Fourth of July weekend!

Here’s a brief blog on my long Fourth of July weekend, Friday through Monday.

Summary:

Friday we spent the morning in a junkyard reflecting and spending time with God, then headed to the homeless park to hang out with Jesus in a different way. Saturday, I spent with my old host family from Etzel and the girls that I lived with there. We celebrated the Fourth with a barbeque and fireworks at the Arch. God’s been continuing to give me opportunities to put names and faces with the demographics we hear about. He’s also changing my perspective on those that society has told me to avoid, like the homeless, or even the inner city children that I teach.

Friday was a very impacting day. We spent the morning doing a retreat of silence in a junkyard. They sent us there to put us in an environment that reminds us how things of this world are fleeting and temporary, even if many people idolize them. I was thinking a lot about sin and dealing with my sin. Then I reflected a bit on the junkyard, as people were walking by me sitting in a car, looking for the car/parts they needed. I kind of stole the beginning of this train of thought from my lovely friend, Emily, who was at CityLights last summer. Here’s what I wrote:

People come here to take the few good parts left that they need out of these old cars. How much is that like our society, and how different is that from God? We see broken “worthless” people and come in to the junkyard to take what remains of them, use them for ourselves—whether its using a woman for sex, or exploiting a refugee who can’t speak English, or taking advantage of an elderly widow. We see the brokenness and are only there long enough to get what we can out of them. But God sees these broken down messes, and instead of seeing what He can take form them, He sees what parts are needed to make the car function again, and He fills them up, noticing what we do have to offer that He can use for His glory, even if it’s not much.

I also got out of the car and my tan capris were stained from the car seat. It was an interesting illustration of what it can cost to go in to the junkyard. That can happen when you spend time with those people that we’ve said are unwanted as well. It might make your stuff or your life a little messy. But I walked around with dirty pants all day, and it was fine.

Then we headed to a park in downtown St. Louis where a lot of homeless people congregate. We brought tons of extra lunches and got to sit in the park all afternoon eating and hanging out. It’s been times like that this summer where we get to meet real people and put faces and names and stories with demographics. It was a huge blessing to have fun with them for the afternoon.

While we were there, the police kicked out a few guys, who had all of their stuff piled by one of the benches. It was understandable, but frustrating. We took one of them to try to find a place in one of the tent cities in St. Louis. Those places are crazy, real communities, even with a “mayor”. The men go out and work, and the women stay around and take care of the “city,” at least at one of the two big ones here. It’s hard because the city just passed an ordinance or something kicking all of the homeless out of the park, and most of the downtown area. It’s difficult though because all of the services (like shelters) for the homeless are in the downtown area, but they can’t stay anywhere around there during the day now. We had three friends we met there come to hang out with us where we stay one night, and then again they came for church and lunch with us. They were surprisingly not bitter about being kicked out of the park. They understand why people don’t want some of the homeless shooting up in a park where their kids might play. When we were there, we did a bit of trash pick up and picked up a syringe and needle from… something? These people are valuable to our God, and I’m trying to figure out how to value them as He does. One of Gerry’s granddaughters was always heartbroken when passing homeless asking for money while they were in their car, so she came up with an idea that her mom helped implement called blessing bags. Filling a small bag with food items (bottled water, canned soup, crackers and snacks) that you can keep in your car to hand out when you pass someone by. Just thinking about how when we feed (or don’t) the least of our neighbors, we’re feeding Jesus (or ignoring him)…

We often have a double standard and assume the worst of people. The homeless obviously made some bad life decisions that got them where they are, and it’s their fault. If they really tried they could get themselves out of this. That’s true in some cases but definitely not all. We don’t want to give money to someone in need, because we assume they will go and use it on drugs or alcohol, but we give money to businessmen without questioning what they will use it for, and often it would be the same things.

We spent the night at City Museum, which is basically a giant playground for adults. Crazy fun time. Definitely tired by the end of it. And Eric lost his phone somewhere crawling around outside at some point.

Saturday, I spent most of my free day with Kim, Maggie, and Dionna, the girls I lived with on Etzel. Eric and I had a shortened morning in Forest Park, and then the girls and I went back to the Jackson’s house to cook them breakfast again. I used my mom’s waffle recipe for them. We had an awesome morning of hanging out with them again and actually hearing their testimonies, which we had never heard in a week of living with them. We ended our time with them by going to look at the house that they are currently restoring to move in to in the fall. Then the girls and I went out to Sonic and to Maggie’s house (she’s from St. Louis) for a chill afternoon of hanging out at having girl talk. I spent the night at Forest Park with a group, chilling and playing in one of the fountains. I was super tired though.

Sunday, the Fourth, we went to church, and then headed to my friend, Jake’s house where his parents hosted a barbeque for us on the Fourth. It was a delicious meal, and a nice time of hanging out. We then went downtown and bummed around the Arch, watched the airshow, and then watched the fireworks there. It was a nice show. It was a nice once-in-a-lifetime Fourth of July, but I did miss my normal day on the lake in the Wisconsin summer. On the way home from the Arch, I started feeling sick (sore throat and swollen lymph nodes), and I slept from midnight until 6pm. I got up for dinner and brief time of hanging out, went back to bed at 10pm, and woke up at 8:45am. By Tuesday night I was feeling pretty good again, but it definitely knocked me out for the most part of a couple days. Luckily, it fell on July 5^th, which we had as a completely free day.

I’m now only a week and a half behind, but I hope you can get an idea of what I’ve been up to and some of the things God’s been teaching me.

SO SO grateful for all of you in my life and for your support this summer.

Peace.