a new view of community

For those of you wondering if I have fallen off the face of the earth-- I have not. I spent my Spring Break in Moss Point, Mississippi doing Katrina Relief work and enjoying God's creation in that part of the country. Needless to say, it was an amazing trip, a powerful trip, a stretching trip, although I am still sorting through all that has been changed in me over this past week.

I have learned a lot about me. I've learned a lot about church and what that looks like. I've learned a lot about what is important in life. I was hoping that on this trip I would take a few more steps in the direction of sorting out finidng a home in a church or ministry somewhere and even though I may not have gotten to the bottom of it, I think this trip has helped me take a few big strides at any rate.

At this point, I'm not sure what all to say. I have this little voice at the back of my head telling me that I ought to feel some certain thing, that there is some expectation that I must fulfill and I am not fulfilling it. But I am going to make the choice to quiet that voice and trust that the things that God is going to begin to unpack in the coming days and weeks will be valid and true and it will be just what I need at this point in my journey.

To be honest, the thing at the forefront of my mind is simply how strange it is to be back here in this little room that I call my own, or at least the half of this little room that I share. It was weird last night coming from being in a car with 10 other people for 25 hours and spending the week moving as a body with 24 other people to this lonely room in this lonely hall. I didn't really feel tired. I didn't really feel much of anything. but if there is one thing that I heard spoken into my heart over and over agian this week is simply that things are what they are. Nothing more and nothing less.

Without a doubt, if there was one thing that we did this week, it was joining our Father in bringing hope back into the lives of his people in Ocean Springs. Over the week and especailly as we reflected on the trip on our 25 hour drive, we discussed how important it is that our trip be about more than just social justice. Our trip was about so much more than just driving 1500 miles to pick up some trash. It was about people seeing God. It was about seeing what real life looks like.

This trip has been a vivid picture to me about what it means to be a community-- a neighboorhood, a church, a friend, a member of the human race. When we got to our work site on Monday morning, we were dissappointed to find that instead of working on the house of someone in dire need, we would be working on a rental house, something that C.O.R.E., the organization we were working with does not typically do. This was a special case because this home would be used to house staff for CORE, so more could come down and help. Upon arrival, we found that the back yard of this small brick house had been the place were the flood waters had deposited all the large debris from the middle-class neighboorhood, which sat right on the beach. This yard was piled higher than imaginable with couches, entire sheets of fensing, refrigerators, dryers with clothes still in them, shoes, staircases, and every type of everyday item one could think of. From DVD's to clothing hangers, cleaning supplies to children's toys.

But little did we know, as we piled out of our white 15 passenger vans, eyes all over the neigborhood were fixed upon us. God had brought us to this very house for a reason. As the day wore on, we noticed the neigbors coming out of their gutted homes, taking breaks from their work, or eyes peering out of the windows of the FEMA trailers parked in front yard. As we continued our work, the pile lining the curb grew from small mounds in the ditch to a towering embankment hiding the house from veiw for those standing on the street and a neighbor ventured across the street.

D, who lived in the house across the street with the word "snakes" spray painted on the siding, had been looking at this abandoned rental house for seven months, wondering how or when the eyesore would be removed, praying that God would send someone. And we were that someone. As the week proceeded, we were able to get to know D and his family better as well as being able to get him connected with CORE, which will be sending in more crews to continue the work we began on his house and eventually finish it.

This rental house was our door into a neighboorhood crippled with hopelessness. Throughout the week, I got the sense that we weren't coming to finish the work that needed to be done, but rather we were coming to get something started and then hand off the torch to the community itself and other crews that would be coming in after us. Ed, our team leader from CORE, explained to us on monday that the main problem is the attitude of the neighborhood. There were lots of wooded areas around the homes, belonging to no one inparticular but chock full of debris-- in many cases bigger and more things than in the yards themselved-- and it was likely that no one would be cleaning it up. There was a sense of community pride that was just missing. But as we began cleaning those woods and talking to D and the neighbors, we noticed that we were being joined by members of the community in cleaning woods and yards that were not their own. That was the point at which my heart began to well up inside of me. That was the point where I said, "this is why we were sent."

I mean, the point was not getting things cleaned up and the neighborhood looking sparkling. It was about these people who have lived so close for so many years coming together and facing this tradgedy together. AS I looked at all the piles of dibris and just the magnitude of it all, I just kept thinking, "We cannot do this on our own." We cannot face the piles of debris that pile up in our lives alone. We need the chain gangs passing logs out of the trees, that person on the other side of the fence section holding up what we cannot carry on our own. God's face is shown in the clearest most bright light when our hearts come together, when that "Me too!" is ringing loud and clear.

Something D said has really just been ringing in my ears for the past few days. He simply said that it took a tragedy such as this for him to get to know his neighbors. I just want to know, why does this happen? What is it in us that holds us back from experiencing the community life God intended for us? I think this is really the tragedy and the hurricanes are the miracles that mend it. Just a thought....

So I guess there is the beginning of it all. I'm not sure where else God will be taking me in the coming weeks and months as I continue to wade through what all of this means for the way God lives his life through me, but I look forward to discovering that and sharing it all with you....

Abba God, how can do anything but priase you? How can my posture be anything short of worhsip? Thank you for the placed you carried me in the past week. Thank you that tou loved me enough to show your world to me. Who am I to deserve any of this? I feel inadwquate even to say what I feel ought to be said. but I guess I'll just go with what is most upon my heart, thank you thank you thank you. thank your for this breath, this life. I seldom feel I really understand what it means when I say such a thing, but nevertheless, I will say it. Thank your for this breath. IN your grace, I ask that you would really teach me to be thankful. Abba, I ask in the coming weeks, you would penetrate me with that you are wanting to do in me through what you have set my eyes upon in the past week. Penetrate me. Transform and change me. I long for this growth that is really about things being taken away-- that my growth would look like a lessening of me and an increase of you. Abba, how deeply I love you.