Creator God is still at it

Isaiah Manuscript

Yesterday morning, our final Sabbath together, Gretchen led us in a fabulous study of Isaiah 65.
God has some strong words in response to the people's charge of being distant and absent, but then he says,

"I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating."

Present and future tense are used - is this happening now or later? What do we make of this? As a group, we wrestle with how things have not been made right yet, shalom is not fully here (see Kira's post below to see the heavy things we're encountering). And yet God is clearly saying he has already started his restoration project.

"Where have we seen God creating new things this summer?" Gretchen asks. And we quickly note the following things:

• New hope for relationships as they were meant to be
• A church friend's testimony of finding God in prison and living a new life now
• Testimonies of several pastors who had been drug addicts but are now our role models
• More joy, peace, and new thoughts in us
• God literally provided food, good food for us, in a week when we had to pay a car-towing fee of $250
• New attitude of a homeless woman toward her kids (from calling them "cheat" and "snitch" to being able to express love and care)
• Basically every day at the service sites - Water Street Ministries, Arbor Place teen center, Church World Service, and Transitional Living Center
• Forgiveness after deep times of lamenting sin (ours and the world's)
  
• Vulnerability and accountability developed on our team through doing conflict with each other
  
• New eyes to see the reality around us - brokenness and beauty
• New global perspective as we learned from refugees and our urban neighbors
• New boldness and experiences that give us confidence - especially as we learned from In the Light Ministries, the church we attended
  
• God breaking out of the boxes we've had him in
  
• New closeness with God in prayer
  

We were getting excited about God's new, creative work breaking into our world! But cynicism and despair are not far behind - some recovering addicts will relapse, heartbreaking things will still happen, and we will go home and forget some of things we've seen and learned this summer.

God, help us hold on to your words as we live in the tension of "now but not yet fully." You are not done with us or this world; teach us the ways of real, deep HOPE for the rest of our days.

Sin So Heavy

I walked into Arbor Place Thursday to see Pastor Wayne standing in front of all the teens, preaching. They're all sitting quiet, as they do when Wayne speaks.

Okay, normal day. I sit down on the floor in the tiny, crowded room. Wayne says 'good morning' and continues preachin' it. Kind of funny to me. Hearin' Wayne preach it has come to be a commonplace experience for me by now, the last week of my internship.

I start to sense a heavy vibe. Wayne is speaking passionately. He mentions time spent ministering to the mother and sister of a young man who passed the night before. Earlier that morning I had heard news that a young man had been shot five times and killed in the street right around the corner from where we live. I quickly connect the dot that Wayne personally knew this young man's family. He used to go to The Mix at Arbor Place when he was a teen. He's now 22 and dead.
Wayne's voice is louder than usual, and emotional. He calls out names. And points to a particular teen in the room. He says, "this could be you. Deonte,* this could be you in a few years. And at the rate you're going at, I wouldn't be surprised if it was."
He then mentioned one of our teens in the program who hadn't showed up the last few days. No one knew where he was. The teen's phone doesn't work and he lives a good distance from the center. So, Wayne told us what he had learned that morning. He had learned that the young man was in jail.

My heart snapped.

I was heart-broken because this was so unwonted of Maleek.* He was our most promising teen at Arbor Place. Maleek participated in Bible studies, he volunteered to pray, he worked hard and he never complained. Maleek's also really intelligent and honest. Almost everyday on the walk home, Andrew, David and I would comment on how cool Maleek is.
Wayne continued, "And for some of y'all, I'm fighting for y'alls lives. God has put me here to save you from the hood. Because I know the hood can mess with you. It can mess with your head. Make you feel like you're nothing." And he went on to describe how people will do whatever they can to feel like something. To feel anything. And how he didn't want the young women in the room becoming baby mamas and the young men going to jail or getting killed.
Because that's what happens! For suburban me, I thought this stuff was far-off in the land of Jay-Z and Eminem. Sure, it's real. But really real?

Wayne's words keep ringing in my ears. "I'm trying to save y'alls lives...From the hood... And I lost two of y'all today. TWO of ya! I feel like a failure."

The passion, the hurt I heard in Wayne's voice hit home.

It brought me back to the locker room. Hearing my high school basketball coach yell at the team-though sometimes, it sounded more like a cry. And it hurt us all, because we knew we were letting him down. He poured his all into coaching us. He believed in us. He knew our skills. He knew our potential. But sometimes we didn't. We would hustle really hard on the court and dive on the floor for balls, but there was something lacking. Something internal. Lack of confidence or belief in ourselves. And my coach just didn't understand it. Again and again, I remember him asking the painful question, "What? Are you Afraid of Being Good?"
"NO! Of course not!" My mind would cry.
So what held me back? What's holding these inner city teens back?

I still struggle with understanding what within myself kept me from reaching my full potential on the basketball court. But I don't play basketball much anymore, so I have the privilege of avoiding my problems if I want to.

For young people raised in the hood, they don't have that privilege. And this is no game. This is real life.

I know that if Maleek grew up in my household and in my neighborhood, he wouldn't have these issues. And he certainly would not be in jail.

Where would I be right now if I were born into his circumstances?

10 Random Highlights

There are just 8 days of Sidewalks left!  Whaaat?  I thought I would share with you 10 random highlights from the summer. Stay tuned to the blog as many of us will be posting reflections over the next week!

10. Cooking SPAM! Somehow we ended up with a couple cans of SPAM in our house, and a few of us have indulged. No parents and friends, this is not a passive call for you to overnight mail food to us. :)  Pictured above: Michael

9. Sharing our blogs with each other.  While this blog has served as a fun way to translate and share our experience with friends and family, it has also been a way for us to share our stories and reflections with each other.  Once or twice a week, each blog author reads their recent post (and comments too!) to the group!

8. A burning truck on the block!  During one of our house discussions one night, we looked out the window to see a truck fully engulfed in flames!  Turns out some neighborhood kids set off a firework that went in the truck and burned it up!  YIKES!  Worst part of the story is that the police did nothing to press charges against the kids.  Hopefully the insurance companies will do the job.

7. Ultimate frisbee on our Sabbath! Our weekly sabbath has been a chance for us to stop and remember who God is and how He has been at work this past week.  We study Isaish, take time to reflect, worship musically together, call family and friends, AND play sports!  Here is Emmy preparing for our weekly game.

6. Picnic in the park!  Back on the 4th of July, we decided to take our dinner food and grub it up in the park!  Some folks in our house invited a few homeless friends.  The evening ended with a rousing game of kickball.  Check out Nick about to peg Elle with the ball.  Haha.

(Not sure what is going on here)

Post game sportsmanship is a value in our community.  :)

5. Cooking together!  The recipes and food we've had recently have been straight up ridiculous.  Cuisines we have enjoyed include (but are not limited to) Indian, Peruvian, Ethiopian, Pennsylvania Dutch, French, Filipino, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, and coming tonight: Egyptian!  We are in the process of making a Sidewalks recipe book with some of our best creations!  Pictured above L to R: John, Caroline, John again, Elle.

4. Sending and Receiving mail!!!!!!!!!!  A daily excitement has been communicating with loved ones via snail mail.  Our record of letters SENT in one day is pictured above (final total was around 31).  If we are here when the mail arrives, we swarm it like vultures (below)!  This IS a not so passive request for more snail mail ;)

3. Playing Pandemic!  Although Emmy blogged about games a while ago, one more recent addition to the hit games in the house is called Pandemic!  The game is both nerderrific and collaborative. In other words, the key difference in the game is that we must work together, depend on each other, and communicate effectively as we play against the game itself.

Here are just some of the super cool people who play this game. (L to R: Wes, David, Danny, Celeste, Jamie)

2. Exploring Lancaster together!  Each week, we take time to meet neighbors and explore the city together.  Here John & Celeste are checking out a mural.  Recent explorations have led us to local public pianos, the county pool, a local organic / fair trade grocery store, the library, and some delicious wild raspberries growing in the park!

1. POTTER!!!  This crazy dog is our 17th housemate.  He keeps it interesting around here.  Just today, Potter sent us all a message that he does NOT enjoy being left at home alone.  He chose to eat a bunch of bagels and store 2 bag fulls of them in stashes all over the house.  Then he left us a chocolate deposit on the living room floor.  New house rule: food must be stored above 36 inches off the ground at all times.  Thanks Potter.

 

Lessons Learned

For the past 4 weeks, I've interned at Arbor Place teen center, a God-loving organization dedicated to ministering to Southeast Lancaster's inner-city youth. I've been blessed by the faithfulness of Arbor Place's staff: Wayne, Pieter, Mallissa, and Dexter. They're incredibly welcoming and caring and all about being Jesus to their neighborhood and everyone who Arbor Place impacts. Me and my fellow Sidewalkers, Andrew and Kira, spent the first week of our internship planning a 5-week youth training program called "Gangs to God." The rest of our time has been staffing the program: going on prayer walks, leading devotionals, teaching lessons (money, self-esteem, etiquette, college), and doing fun stuff (rollerskating, swimming, going to Chocolate World). It's been awesome and challenging -- ask me about it; I have lots of stories.

Some things I've learned:

1. Go with the flow. And when I say flow, I mean Holy Spirit. Coming into my internship, I was all about preparation. So much so that I printed out the rules of basketball because I thought I'd be reffing their summer basketball league. Yikes. Leaving my internship, I'm all about flexibility. Whether it's leading devotionals without any preparation or eating lunch at 2pm or planning a sex talk that should've started 30 minutes prior, I have been stretched. I've learned (from Wayne's example) to trust that when I open my mouth to talk about God, the Spirit will do his thing. Praise God.
2. People are more than they seem. Looking at teens I work with, I don't know their story, their home life, whether they live with both parents, one parent, a sibling. I don't know how the inner-city has affected them; if they have a police record, do drugs, are sexually active...or if they're a straight-A student who's squeaky clean. From what the staff tell me, we have teens from both extremes. Most importantly, I don't know any of the baggage and brokenness from which they come from. When meeting someone new, assumptions go out the window.
3. I can dougie. And I can also teach you how to dougie. After laughing at me, the teens affirmed my dougie as legitimate and worthy of showing me off to their friends. Oh, the life of a white boy in the city...

Praise God for stretching us, challenging us, and teaching us!

BONUS PICTURE added on 7/13:

Beep..... beep...... beep..... BOOOOOOM

Literally every 30 seconds since I have arrived in Lancaster almost a month ago, a smoke alarm within earshot (whose whereabouts are frustratingly unknown) sends out a tiny chirp indicating that its batteries are low.  I hear it in the middle of group conversations, evening house prayer, as I lay my head down on the pillow at night, and if I listen carefully on the front porch, I can even pick up 2 or 3 other more distant beeping alarms.

While I would love to march over to the neighbors' house with few new 9-volt batteries as 'gifts', this constant beeping has actually started to get me thinking.  Where Gretchen and I live normally in Reading, PA, you don't hear much from our neighbors.... ever.  There is more distance between the houses, and neighbors even take pride in the fact that our street 'keeps to themselves'.  After 10pm, many if not all the other houses are dark, which makes us 20somethings-that-work-with-college-folk feel like late night party animals.

However, here on East End Ave, there are many different sounds.  Beeping alarms, loud music, early morning neighbors on the street, humming mufflers, and most recently TONS of late night fireworks.  Most of these sounds have felt like an interesting nuisance at first, but lately have grown into a painful annoyance.

During one of the past few nights, I was having trouble falling asleep in between the thunderous fireworks on the street corner and actually thought, 'no wonder people choose to move out of the city.  It's quieter, and you don't have to put up with all these OTHER PEOPLE'.......wooooooah there cowboy.......  time out.....  Didn't I come here for the sake of learning about God from these same 'other people'?  Where is God in super-loud-muffler-drag-racing moments?  Am I not here to serve students and the people of Lancaster?  How quickly I am able to become disgruntled towards those around me!  Upon further reflection, and a few precious hours of sleep, I can soberly realize how easy it is for me to lose sight of God. 

I do believe that the fingerprint of God is present in some way in every single person and culture represented on East End, and His presence is even more constant than low battery smoke detector chirps.  Help my unbelief God!

In fact, if I am paying attention to our Isaiah Bible study, God seems to show up even more when people are in tough spots.  This is good news for our Sidewalks community.  As we journey deeper into the city together, our own quirks and sin can become painfully annoying and hurtful towards each other.  We are beginning to move past the carefully calculated politeness into a more real and blunt form of community with each other.  This is real life.  This is post honeymoon.  This is where God shows up and brings healing, growth, and redemption.

Please pray for us... Pray that I would again and again be able to see God even when I am tired and annoyed.  Pray that our community would learn what it means to love each other even when it doesn't feel good.

Wrestling with a good God

I do not have a beautiful story or heart-warming experience to share. During my time here, I have not heard a powerful revelation from God or been humbled with tears. I daily wrestle with God asking "Why am I here?" "Whats the point?" and saying "I'd rather be home working and hanging out with friends." I don't understand the three hour budget conversations, the difficult discussions on race that end with more questions than answers, or the late night talks on justice that result with no easy answers.

But I trust the Lord my God. He undoubtedly moved me to do Sidewalks. Perhaps not so I could have a spiritual growth spurt, but that I would learn to continually follow after Him. During my past semester at York College, my faith grew astronomically as I surrendered more of my life to Christ. God gave resolution to difficulties in my past and faithfully followed through with abundant provisions and better plans than I could have dreamed on my own.

I believe that my God is uniquely working in my life as well as the lives of others here at Sidewalks. In my case, it may be a time of gradual yet progressive growth in faith. In others it may be in more noticeable bold ways. Whichever stage you find yourself, know that God desires to have an intimate relationship with each and every one of us. He is faithful, has plans to prosper and not to harm, and personally works uniquely in every individual. How amazing that 16 people living in the same house, having the same discussions, and seeking after the same God will individually see Christ's love in different personal ways.

1 Chronicles 28:9- And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him. But if you forsake him he will reject you forever.

Brokenness to Beauty

      Well, here we are. We're over the half way point and I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with all I have seen and heard here at Sidewalks. God has pushed down walls that I thought would never fall from around me. I've prayed with people in the streets, eaten dinner with the poor and homeless, and even taken a liking to the city (quite a stretch for this farm girl). In the city, I've seen so much ruin and pain, but I've also been able to see more than ever how God is able to transform brokenness to beauty.

I've spent many of my days here in Lancaster at Water Street Health Services. This free health clinic has been a daily example of God's grace overtaking devastation. The clinic serves individuals who have no insurance and fall within 200% of the poverty level (that's about $44,700 for a family of 4). Many of these people are unemployed, with no money for any needed medical care. They have diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, poor eye sight, arthritis, broken bones...the list goes on. Medications cost far too much for someone who has trouble even buying food or paying rent. Sickness itself is brokenness, but sickness without hope of relief is even worse.

I see brokenness walk into the clinic every day. Like the man who wears the same thin, dirty button-down shirt every day, carrying his medicine in a little plastic bag. Or the man who comes in with black-and-blue eyes and a limp because of domestic abuse. Or the person who is living in her car and has nothing, not a dollar in her pocket. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The stories of these people rip into my heart every day, but God's love brings these broken pieces together.

The clinic bases it's care on the love of Christ. The volunteer nurses and doctors begin each day with prayer, handing the care of the incoming patients over to Him. There is no rushing from patient to patient or ignorance of the patient's need to simply talk to someone. The clinic is able to fill prescriptions of medications that could cost hundreds of dollars, but are free to the patient. All of the medications and supplies are a result of donations and grants, from glucometers to Tylenol to knee braces.

Jesus is at the heart of this clinic and all those who volunteer their time to serve the poor. The brokenness in each individual is overcome little by little as the clinic serves them. I see it in the recovering addict who hasn't had cocaine in over a year. I see it in the dirty, bruised man who gets the eye glasses he needs to read. I see it in the Type 1 Diabetic who receives all the supplies she needs to manage her disease. God is working. He is healing. And often we need to see the brokenness to recognize His beauty.