Hey everyone! Yeah I know it's been awhile! I can't wait to see everyone soon and fill ya in on all the crazy happenings here in Chicago. But till then I've decided to try and put out a weekly article highlighting one of my adventures each week. So strap in tight, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
In recent weeks our team has befriended a girl that lives a few blocks down from us. She's 30 something and is deeply involved in drug use and prostitution. We've had amazing discussion with her about that fact that she feels God has been coming at her from all directions and she feels he's really calling her to another lifestyle.
On one such night, after dinner(spaghetti and meatballs with donuts for dessert, she really loves donuts) my roomate and I walked her back to her house. She lives in a house FULL of random people, mostly other girls in her business and her bosses. She joked about us coming up to say hi to everyone and I jumped at the opportunity. Not as crazy as it sounds because I do know a few other girls there because many come to the food pantry that I manage.
Our dinner guest kept joking with us asking if we had "ever been to a real live crack house?" In actuallity I had been in there before looking for her when she dissappeared for a month.
The inside was definately rough, but it was also humorous to see our friends suprise when everyone started saying "Hey! whattup Brad!" I think this concerned her because until that point, she had assumed that I was just another christian kid who was totally out of place in this neighborhood. But the thing I tried to tell her and the thing that I am beginning to understand more and more for myself is that, christians will always be out of place in this world. We are called to walk in this world as a light. I've heard people say that it just takes a special kind of light to shine in such a dark place, and while that sounds somewhat correct, if everyone is equally fallen, than it is just ask dark back home in our high school halls, office buildings, and, dare I say it, church lobby's. The truth is, it can be hard to let Christ's light shine, no matter where the setting is. Anyway, back to the story.
So there I was standing in the midst of pimps, prostitutes, and drug addicts. And suddenly something became sadly clear to me. The reason why our dinner guest was so distraught that I was friends with other people in the house.
I'm on the streets alot, I know a ton of guys that run the streets in my neighborhood and a lot of them seemed like pretty good guys despite their "career choices". But suddenly I was faced with cold truth, the guys that I hang out with on the street, joking and offering prayer for, are the same faces in the stories our dinner guest tells about rape, exploitation, or even the faces that shake her awake and make her go out on the streets to sell herself.
It's sobering when so suddenly the oppressed become the oppressors. So much confusion. Some would say that being friends with the men who seemed to be in control is a blessing. That since I have that relationship would give me a little power to speak Christ into their world and promote change from the top down. I would agree and believe me, I've prayed hard about direction from here, I will appreciate any who pray with me. But still the doubts run wild in my mind. Thoughts of things going wrong. And if this wasn't enought to process as I stood in this smoky 3rd floor crack house what happened next would keep me up thinking for many nights to come.
I stepped into another room to find another friend of mine. He was sitting on a couch while an older woman helped in stick a vein to shoot heroin into his blood stream. I suddenly realized that HE was the face in some of the stories our dinner guest told us about the beatings she had recieved.
He saw me and looked up smiling, " Alright Brad, Whattup."
"hey whattup bud" I smiled back down at him before he leveled me with his next question. He closed his eyes and leaned back as the heroin found it's way into his arm. Then he looked back up at me," Hey Brad I been meaning to tell you, you should take a Sunday off from your church and come with me to my church down the street on Francisco."
Take a minute, and think about everything that question implies and we'll talk during my spring break, April31st-March9th.
