Five for Five

Ian wrote our first blog entry (read it here) about our move to Atlanta on April 11^th 2009. We will use this date, April 11th 2014 to mark our 5^th Anniversary in this work. We have a goal and maybe you would like to help us meet it! You can set-up monthly support or make a one time gift of $60 ($5x12) to help us get there!

I will keep you updated on our numbers here: Refugee Beads currently has 11 out of the 500.

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” 
― Mother Teresa

We hear questions about "sacrifice" on a regular basis. People want to know how painful it is to do what we do. They want to know about the dramatic "calling" that drove us from our comfortable lives into the turmoil of ministry.

As our neighbors join us in the work of nurturing community, welcome us into their homes, and weave their own lives, we're finding it more difficult to follow that narrative.

The artisans of Refugee Beads offer us their stories, share recipes, and open their homes to us. La La, a player who has been with our soccer team for two years, has now taken responsibility for leading his fellow players. Miguel, who attended the afterschool program as a student, is now leading the afterschool program together with us.

We spend one evening a week visiting with Nico in jail. Wearing his orange jumpsuit and sitting across the thick glass with a black handset, he does his best to orient us with his world. At the end of each visit, he asks us how he can pray for us. There are no prayers I value more than those Nico offers on our behalf from his jail cell.

We moved into this neighborhood and began this work in hope of giving and receiving with neighbors from around the world, and the realization of that dream means a deep kind of joy to us.

We prefer the term "escape" to "sacrifice." We slipped the hold of a life ill-fitted to our hearts and entered a richer landscape of love for our neighbor.

We were certainly called by Christ to live as good neighbors, feeding, helping with homework, and visiting in jail, but that calling continues throughout the work, as we are drawn deeper into the work of living God's love for this neighborhood.

You can escape too, and pursue the Kingdom's constant call with us. How would you begin loving your neighbors? Would you take our neighborhood into your heart as well, and join us in praying and giving so that our work here could deepen? 

We are currently looking to pay stipends to our post-high-school student leaders to acknowledge the value of the work they're doing here. This takes consistent support.  We also need a vehicle, as the Refugee Beads-mobile died on us recently, and fixing it seems to outweigh the value of the car by a wide margin.

Please keep Nico in your prayers, as he's been sitting in jail for over seven months, with no sign of progress toward a hearing. His heart, however, is showing signs of God’s transforming love. He has been reading the New Testament and drawing pictures of God rescuing him from the clutches of evil.

Thanks for reading. Please let us know if we can offer any more information about what we're doing here and how you can get involved.

Grace and peace,

Ruthie and Ian

Break In

While the mold that had us staying with Ruthie's mom in Lawrenceville continued to fester untended in our apartment, word must have spread that we weren't sleeping at home.

The apartment manager called this afternoon to tell us that our window had been broken from the inside, by a hammer thrown in a domestic dispute between us, and that we were going to be billed for the window.

Since we were sleeping in Lawrenceville, I had my doubts about her story. Ruthie and I drove back down to check on the damage, and we found that not only was there glass shattered all over the apartment from the outside, but that many of our valuables had been stolen.

We talked to the manager, and she worked really hard to hold on to that "broken from the inside" story, despite the fact that shattered glass was spread all over our living room:

Our initial inventory suggested that we lost a Macbook Pro, over 70 DVDs (a collection I built intentionally over several years), our DVD player, our comforter (more on that in a second), and some breaded frozen eggplant from our freezer. Other contents from our freezer were scattered on the kitchen floor:
Luckily, since our iguana was sitting on the side of the couch, the thief or thieves seemed to be avoiding the area where her tail would strike (this meant I got to keep all my Coen brothers, Robert Altman, Sam Fuller, and Terry Gilliam films, thank God). We knew that Rockette would serve some practical purpose some day:

When they saw us at the apartment, several of the kids came around to tell us what they knew. One good thing that came out of this was that we had a good chance to connect with the neighbors, and many of them expressed regret for the break-in and offered helpful bits of information. Here is the Huntington Creek detective squad posing for a picture:

So, the best we can figure, it was a sloppy smash-and-grab operation. It seems the burglars broke a window, unlatched the patio door, and entered the apartment, going to the freezer (a common hiding place for cash, I am told).

They then went into our bedroom and threw what they could grab without getting smacked by our iguana (hooray Rockette!) onto our comforter, wrapped it up, and exited through the front door, which they left open.

In the morning, a cleaning lady saw the open door, closed it, and called the police.

We are obviously shaken by what happened. From a long-term perspective, we can survive the losses. In fact, I'm surprised we didn't get burglarized sooner.

But still, it feels awful. Especially since the manager, a new hire, seems intent on blaming the whole thing on Ruthie and me, who are probably her greatest asset in terms of improving the property.

And to add another difficult element, the mold problem is still unresolved, so we can't even stay there very long to deal with the fallout.

I'm still hoping for this long story of mold, burglary, and management trouble to turn a good corner. Fear not, dear readers, I'll keep you posted as it develops.

In the Neighborhood

Friday nights are solitary for me. Ruthie has her Refugee Beads class, and the car, all evening, so I usually spend the time at home, catching up on reading or watching a movie.

Tonight, I felt restless in our apartment, so I decided to take a walk, which was an admittedly bad idea, seeing as how the sky was cloudy and thunder echoed through the apartment complex. I threw on my hoody and headed out, walking across Buford highway over to a used bookstore.

Atlanta Vintage Books is a bit of an anomaly in my hood, a literary haven with all sorts of literature, a great bargain basement, and two friendly owners. Not what you'd expect in a neighborhood full of immigrants who struggle to speak English. I arrived fifteen minutes before closing, and the owner greeted me and invited me in.

We immediately began telling stories about spending Friday nights in bookstores or libraries, and we talked about our common love for reading, which sometimes overwhelms our desire to hang with friends or do usual Friday night things.

I headed down to the basement to see if they had any copies of the James Joyce books I hadn't read. No luck. I found three other books (The Ugly American, The Hamlet, and Heat and Dust) that interested me and returned upstairs to check out. The sky had turned completely dark in the five minutes I spent downstairs, and rain poured down across Clairmont.

"I gotta walk home in this," I complained.

"We'll give you a ride," the owner responded cheerfully. Only in our neighborhood, I thought, and gladly accepted.

On the way home, we talked about the joy of living in Atlanta's international village, our love for the mix of cultures in this city, and what Ruthie and I do in the neighborhood.

This is one of the joys of living here. I had an unexpected opportunity to connect with someone who shares my interests, and he showed me a kindness I had not expected. It wasn't a big event, but it brought some joy to me to connect with an odd little corner of our neighborhood, and enjoy an unplanned moment of friendship.

We Barely Survived

Yesterday, everything was clicking for us. Ruthie saw some of the Sudanese Refugees who she hadn't seen in a while, and she had a great time reconnecting with them. I spent the morning writing and catching up on e-mails.

But disaster hovered over us like a dark thing that hangs over someone...

I call Tim Cummins "Uncle Tim," because in missionary culture that's what you call someone who you look up to. So Uncle Tim called me with an invitation to go to El Torero's, a mexican restaurant.

I was recently a finalist in a contest to write a column for McSweeney's Internet Concern, but I didn't quite get the gig. As Uncle Tim, his son Jesse, and I sat there discussing my ongoing mission to connect the immigrant/refugee community with Atlanta's creative scene, we decided to go to Borders and scope out magazines where my writing might fit.

Little did we know, a call would come in that would change the face of our day forever...

I was able to write down seventeen different magazines where I am going to pitch stories. We also found a great resource in the Novel & Short Story Writer's Market, which I will purchase as soon as I have the cash. It would pay for itself in one published piece.

In the midst of my research, the phone rang. The sky grew dark. Lightning crashed. Actually, scratch that. The weather pretty much stayed the same.

It was Ruthie on the other end. Our Buick, which was recently donated to us and which we recently had to pay a hefty sales tax on thanks to Georgia's crazy laws, had died on the expressway. Ruthie had just been able to pull it off the shoulder, and was waiting for rescue. Mayhem ensued.

As Ruthie fought off State Farm rescue attempts and random tow truck drivers who wanted to make a quick buck, we zoomed toward her at a harrowing speed, or more specifically as fast as the speed limit allowed.

When we arrived, she was nearly dead. Actually, she was fine, but she had to go to the bathroom. Uncle Tim worked it out to have the car towed to a trustworthy mechanic, and we went home, having barely survived the whole ordeal.

That evening, as Eric and I jogged around Stone Mountain, feeling the August heat boiling our blood, we felt strangely alive. Something about narrowly avoided death does that to you. Or at least something about running after something unfortunate happened. Or something about dealing easily with a minor setback. Actually, I think it just felt good to be out running again.

One Thing After Another

Yesterday morning, my friend Aaron called unexpectedly. He is a trucker, and his work brought him through Atlanta. He spent the night at our place last night, and asked me if I wanted to help with a job he had to do. We awoke this morning and set out to get the job done.

While I was out, Eric taught guitar lessons to Melvin, Jennifer, and Lesly. They had a great time. Ruthie kept hearing them erupt into laughter.



I got home from an intense day's work just in time to meet our friends Josh and Margaret. We watched The Triplets of Belleville, one of my favorite movies.

Josh is a stellar musician, as is my brother Eric. After the movie, we all started jamming, but I quickly realized that my continued participation could only hurt the musical outcome.

Right before Josh and Margaret left, we opened a great conversation about work in this community. We walked them out to their car, then had to tear ourselves from the conversation so they could get home.

Communicycle Ride (Flashback to Sunday)

This Sunday after church, David, Melvin and I joined the rest of the Communicycle posse for a ride on the Silver Comet Trail.

David got to ride on the bike he built in the program. Melvin's bike is still in progress, so we borrowed one for him. They both struggled with the endurance aspect of the ride, but seemed to have a good time and feel proud after it was all over.

Art/Drama Camp

Today I took a Liberian refugee named Aziz to an art and drama camp that one of my partners, New Covenant Community Church, is hosting.

I stayed to watch the drama portion, and the leader involved the kids in a New Testament story about freedom. Aziz played the madman, a young latino guy played Jesus, and the rest of the kids were Legion, clinging to Aziz, whispering to and echoing him. The presentation gave me goosebumps.

So much of Christian teaching focuses on supplying the correct answers. It's beautiful to see a program where they draw kids into a story and an experience as well.

That idea is central to our work with Refugee Arts. We are into engaging and ministering to the whole person. The arts are some of the best tools to do that because they get into the creative, feeling-oriented places in the heart.

An Open Home

A small knock, low on the door, caught Ruthie's attention today. When she opened it, Britney stood there, trying not to cry. She had come home from the playground to find no one at her apartment.

By the time I returned home from the bookstore, Britney sat on the couch with a book and some cookies. I picked up a short story anthology I was reading, and we sat together in the living room, reading, watching our iguana clamber around by the window, and laughing as Britney stumbled over bigger words.

Every few minutes, we took Britney back to her apartment to check for her parents, and she finally got in.

Of course, this happened on the very day when I was thinking about the privilege of opening your home to people.

There's a common practice around here of taking people out or meeting them for things, but not letting them into our homes. I feel like it's a shame. When we invite kids or strangers or foreigners into our homes, we invite Jesus in.

I feel like Britney's presence in our home today, and the presence of all the kids and adults who pass through our apartment, is more a gift to us than it is to them.

So, readers, here's a challenge: Bring someone you don't know that well into your home, open your life to him/her, and see what happens. Post your experience in the comments field or shoot me an e-mail at northpapers@gmail.com. You'll be shocked at how God reveals himself.

Pandemonium at Huntington Creek

My friend Jonathan Kotulski and I did a lot of songwriting together in Chicago, and right before I left, we compiled an album called Ghost Town Revival.

We approached Jonathan's brother, Joseph, about helping us develop a blog for the music we were creating. He agreed, and as we planned it out, the vision shifted from a music blog to one that would feature off-kilter-Americana in different media, created by all three of us.

The blog went up today at http://ghosttownrevival.wordpress.com. Joey posted a great picture of a fallen tree, and I wrote a short piece to set the mood for things to come.

Also, on a more ministry-related note, we had quite the event today. My sister Lisa taught a lesson on the good shepherd that captivated the kids for 30 minutes (with this crowd, that's an achievment).

Next, thanks to the creative genius of Jeanne McLarty, our arts and crafts leader from Mt. Zion Baptist Church, things got pretty crazy.

The one rule of our shaving cream free-for-all was not to get it in anyone's face. I can't say that one was too strictly enforced.

Philosophy of Guitar

Yesterday was the first day of Eric's summer guitar class. He had been thinking about spending some time with different philosophical ideas about music related to perception and emotional resonance, but when the class showed up, it became clear that another approach might work better:

Blanca and her brother Alicio have been coming to our center since we moved here. Blanca does much of the cleaning and housework in her apartment, helps her mom sell tamales in the neighborhood, and cares for her brother. She's a very busy kid.

It turns out, she's also a killer guitarist. Eric was amazed at how quickly she picked up the chords and started playing. We hope she keeps coming to these lessons. It would be a great skill for her to develop so early.

After getting home from work, I went out for tea with Josh Feit and David Park from Open Table Community, and we talked about the difficulties of a multicultural approach to ministry, how to talk about our unconventional approaches to Christian work, good music, and Triumph the Comic Insult Dog.

It was so good that midnight snuck up on us, and the staff kept checking if we were going to leave yet.

Communicycle

Good news: it turns out Eric isn't dead after all. We had a great time celebrating his birthday at Communicycle, Stone Mountain, then the Waffle House.

I've been meaning to post pictures of Communicycle for months now.

We regularly bring some of the older kids to a nearby warehouse where husband-and-wife team Josh and Margaret Feit head up a bike workshop. The "build a bike, earn a bike" program lets our kids learn how to take a bike apart, clean it, and rebuild it. As a bonus, they get to keep the bike at the end.

This has been a huge help to us. It gives us an environment to connect with the kids who don't really dig the whole arts-and-crafts focus of our activities center. Tonight Eric and I brought Ariel. As everyone worked, I was able to capture these totally candid, unposed pictures