23859 Day 46

meetings

sorry for the delay in posting...our connection was not functioning last night. today was a day of meeting and connecting with various people: phil with reunion, tim, a kid who is interested in transferring to BU, and caleb. i think meetings can be frustrating to people in ministry a lot of the time. they maybe don't feel so productive, but i found this time to be pretty enriching and fulfilling.

also, we found out today that we got the apartment that we wanted which is really good news! can't wait to move in!!!

23059 Day 38

back_to_fields_corner???

the weirdness of the home buying adventure continues on...we were granted a commitment date extension by the seller, but the time we were granted was not long enough for the bank to get all the information it needed to become satisfied...so is this the owner's backwards of telling us no? who knows...time to move on.

amy and i looked at two apartments and liked both of them. we are pursuing one near our old stomping grounds of fields corner, or the "fc" as i like to call it. it also looks like we have a real good shot at it and there are a lot of reasons to be exited about this development (more on that soon).

22859 Day 36

dream_deferred?

well, this was bound to happen...how do you post a nice, tidy paragraph about a day that was neither nice or tidy? this story is by no means over, but it is looking very much like our house deal is not going to go down. which leads to the all important question...now what? and that is where the story ends today...

...stay tuned.

22459 Day 32

tyrone_wells

the fun event of the evening today (believe me, we don't spend every night going to baseball games and concerts) was going to see tyrone wells live. i was going to upload a video of an awesome cover, but that will have to wait until i get a faster internet connection.

anyway, tonight was exemplary of our life right now. we rushed around all afternoon to get ready to go by five (it takes a while to get places from our present location). we get in to the train station only to discover that we had forgotten the tickets (even though they had been carefully laid out on the desk)! we still made it in time, but man was it a crazy 45 minutes trying to make that happen! i think this is one of the hardest parts about not being in your home...i hate complaining about this because the nelsons have been so good to us...but, anyway, when you are not in your home and don't have that normalcy and structure in place it is remarkably easy to forget important things (like not to park the car in certain places on certain days) or the tickets for the concert you are about to go to. soon though, this should be over!

19559 Day 3 (project_365)

new_home

- for the next two months, or so, while our house is in the process of closing and being transformed into livable space, we will be living with the Nelson family on Norfolk St. some early observations: if we're not going to be in our "own" space, then it's nice to be with a family (especially when they pray for you in their kitchen)...this part of town is different than where we were (perhaps a little "rougher")...we're extremely grateful for gracious hosts!!!

and last, but not least, before we left 48 Granger we had sort of adopted a neighborhood kitten. it's was cute and stuff, but with the nelsons we have access to a dog, Misty, who is hanging out with me as i type this! pretty cool =)

18959

many, many things going on....so here we go:

1) in two weeks from today, camp will be over and i will no longer be employed by bird street community center.  what an interesting adventure this has been.  camp, this summer, has been challenging in so many ways and i have been incredibly stretched as a leader.  the most challenging thing has been what i am calling the "expansion of knowledge and care."  last summer i had 10-15 kids in my unit...i got to know them and their stories of brokenness and it was hard.  then this year in my after school program i had 25 kids, and i got to know them and their stories of brokenness and it was hard.  and now, this summer, we have had 100+ kids and 20 or so staff and i have gotten to know them and their stories of brokenness and it's REALLY hard.  

this last week has been especially difficult.  we have this little boy in camp who is six and has already been in four foster homes over the last year.  his mom is on drugs and in a lot of trouble.  he is a really sweet boy (most of the time) but is extremely angry and you can see the foster child story playing out already (even though he hasn't even been in the system a year).  i just found out on thursday that the couple he is with now (also really sweet people, but they are in their sixties and can't really handle his energy) are trying to move him.  this is just one of a hundred stories that rips me apart on a daily basis.  amy met him yesterday and wants to adopt him!

also, this week there was a double homicide that took place about half a mile from our home and right across the street from the community center (also, very near to the quincy street neighborhood).  there are a number of homicides that happen in the area, and i usually read about them, but feel somewhat disconnected even though they happen in our "neighborhood."  well, this time there was no disconnect. one of the victims was a really neat young guy who had life guarded at a pool i took the after school kids to every friday.  we were by no means close, but saw each other often, knew each other's first names, and i always appreciated the way he dealt with some of our rowdier students.  the incident happened early monday morning and affected a couple of people on my staff (as well as me and several people in our community group).  in some ways, this demonstrates that we are getting "deeper" into the community at large, but also it's been a tougher pill to swallow.

all that to say, it's been a heavy summer.

2) the process of buying a house has been extremely difficult and slow.  it's looking very much like it's going to happen, but man is it taking forever!  because of the slowness of this process we are going to be out of housing for about six weeks (yikes!) and are scrambling to figure that out.  for those of you who are praying types, this is a huge request!  this is another situation where i know in a year we will look back and have some good stories and laughs, but right now feels totally ridiculous.  

3) school (as in colleges and universities) is beginning soon, and i can't wait to tackle my first semester with Sojourn.  i am getting really excited about some partnerships with local stuff that we can get students plugged into.  some cool opportunities are starting to present themselves and this gets me fired up!  

the other side of that is the continual process of raising sufficient funds.  on the one hand this process has also been really slow (mostly due to my lack of time), and on the other it's already been amazing to see how people are responding and being even more generous than expected.  right now, my focus has been on churches.  i have created a little packet for ten churches to look at and review.  my hope and prayer is that three (i don't know where that number came from, but it feels like the right one) will financially support us, another three will be willing to send teams to help us out with our house and other projects, and that all of them will be praying for our ministry.

apologies for the long update.  i usually try to keep things shorter, but not this week!

peace