DREAM Act

Today was one of those rare times when I engaged in a matter of policy.

Some of you may have heard of the DREAM Act. One of the kids I work with recently sent me a text asking me to speak on his behalf on this issue. This Act provides opportunity for the children of undocumented immigrants to become contributing citizens of America, but asks that they work to earn it.

After doing more reading on the issue, I was convinced that this Act could change the course of the lives of several of the young people we work with. It would also be a way to bring the Biblical values of loving my neighbor and showing kindness to aliens to life on a massive scale.

I would encourage anyone who reads this and feels like the DREAM Act is a good idea to contact their local decision makers in support of it. I wrote a message and sent it out to Georgia senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss.

Another What? (Hooking pt 1)

They are not our problem when we roll through in a car or see them through a window, but when we weave ourselves into the narrative fabric of the neighborhood, every subplot matters:

Jarret and I see her as we turn onto Plaster Road from Buford Highway. White, worn-looking. Her age is in question because her profession tends to exaggerate the years. A few absent teeth, streaks of white amid otherwise blonde hair.

- I don't know why they're here all of a sudden. I don't remember any hookers when we first moved here, I tell him.

- Or when I moved in, Jarrett replies.

She walks in the flash of our headlights, looks over her shoulder as if she knows she is being discussed, and keeps moving.

- I don't get the appeal, I say.

Jarret nods.

- Desperate times, I suppose.

We get to Jarrett's place, an apartment in our same complex, and he grabs a change of clothes before we head back out. Back in the parking lot, he says to me, There goes another one.

I look around to see what he's talking about and meet the eyes of a brown-haired, heavyset fortysomething white woman in loose-fitting jeans and a pullover rushing by.

- ANOTHER WHAT? she growls, and keeps walking.

It seems like there are more of them here every day, moving out across the neighborhood, looking cheap and tired, catering to probably the last market available to them in Atlanta.

They are not the ones we came here to reach, nor are they friendly to our purposes here, but here they are nonetheless, right in plain sight for management and the police and every lonely Latino laborer to see.

We have chosen for the story of the neighborhood to be our story as well. So when they move in and peddle their wares, they become players in a redemptive arc that has already been told somewhere, but remains obscure to us here, now. We are characters ourselves in this tale, and are neccessarily blind until the curtain closes.

Fall Festival- Cornerstone Kids

This Saturday, we ran from the yard sale over to Huntington Creek, where a team from Cornerstone Christian Academy ran a major fall festival, complete with a clown, balloon animals, face painting, popcorn, and games.

Yard Sale

Saturday's yard sale was a success on pretty much any scale you could apply to a yard sale. We were able to raise some money for the thrift store, connect with our neighbors, distribute goods at low cost, and, perhaps most importantly, wear silly hats.

Ruthie's dad and his friend Betty showed up. Betty faithfully ran the cash box, braving the early morning chill then the blazing sun, all just because she likes to help.

Black, White, Asian, and Latino visitors all mingled as they walked through the stuff, staring scornfully at lamps in hope of driving a hard bargain. We barely put up any fight if anyone asked for any kind of deal.

Stephanie, one of the key players in making this thrift store happen, ran the children's clothing tent. Here, she smiled for a picture. Our dear friend David took the opportunity to do Lord-knows-what with his face, to be captured on film and posted on the internet forever.

Theresa, one of our most faithful ministry partners, hung all sorts of clothes from trees and arranged items neatly on picnic tables for the neighborhood's browsing pleasure:

Jonathan Nolte of Communicycle sold a few bikes as well, providing affordable, much-needed transportation to our new friends:

Some of the kids from Huntington Creek served as helpers, and some just came to shop. Between errands, Ruthie got a second to pose with Leslie and Karina, who are way too cool to really smile for a picture:

And here's our helper of the day, Miguel, holding a shoe. Don't ask me why:

Yard Sale in Chamblee!

I was talking to the student leaders in our afterschool program one day, and I asked them what they thought about opening a thrift store. Their faces lit up.

"OH! I took two classes on marketing! I can work there!" Miguel told me.

"Don't listen to him. I'm the one who should work there," Laura said.

Tomorrow, we take our first step toward developing a sustainable thrift store to meet material and economic needs in our neighborhood. We will hold a massive yard sale at Open Table Community Church in Chamblee.

If you live in the Atlanta area, please stop by. It will be at 2605 Chamblee-Tucker Road in Chamblee, GA, and we will have all sorts of stuff out between 8 AM and 12 Noon. Communicycle will be selling bikes there as well.

If you don't live in the area, don't worry. You can pray for shoppers to turn up, and you can stay tuned as we develop this into an exciting ministry to reach the families in our neighborhood.

Renovation

If you walk into our apartment today, you will see a living room with a bare floor, a dining room with no chairs, and a kitchen full of the odds and ends that we picked up from all over the house.

We have removed everything from the carpet for a cleaning, which is the final step in restoring the apartment to make it liveable.

The parallell between the gutting, repair, and deep cleaning which is underway in our apartment and the gutting, repair, and deep cleaning that took place in my mind and heart during the nightmarish month of October is so obvious that I thought for a second that it might be too obvious to even mention.

But it is worth noting. We have been through some serious renovation lately. We had to look at everything in our lives from possessions to activities to relationships, and determine if we should keep, exchange, or dispose of them.

As the apartment awaits its final cleaning, we are searching ourselves before we re-engage, making sure that we have purified, realigned, and reorganized so that every corner of our lives will be as ready as possible for whatever comes next.

Springer Mountain Blues

Those of you who are my Facebook friends might remember the photo shown above. On a twenty-mile-long training run on the Appalachian Trail, I was attacked by a bee at mile ten right after the turnaround, leaving me with no choice but to run back to my car with my lip bouncing out in front of me.

I was understandably nervous about returning to the trail that humiliated me so badly last time, but I needed to get in a strenuous 15-mile run, and the round trip from Amicalola Falls to the Appalachian Trail trailhead atop Springer Mountain fit the bill (I added .25 miles walking from the parking lot to this sign, to those who are questioning my math).

I have been quite heavy-hearted about how things are going lately, not to mention physically drained. I felt exhausted on the run, opting to walk for large chunks of it. When I got up to the top of Springer, a big crowd had gathered and the smell of raw feces was thick in the air. I had a hiker snap this picture before heading home.
Out on the trail, I did a lot of thinking that led me mostly in circles, and I ended up just asking God to clear the way for us a bit. Sometimes it's hard to even know what to ask for.