Prayer
Work at
New Life is not always easy. I hope I'm not bursting anyone's bubble,
but some days, Kingdom work is not a picnic. Some days it's a picnic
with thunderstorms and your keys locked in your car.
Yesterday was one of those days for me, and I spent
hours on the phone working through it. I spoke with three men of God,
leaders of New Life yesterday, and every one of them ended our
conversation the same way: "Before we go, let's pray." Three separate
men, unbeknownst to each other, calling on God for my troubles. At the
end of the day, I journeyed down the hall to deliver my deposit slips,
and found my Humboldt Park Centers staff bent down together, committing
their weekend to solid prayer for the work of our ministry.
Working at New Life may not always be easy, but it
is surely prayerful. What an encouragement to know that our brothers
and sisters bring everything before the Father, the One who is working
for us!
"If God is for us, who can be against us? He
who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He
not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?"
"The Fourth Wall"
We have much to celebrate today, and one square of bubbling plaster puts a damper on it all.
A
group of youth from the West Humboldt Park community interned with us
for the summer, and today they completed their final project: a mural.
Decorating the entryway, this vibrant mural, designed by a
19-year-old, showcases the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan. In a
high school student's careful lettering, the sky above the lake reads
"New Life - Nueva Vida." In our generation-old building, the new mural
shouts testament to what the "disadvantaged" youth of this community
can create and complete. Their creativity and tenacity have been
outstanding.
And yet, there is the fourth wall. This mural
spans three walls of our entry, with design ready and waiting for the
fourth. There, the problems mount. The three-story-high gutter over
this wall is mispointed, washing water down the bricks. The interns'
many attempts at interior plaster repair were worthless with the
moisture outside that wall. The need is for a gutter professional, and
there is nothing the interns nor I can do but make calls, budget funds,
make more calls...and wait. Major gutter repair is not something that
happens overnight--nor in time for the interns' limited summer
employment.
This entryway, for me, is a picture of what urban
ministry often looks like. We do all the tutoring we can...but the
child's grades nosedive from her inattention in school. We do all the
violence prevention we can...and still the gang members camp out on our
children's front steps. We do all the job training we can...and the
youth drop out three days into the job. What we do with the three
walls we can control pales in comparison to the mess of chaos on the
fourth.
So what do we do? We choose to paint. We pick up
our paintbrush and paint the biggest, brightest, most beautiful mural
we can on the three walls we have. Then we make calls to experts,
wait, and pray for the help we need to finish the fourth wall. But we
don't give up on our three little walls. We know the fourth wall will
come with time and prayer, and when it does, we'll be ready,
paintbrushes in hand.
Spring
There is just something special about
spring that make me feel good. I remember when I was 12 years old sitting
on a chair in our dinning room on a Saturday afternoon just wasting,
the sun was bright, the sky was clear and the breeze coming though the
window was perfect and I thought to myself wow this is nice. Strangely
enough my older brother was listening to a song on the radio called
summer breeze. I love the look of a tree full with leaves hovering over
a side walk and the bright color of flowers with a grass as its background.
Spring is nice. It seems to invite me to come out and play or a while.