go to church."
"Oh, OK. 'Cause a lot of church people come around here and ask us to come to their churches."
"Oh. Well, we're not doing that. Do you go to church?"
"Yeah, I go to the one over here."
"What are the church people like? Are they nice about it or mean?"
"Well, it's kinda annoying. I mean I can't go to all their churches. One time a black lady come over and asked us to go church, and she came early in the morning. Why would one black person come over to another black person early in the morning?"
"Well, why is that different from a white person?"
"Well, she woke me up. You just don't do that to another black person."
"Man you're not makin sense." said one of his friends.
"All right." said Wally (pronounced Wal-LEE), the oldest kid, who was fixing the bike.
We talked to them for about 20 minutes, talking about girls, bikes, drugs, and college.

After we left Wally's porch, we walked past a school I recognized. We had walked that way before on our way to the house of a Bhutanese refugee to teach English (my day job is teaching English to refugees). So we decided to stop by the Dig-It Project to visit Saheeb, a 65-year old black man we who runs a garden where he employs teenagers and provides food for the elderly.

He invited us in right away when he saw us and gave us some fresh cantaloupe. There were about 5 or 6 young black boys there, aging from about 10-13. Saheeb seemed to be teaching them. He was telling them stories about black history, giving them advice about the dangers of "choppin," ('choppin' basically means putting your friends down), and teaching them manners and responsibility. After we had been there for about 10 minutes, we saw a few more kids walking up. It was none other than Wally and his friends. Then Saheeb gave us some cake, which was "shmackin'!" according to one of the kids there, named Deonis. Finally, Saheeb got out a few drums and he and 2 or 3 other boys played a drum circle as Saheeb directed them. I was amazed by the way he was able to connect to the kids and teach them good values.

We had gone for a walk and had planned to just walk around and not talk to anyone, but God had a different agenda.