Hope for a broken cycle a.k.a someone stole my blender

This week someone left me a present outside my of my house so that I would have a surprise when I left for work the next day. This would have been a great surprise if the present hadn’t been stolen. It’s the reality of my neighborhood I guess, but it’s a pretty annoying and frustrating reality.

I shared this story in a little more detail with a friend today and she was quick to point out that I chose to live here and that’s what I get for it. I was more annoyed by this than the present being stolen in the first place! I agree, the theft rate  is higher here in Marshall-Shadeland than it was when I lived in the suburbs… but to assume that anyone deserves to have a present stolen because they live in the city seems a bit far-fetched. Her argument ended with “why don’t you just move out? do you really think that one person living there can make a difference?”

Well, no, I don’t. But I believe God can use broken people to make a difference in the lives of other broken people.

Here’s what I do believe to be true… I believe that being a responsible neighbor can motivate other people to be too, even if those neighbors steal your blender.  I believe that there is always hope. I believe that if young kids want to come to church every week on their own  we should embrace them whole-heartedly, even if they are a little noisy, because one kid’s faith can change a family. I believe that living with integrity can be an example to others. I believe that God can use His people to show grace and mercy and love to other people and that those qualities can be life changing. I believe that just because a kid has parents who are involved in drugs or the street life doesn’t mean that they have to be. I believe in encouraging others to be great and to embrace their future. I believe in having hope that the cycle can be broken.

I believe that someday my neighborhood can be the kind of place where one person can leave another person any small kitchen appliance they so choose and it won’t get stolen… and I look forward to that day.

 

A season of change

I was reminded recently that I hadn’t posted a new blog in a while… My apologies on that all. It’s been an interesting season in my world…

The last time I wrote a blog post I was sharing a house with two dear friends, who have since moved out-one to follow a calling to Uganda and one to another part of the city- and have had two new roommates move in who I am enjoying getting to know. The last time I wrote a blog post I was still working at Eden, as I had been for the past 4 and a 1/2 years, and now I have taken a position with a Christian talk/teach radio station here in Pittsburgh doing social media/pr stuff.  The last time I wrote a blog post it was freezing outside and now we had a 70 degree weekend in March.  It certainly has been a season of change in my life… and I’m not the biggest fan of change. My friends and family have been in a season of change as well… relationships have ended, new ones have started, major job and life changes are taking place.

Spring in my neighborhood is a time for change too. It is fun to watch certain moments that come with spring around here… a dad holding on to the back of a bike that his daughter wants to ride without the training wheels, the games of basketball where the little guys get to play with the big kids, the parks that are full of people who are smiling and friendly because the sun is shining.  However, with kids being able to be outside playing and hanging out comes the fights and craziness that comes with living in Marshall-Shadeland. Neighbors are finally able to get out and spend time on their porches and that can be good and bad, depending on the day. It’s a change that comes every year, and every year the people in my church pray for a peaceful spring and summer.

As I mentioned, I really don’t like change. I’m a little too much of a control freak to feel ok about it. However, as I was reminded in church this morning, “God changes things outside of you so that He can change things inside of you”.  It has been pretty amazing to see the way that God has orchestrated all the changes that this season carried and even more so to see how He gave me the patience, the courage, and the determination to follow His plan. Along the way He provided wisdom and encouragement and love and support from some amazing people in my life.  It was a crazy, scary, emotional and stressful season, but as I look back on it now I can see so clearly how all those changes were used to teach me big lessons about my character and that of my heavenly father.

So here’s to a new season… one that brings the fun and chaos of my neighborhood in the spring/summer, the ups and downs of figuring out this new job and relationships in my life, and the confidence to know that no matter what season I’m in my God will not change.

one day vs. every day

I had an interesting conversation with one of our neighbors at the cafe on Monday… I was off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and had stopped in to grab coffee before going out to run a ton of errands and meet a friend for lunch and this neighbor, who I hadn’t met before, wanted to know what I was going to do to honor MLK. It made me stop to think…

The things that Dr. King stood for… equality, justice, human dignity, civil rights… these aren’t things that we should only honor one day a year. I think it’s great to stop and reflect on all that Dr. King, and so many others who worked along side him,  did for the civil rights movement in our country. It’s a hugely important piece in the history of our country, but it’s something we need to keep striving for. We can’t sit back and assume that because Jim Crow laws have been overturned for a few decades that we must be good.

Dr. King was killed 44 years ago this April and yet 10:00 on a Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in the church.  Videos that have gone viral, like “S*#$ white girls say to black girls”, may be funny on one hand but on the other they show just how far we haven’t come .  This past week I overheard a conversation where two women were talking about the amount of news coverage a sexual assault that happened in a suburban community received from the press.  The first pointed out that if it had been a black woman in the city it wouldn’t have gotten the same amount of air time and I sat STUNNED as the second woman replied that “the difference is that in the suburbs it’s news and in the ghetto it’s a way of life.” I couldn’t believe my ears!! Regardless of where any sort of violence occurs, or what color the skin of the victim is, this kind of disregard for the dignity of a human being is absolutely appalling!! Nothing makes me more angry than to sit and watch as other people take huge steps backwards in the fight for equality among every person. To quote Dr. King, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Sure, it’s nice spend some time reflecting on the work of the civil rights movement, and maybe even quote Dr. King as out status message. Sure, many of us enjoyed the three day weekend. But it’s bigger than that. If it doesn’t translate in to how you treat people on a daily basis, what’s the point? Every person should be respected, loved, said hello to, treated kindly every day regardless of their skin color, age, location or bank account.  It’s why Jesus spent time with the least, the lowest and the lost. It’s what God calls us to!

So in answer to my neighbor? I’m honoring MLK by posting this, by encouraging people to look beyond the things that divide us and cross lines and talk to people outside of our normal bubble. I’m challenging myself, and all of you, to follow the godly example and treat everyone the way Jesus would… Not just for one day… but every day.

movie night

Lats night was one of those nights where I just have to sit back and smile. Once a semester New Hope hosts movie night for our YES kids and their mentors, families in the church and kids in the neighborhood. It’s always a family-friendly movie and there’s free popcorn and juice drinks. It’s a simple kid of night… no big program, or hidden agenda- just a night for people to come in and spend a few hours.

Last night’s movie was Tangled. It’s the  story of Rapunzel and it’s very cute, but the movie itself isn’t why I liked last night so much. It was so good because of the people. We had 50-something year-old black men and 4-year-old white girls and everything in between all in the sanctuary watching this kids movie. Mentors who took a Friday night to spend it with the students they mentor, older siblings helping younger siblings get more snacks, and kids just hanging out and being kids. I watched a man who has lived in this urban-poor  neighborhood his whole life and overcome major addiction issues work side-by-side making popcorn with an upper-middle class  insurance woman who moved to the neighborhood from the suburbs. I watched some of our young guys sit through a a movie that really wasn’t their style, in a church that they normally wouldn’t enter,  because their younger brothers wanted to. I listened to little kids, who normally walk around here with an “I’m too cool for this” attitude, giggle and laugh at the antics on an animated horse. I sat back and smiled as a group of people sat and watched a movie… people from different races, genders, ages, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. People who under other circumstances wouldn’t usually have a lot to do with each other.  I love watching diversity happen. It was a good way to spend a Friday night.

A New Start

I feel like every “blogger” eventually has to apologize for their lack of consistent posting…  Well here’s my official “i’m sorry”. I’ve been a bit of a slacker lately because of a number of reasons, but here I am with a new resolve for the new year to keep sharing my story with you. Today’s story is about a new start, that coincidentally enough started on the new year.

This past fall a 15 year-old girl walked in to our church. It was the first time she’d ever been to church, but she said later that she knew something needed to change in her life and she figured she’d start here and see what happened. Three weekends later this same girl jumped in the van with us, after knowing me and my fellow youth group kids for 3 weeks, and headed off on our fall retreat weekend where she was the only girl from our church. I learned a lot about her that weekend: she’s one of the bravest kids I know, has been through more crap in her 15 years than most people should go through ever, is in the top 5 in her class at school where she’s in marching band, jazz band and a variety of other things.

In the past 4 months, this girl has become a regular part of my life. She hangs out at our house on a pretty regular basis, has come to family holidays and dinner at my parents, comes to youth group and church every week and has started mentoring an elementary student in our mentoring program. We’ve walked through life’s craziness with all the ups and downs and uncertainties and the fun. I’ve learned a lot from her and I hope she’s learned a lot from me too. I got to see her marching band play at a football game, watch her present her poetry project for her honors program at school, help her get ready for homecoming, and spend countless hours hanging out just running errands, Christmas shopping, making dinner or chilling at the cafe. I count it a privilege to  have this girl be a part of my life.

I more count it a blessing to have watched her connect the dots on the topics of God and faith. She’d committed to reading her Bible since we got back from the retreat and had asked some good questions. You could literally see it all start to come together for her. That’s why my biggest privilege was watch her take that step and accept Christ as her savior in church on New Years Day. This kid, who has seen all the ugly that life has to offer and chose to rise above it, is forever part of the Kingdom.  It was an amazing thing to watch and I am so proud of her for her decision to choose faith. What an amazing way to start a new year!!

I couldn’t be more blessed to have had this girl walk in to my church and in to my life. It’s so cool to watch first-hand as God works in a major way like this.

My Pap

So this post isn’t necessarily about urban ministry or my neighborhood. However, it is about a man who lived not far from my neighborhood and had a pretty major impact on my life. Yesterday afternoon my grandfather, Joe Wanninger, went went home to be with the Lord. He’d had lung cancer for some time but just in the time since Thanksgiving it had spread very quickly and he went down hill just as fast. His passing was not a surprise, and he is in a better place with no suffering, but somehow that doesn’t make loosing him any easier on any of us. Today, I write this post so that you can meet my Pap and so that I can share some memories of him.

For a lot of years my Pap coached youth football in his part of the North Side. Later on in life he volunteered at a nursing home here, directed the singing group at the senior center and helped out with things at St. Francis Xavier parish.  Every time I mentioned something about New Hope, he would tell me the same story. About how when he was younger (and by this he meant in his 60′s) his priest asked him to serve on a group in the North Side Common Ministries, where each church in the North Side had a representative and they all visited each others churches. He’d talk about how it was then that he learned the most about how it didn’t matter so much what church you went to, or how they had church, it was about the God you believed in. A devoutly Catholic man his entire life, never without his rosary beads towards the end, he always said this was a lesson he’d wished he’d learned sooner, especially when it came to my mom marrying a Protestant.

When me, my cousins and most of my aunts and uncles (we are a pretty big family) were growing up, my grandparents lived in the Brighton Heights neighborhood of the North Side- about 3 minutes away from were I currently live. Many of my cousins and I share these really great memories of playing there, picking berries from bushes in the top yard, riding that tennis-shoe shaped scooter in the ally between our grandparents house and Mrs. Rush’s house, and swinging on the front porch swing. It was on that front porch swing one fall when I was 5 that I told my Pap that I wanted a hammer and a bag of nails for Christmas. “What would a 5-year-old need a hammer and a bag of nails for” never crossed his mind and sure enough, that’s what I got for Christmas. Up until a week or so ago, most  times I visited him, he’d mention me “going to Altoooona” which I apparently said one New Years Eve when I was staying with them and walked around the house with a suitcase all night. (this is also a true statement for my Gram. Apparent this Altoooona thing was pretty cute) For about 10 years my Pap played the snare drum in a community marching band that my dad played in and directed, where me, sometimes my brother (and a few other random cousins at different times) were in the band-front. We’d spend each summer going from each small town in the greater Pittsburgh area doing their community and fireman’s parades, playing music, and stopping at a local bar afterwards. Now-a-days it might seem weird that a 10-year-old girl was in the bars with her father and grandfather and a bunch of other less-than-young men, but to me it was just my life and something that I now hold as a great memory. One where my Pap would order mozzarella sticks to share with me and always let me have the last one.

Once they moved out of the North Side, the memories we share become amusing tales of trying to fit 40some people in to a small ranch house on holidays.  We all spent our teen years crammed on couches in the basement or sitting on the floor in the living room when we’d run out of seats. It didn’t matter that it was hot, or crowded, it just mattered that we were all there. As I grew up, finished high school, graduated college and started working there was never any doubt that my Pap was proud of me, as he was of all of us. When I first got the job at Eden I went home, told my parents and then went straight over to my grandparents house to tell them. Between me, my parents and my grandparents I don’t know who was more excited. The last few years I’d always take over whatever publication I’d just had finished for them and he’d read each piece and tell me how impressed he was.

Now sure, he had his faults too. But despite being the most stubborn man I’ve ever met, he was always proud of me, always loved me, and always supported me and that’s what I will remember most about my Pap.

Christmas in my neighborhood part 1

The busyness of the season, combined with a crazy cold that knocked me out of commission for a few days, has put me a little behind in my blogging… I hope to change that soon. So much great stuff has been happening in the neighborhood as it relates to Christmas and I’m excited to share it with you.

1. Christmas Store at New Hope:

61 families came to New Hope’s Christmas store and they bought presents for 161 kids. It was amazing to watch as presents were delivered all week, set up on Friday and bought on Saturday. So many people pitched in to lend a hand. My favorite part was how many times we got to see a mom get so excited because the thing their child had asked for (the thing the couldn’t afford to go get, was sitting on the table. There is nothing like making a Christmas wish come true. a few shots of this great event- the store itself, some of our great volunteers, and my awesome youth group girls who boldly stood in the freezing cold lobby to welcome all of our guests.

2. The YES Kids Christmas party:

We held the party for our mentoring program at the cafe. We got to hang out, eat food, play games and I got the chance to deliver a lesson on the gift that God gave us in his Son. So many of our kids had no idea that this gift, the savior, was the real meaning of this holiday. It always astounds me to watch them take in these stories and here about God’s love and faithfulness.  This lesson led to some great conversations between our students and their mentors.

 

Ours is not a neighborhood that is brimming with houses brightly light with Christmas lights. It’s not one where mounds of presents await kids on Christmas morning. Christmas celebrations here, I’m learning, look a lot different than what I am used to. But despite the hopelessness that tends to creep in this time of year, I have seen some big smiles, received a few Merry Christmas greetings from strangers and seen a couple of Christmas miracles. Stay tuned for Christmas in my neighborhood part 2 to hear more about that

 

“finding favor” is a hard concept!

So tonight at YES Kids I was continuing our series on Heroes of the Faith but, in keeping with the Christmas spirit, was talking about Mary and Joseph. We talked about all the characteristics that made them heroes… faithfulness, strength, doing what’s right even if it’s hard… and then the lesson went something like this…

Me: Does anyone know why God picked Mary to give birth to Jesus?

2nd grader: Because she was cute?

Me: Haha, no not exactly. The Bible tells us that God chose Mary because she had found favor with God. What does it mean to “find favor” with someone?

No one really knew the answer so one of our elders chimed in with an example. He explained how when the kids get a good grade on a test or a good report card and they take that to The Cafe, Mr. Joel or Mr. Buddy get them an ice cream or a cookie. That’s because the kids have “found favor” with Joel and Buddy. He went on to say the the lady at the convenience store or the grocery store doesn’t give them a cookie for good grades because they don’t have a relationship with the kid and the kid hasn’t “found favor” with them. That seemed to make sense to them, so I moved on.

Me:  so what do you think Mary did to “find favor” with God?

2nd grader: She got a really good report card!

Me: … well… Sure. God picked Mary because she had a good report card. (I did go one to explain the reasons God actually picked Mary but it was all VERY funny.)

The not so funny part of the night? The realization that most of our kids couldn’t name Jesus’ parents and didn’t know that He was born in a manger. I’m very much looking forward to sharing the full story out of Luke 2 with them next week. For many it will be the first time they hear it.  And, thankfully, that story doesn’t contain the “finding favor” part!

one life at a time.

I think that it’s a natural human tendency to try and measure yourself to other people. We do it all the time in the context of daily life… is he making more money than me?  which one of us is better looking? at least I’m not as (fill in the blank) as she is!

It’s all very superficial and unfortunately I think it seeps in to ministry contexts all too often… their ministry has way more kids than mine, wish we could have a budget like that, I should be reaching more kids.

But the point that I’ve been challenged by lately is that we need to stop trying to measure ourselves by the human standards and the world around us. The question needs to stop being “how can I reach more people” and change to “how can I impact one life today?”,  “how did I do on loving my neighbors?”, “did I set the best example of the gospel to the people I talked to?”

I realized again today as I got to have have lunch with two of our students (and have a good chat about not settling in relationships) that  those moments are priceless. The moments where we get face time with another person can change a life. It’s not about how many kids show up to a program, but about how much the kids that are there feel loved. Yes, spending one-on-one time takes more  effort and emotional energy. Yes, it’s hard and complicated.

But yes, changing one life is a huge deal.

blessed.

This is less a blog post and more a rambling list of things I am thankful for today…

I’m thankful to be part of a family who loves spending time together no matter the circumstance, values traditions and always supports one another. I’m blessed by them on a daily basis. They are my strength, my encouragement, my source of amusement and amazing examples of faith and perseverance. I’m thankful for my church family who love, support, and encourage each other as we serve our neighborhood together. I am so thankful for the way God has provided for New Hope and keeps meeting our needs despite sometimes overwhelming trials. I’m thankful for a job that lets me be surrounded by amazing people, be creative and work with kids. I am thankful for roommates who are committed to ministry and who put up with my compulsive cleaning, random outbursts of tears and overly-independent tendencies. I am blessed with amazing friends who continue to show up even when I push them away, always know when to push back, and  love me unconditionally. I’m thankful for friends who share long histories with me… the ones I don’t get to see often but when I do it’s as if no time has passed at all. I’m thankful for new friendships that have grown this year, the lessons that I’ve learned from them and the impact they have had on my life. I’m thankful for being called to urban ministry, even when it’s hard, because it’s made me grow in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I’m thankful for grace and mercy and our YES kids and good coffee and music and the beach and little moments that remind me God loves me.

I am so blessed.