Set Free

For so many people around the world the standard of living in the United States is an unobtainable goal. This shouldn't be too surprising, especially when we tend to think of starving children on the streets of Kenya, beggars lining the walkways of India, the shanty towns of Peru, and small fledgling villages in the heights of Katmandu, when we hear about folks who can't afford to be American. What tends not to cross most folks minds is that the standard of living of the United States is unobtainable in many places WITHIN the United States. All across the nation, in every city, there undoubtably exists a population that is beyond the brink. In the city of Detroit, this is true for so many, and the thing that always gets me is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

When banks foreclose most of your neighborhood, you are left with depreciating property value. As homes are foreclosed, the rate of crime, poverty, illness, poor nutrition, and death, increase. When banks refuse to lend to perfectly qualified folks in your neighborhood, you are left with an ever increasing rate of foreclosure and abandonment, and the cycle continues. That’s what I find so ridiculous about folks who believe that poverty, crime, and illness are endemic. For some people, that may be true, but to the vast majority of folks who find themselves left out, they are left with no choices. There are more than a few people I know of that have suggested that the best way to “solve” the poverty problem, in the United States, is to simply remove or “eradicate” all of the nation’s poor. This follows the same logic as some other folks who suggested that the best way to cure the AIDS epidemic was to round up all of the victims and separate them from the rest of society until they died off. This line of reasoning denies the possibility that there may, in fact, be something wrong with the way the problem is treated from the very beginning.

Most debates I have ever listened to, about who/what is right and who/what is wrong, ignore the one constant for all time; the past. I have friends who would say that many of the homeless I had worked with two years ago, were products of their own err. During that same time I had colleagues who were working with elementary aged kids in another part of the city. Several of their kids came from single parent homes, where their mother/father had abandoned them and whose remaining parent was a drug addict. The area is so poor that the existing school system is 20 years behind the one I was brought up in. The kids live off of a diet of highly processed food, with little to no fresh foods. Their parents are mostly out of work, so there is little money to buy much of anything as it is. One of the kids had become addicted to meth. He was 10 years old. When he grows up and walks into the office I used to work in and sits down with someone to talk about his needs, what would my friends say about him? Is he the product of his own err? Did he have a choice? 

The biggest conundrum that I think we will someday find ourselves in, is reconciling the benefits gained by some, through the losses of others. I may not be an active participant in what happened to that kid, but because I do nothing to stop it, and that I benefit from it, means that I passively accept it. Life inside the system is a life of either active or passive participation in other people’s oppression. Life outside of the system that so many American’s enjoy is a life of resistance. It is resisting the pressures to fail, the pressures to give up and quit. For far too many, there is no way of getting in. Once you’re out you’re out, even if that means you were born out. Every day is a struggle to see how you fit in the world. Every day is a test of your will to stay afloat. Every time you lose your job, or your kid’s school closes, it is a trail by fire. That is why every day that ministries like Motown Mission and JSCDC send people out to work, there is victory. Every day that someone is able to keep their home, who is on the brink, there is victory. Every time a neighbor mows the lawn in the vacant lot next door, or replaces a boarded window on a foreclosed home, there is victory. Every time the farmers market sells out of produce, there is victory. Every family that manages to stay together, there is victory. Every child that graduates high school, there is victory. And every time there is victory, the chains forced upon someone by the world around them are loosed, and every victory brings us all one step closer to being set free.

Gifts

Almost every night we do an evening worship session with our groups to give them a space to digest what they experienced during the day and relate those experiences to their faith. Tonight we asked the groups about gifts, and how their service relates. My coworker said something that I found to be very thought provoking. She said, “You guys have come here for a week and your experiences will last a week. But what you are doing, Ken will be living in that house for the next 3, 5, 10 years. The work you are doing in this week will be with him for a long time.” In other words, the actions that we carry out, the decisions we make, or even the gifts we give, may only last with us a short time, or in some memory. However, those same actions will continue to have an effect on someone else for a very long time. 

As I think about this revelation it reminds me of worship last night, where we talked about how God asks us to be a light and to do good. One of the questions we asked the youth was, why? Why does obeying that matter? Why should we do good things? If my coworker is right, it is because the effects of our actions last far longer than we may anticipate. God is asking us to act out of love because the choices we make will stick with others for a while and therefore the effects of our actions become magnified.

When folks come into the city and take pictures of all the abandoned buildings and then call them the “face” of Detroit, that has a lasting impact on the image of the city. When shows like Detroit 187 go on the air and claim to be the “real” Detroit, that has a lasting impact on the “safety” of the city. (By the way I know some folks who walked by one of the “murder” scenes from the show, all while being perfectly safe and enjoying their day in the real Detroit). When people talk about the “race riots” of the 60's and forget the race riots of the 40's, that has a lasting impact on the race relations in the city. 

When we go to work in the neighborhood and mow a few abandoned lots, that has a lasting impact on the safety of the neighborhood. When we are able to make a formerly unlivable house, livable again, that has a lasting impact on the quality of life in the neighborhood. When we till the land and successfully grow a crop of corn, that has a lasting impact on the hunger of the neighborhood. Because we do all of these things, instead of what so many other people do, we have a lasting impact on the faith of the neighborhood. It never ceases to amaze me when people see what our groups are doing and then come out and help. It also never ceases to amaze me, when I have a conversation with someone who stops by in the neighborhood and tells me that this work has restored their faith in God and what small acts of kindness are capable of doing.

We are to be lights in the world and do good, because a small act of kindness can go a long way, but so too can a small act of selfishness. That is why God is so good, because God allows us to minister to one another through love. Every group that comes in takes away the knowledge that they gave something of themselves, and that something will continue to grow and spread for a very long time.

Witness

You can drive down any block in the neighborhood that I work in and find a mixed bag. The average block has about 6 abandoned/foreclosed/burnt-out houses for every twenty that exist. Some have far more, some have far less. The Cody-Rouge neighborhood is on the West side of Detroit, just south of Brightmoor and just north of Dearborn. The average income is around $5,000, and the state of the economy and rate of joblessness isn’t helping. The stories that I hear from folks are all the same: “We were doing fine, but now that I’ve lost my job, I’ve got no where to go. We’re stuck, and the bills and repairs keep piling up.”

Cody-Rouge is a neighborhood that is struggling to keep its head above water. The good news is that it is succeeding, but not without its share of struggles. The other day I sat down in the JSCDC office to review applications for the next week’s projects. One of the hardest parts about the work I’m doing right now is that there are so few funds to spread around. When I looked through the enormous stack of applications I was overwhelmed with the size of many of the projects. My job was to pick a few that a group of unskilled volunteers could work on, that could be priced out at around $500 a project. Unfortunately, most of the projects required massive roof work, or plumbing, or electrical. The roof work is incredibly expensive and the plumbing and electrical require skilled labor. Many of the applicants will be left waiting until those gaps can be filled. This was the first time I was able to actually take a look at this seasons applications since I started working for Motown Mission in June. I knew the need had been great, but I was finding myself overwhelmed with the information in front of me. Each application is filled out by hand, so each one is incredibly personal. There is a lot you can tell about a person from the way they write, what they ask for, and how they ask for it. Each application is a hope, a prayer, a chance at a better reality. Each application represents a real person, who had committed the unforgivable crime of falling on hard times, only to look up and find no one there to help out. JSCDC is often a last line of defense in some parts of the neighborhood, the only barrier that is left between a real community and an abandoned section of city property. 

That’s why the work that the volunteers do here is so important. Every day that they are out working, breathes new life into the community. Every day that they are mowing a lawn, painting a house, playing with some kids, mortaring new front steps, painting a swing set, praying with a homeowner, planting some corn, or trimming an overgrown bush, awakens neighbors to the realization that there is something about this community worth saving, worth fighting for. Just today while the group was sitting out in front of the house, taking lunch, three different folks walked or drove by and thanked us for the work we were doing, saying how much they appreciated the difference we were making.

Part of my job over the next few weeks will be to review how we can improve over the next couple of years and help connect those folks with some greater needs to some folks with great heart. As we finish up this summer, the pile of applications still exists, and it keeps growing. But the neighborhood has come alive, and for every application that comes in, more hands from around the block come out to help. If that isn’t the power of the witness of God at work, then I don’t know what is.