Sometimes I wonder why we live in our neighborhood. 

Like when a drunk neighbor showed-up on our doorstep last night, belligerent for money.  Shouldn’t we protect ourselves from such instability? 

Or observing a prostitute walk into another neighbor’s house across the street.  Shouldn’t I guard my eyes from such injustice?

Or watching neighbors abuse the welfare system, let alone their own children.  Shouldn’t we avoid this—putting our young marriage in a safe, happy setting, surrounded by a white picket fence, with 2.5 safe, happy children and a golden retriever? 

Or when I’m tutoring kids who are twelve and can’t read, or sixteen and pregnant.

Just opened a daily email reflection from Henri Nouwen, sharing on 1 Corinthians 15 and how if the resurrection wasn’t a reality, Jesus is a waste of our time. Restoration, in other words, is a waste of our belief. If the words of God are true, though, it is always His will to restore all things, even in things and scenes and circumstances we cannot understand. It is always in His will to make new, writing restoration into every waking moment of our existence. But I don’t believe this right now. Heartbreak and pain seem far more tangible.

Talked with a friend who’s serving in a remote village with a lifespan of approximately sixteen. Then passed a homeless child and his mother looking cold and fatigued on run-down street-corner. Then thought of the webs of pain, confusion and hurt clinging to family and friends this hour. Then tuned-out, finding more comfort in my overcast window and steam brewing from my tea, than attempting to understand God.

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Sometimes lines of the Bible will strike me as odd, or flat-out antithetical to what I imagine God was trying to say. Psalm 145:22 (NAS) recently realized itself as one these: My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all the flesh will bless his holy Name for ever and ever (various other translations say “my flesh”).

I’m okay with the first part, but the second part jolts me to question the Psalmist’s theology, and sobriety. “David, I think you mixed-up your thoughts here, bud. You’re right-on with “speaking God’s praises and blessing His holy Name for ever and ever,” but then you throw-in this flesh part. Flesh can’t bless anything but itself. It defines the “bad, ugly, fallen, sinful, wretched man am I” category. And it hates God and is rightfully opposed to blessing. Right?”

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September 10, 2009 marks the day headlines across the country and a few abroad revealed this: U.S. poverty rate hits 11-year high.

 

While several news sources posted the story I’ve chosen Reuters to share if you’d like to read the article here. 

 

Poverty stinks from every angle. It challenges personal esteem, often times deflating it. It challenges relationships, often times breaking them. It crushes dreams and snuffs out hope.  It’s suffocating, it’s exhausting, and it’s awful.

 

A few years ago I worked for an accredited Non-profit organization that was run by the church that employed me. This organization sought to bring life transformation to families residing in local motels. Motel life is generational. If you were a kid growing up living in a motel, odds are you are raising your kids in a motel today. In 2002, when I first began with this organization, there were an estimated 250 families living in motels in one city.

 

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If you’re ever in Bucharest, Romania, I recommend visiting The People's Palace. The People's Palace is the second largest building in the world (points if you know what the largest building in the world is) and crafted with the finest materials you can come by. And if you do visit the grandiose Palace, then you must also pay a visit to the sewer kids who live mere blocks away.  

There are a handful of situations and things seen from my travels abroad that continue to haunt me. With my time in Romania, it’s the sewer kids. 

I was with a handful of people who were being shown around by the Teen Challenge Bucharest division. The site we walked upon to meet the kids was nothing like I had imagined. I had pictured a secluded area that was removed from city life. I was wrong. We were on a main street with heavy rush hour traffic flying by. We stood on the side of the busy street just above a main sewer line where hundreds of children were living.

Above the ground was a make shift tent where a 17 year old Gypsy girl lived with her newborn. A Teen Challenger worker from Spain brought her milk for the baby. Along a nearby chain linked fence I saw a manhole leading to the sewer world below. A guy in his early 20’s came up first. You could tell the sunlight hurt his eyes as he winced in a bit of pain. He made his way towards us and I noticed immediately his arm was bleeding. He had shot up just before coming up to the light.

Through a translator, this young man began to tell us he was ashamed of his habit but saw no other way.  Unfortunately he was singing the tune of so many of this sewer generation. Glue is the drug of choice for these kids simply because it’s easily accessible. With a trash bag and some glue, these kids sniff away their unfortunate reality. The glue suppresses their appetites and keeps them awake for days. If they want food they have to steal it. If they want sleep, they risk the possibility someone around them may steal the only possession they have; most likely something they’ve found on the street or stolen themselves.  The kids we met that day were so high it was impossible to carry on a conversation with them. They looked at us with glossy eyes as if they were staring at a brick wall. The children as old as 15 and 16 looked 10 due to malnutrition and chronic drug use.

The plan that day was to go down into the sewers to spend some time with the children who were down there. We never got that time. After the first guy came up after having shot up, the Teen Challenge leader we were with decided it wasn’t safe at that time for us to go down. I have to admit I was both relieved and ashamed.

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