Life in our Hood

Please be in prayer for a few things going on here in the hood... Parker Street's AEP (After-School Enrichment Program) begins today. Please pray for patience and resilience for our staff and pray for an abundance of competent volunteers. Pray that they would show Jesus to these kids in ways we may not even realize.

More importantly, pray for the kids, for situations like this: two friends of Caleb's from summer camp who are right around his age have been coming over lately to hang out with him. We saw them the first day of school and assumed they were waiting for their bus but then found out that their mom didn't wake them up in time to catch the bus and then told them to just find a ride... Our neighbor ended up taking them and when she got to the school she found out they hadn't even been registered. One afternoon a few days later when I asked them how school was they told me it was so much fun and so much better than being at home. Talk about tugging on my heart strings, especially as a mom with children around their age. I'm sure if I knew even a fraction of what most of our neighborhood kids are going through at home, it would make me cringe... and send me immediately to my knees in prayer.

Also, there have been a number of break-ins in our neighborhood over the past couple of months. The first one happened to our across-the-street neighbors on July 4th. They had a LOT of stuff taken and some damage to their home inside and out where the intruder broke a window to get in. We were encouraged when the police found several blood trails and some decent fingerprints that something would be done on their part fairly quickly to resolve things... WRONG! We are now almost 8 weeks later and several more houses, a shed and someone's car have all been broken into, once in broad daylight. I don't care about our stuff but the thought of coming home to someone in our house terrifies me, especially if I am by myself with the kids. I have been praying like crazy that God would calm my spirit about the whole thing but it's so hard not to be fearful... I don't regret for a second that we are here and I know it is right where He wants us to be, so I do find solace in that.

So on a funnier note, when you see me leaving my house with my portable electronics store in tow (camera, video camera, external drive, etc.) you will understand why! As if I didn't have enough to carry already! :)