Normally, this time of year would take me into homes and community centers in Latin America's slums during the Global Urban Trek. During this InterVarsity program that I participated in, led, and directed over the course of six summers, we challenged college students to consider God's call to live and minister among the world's rapidly growing urban poor population. As part of their orientation, a variety of speakers and activities primed the students for six weeks in marginalized communities. One of the talks we offered year after year was called "Global Urban Realities", and it was a barrage of statistics and studies on the state of the world's poorest cities. Many students ate up this feast of facts-- it was something tangible and solid amid a coming flood of unknowns for their summer experience.
That 'Global Urban Realities' talk came to my mind this week as I read some sobering police reports on our neighborhood. Within 5 blocks of our apartment, six men have been shot in less than six weeks, in three separate incidents. Three of them were killed, and another is still in critical condition. You see, I don't often get the hard data on the neighborhood. Most of my experience is, well, just what I experience. I experience wonderful refugee ladies at the farmer's market, selling swiss chard. I see my neighbor "R" coming home late, juggling 3 jobs, a 7-month-old daughter, and a husband recovering from a hand injury. I watch with amusement as Buddhist monks from a local monastery stop at the corner market. Lately I resent the amount of TV and party noise on some nights, amplified by close alleys and open windows. I smell the drugs smoked on either side of our house. I shake the hand of a pastor at a storefront church. I recognize the psychotic woman at our bus stop from a downtown ministry program. I wonder what happened to our former neighbor, who was evicted after she simply disappeared and stopped paying rent. I grin at seeing dogs in the park and flowers in yards. I notice a woman lives with her baby in someone's 1-car garage a few doors down.
When I list it all like that, it's feels far more bleak, because taken one at a time, one fact, one observation, one relationship at a time, it's just life. It's just the combined lives of people trying to make a living. I don't write this to prove anything about our neighborhood or to promote stereotypes about it. That is not my aim at all. I generally think that City Heights is not nearly as rough as its reputation would indicate. However, those police visits to our block did snap me back to the reality that all is not fine. Things are not as they should be. Do I want to do something about it? Sure! Did my mind immediately rush to community watch groups and town meetings? You bet!
Yet, I want to pause and sit for a time with this thought, penned by a current Trek student spending the summer in Manila:
How often do we go into a broken situation trying to “fix” things, bring “justice,” “save” people, when truly, we don’t have the human capacity to make things right? Without God’s love, our efforts mean nothing. It is God’s love that restores, heals, and saves lives. And “fixing” and “bringing justice” was never our primary calling. Our first call was to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
(Feel free to read more and follow their experiences on the Trek blog.)
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