Broken Hearted
Photo Credit: The Detroit News
Jacob, my 9-year-old son, broke my heart yesterday.
I’ve been busy organizing a conference on urban and suburban church partnership in Detroit. My prayer has been that we can find a church in the city of Detroit to host the conference at. Yesterday we went for a drive into the city to see how accessible one of the churches I’m thinking about is from the expressway.
In order to get to the church, we drove through some residential streets. Driving past vacant lots, homes that are falling apart, abandoned buildings littered with debris, and business lots bordered with barbed wire doesn’t faze me. I’ve lived in the Detroit area all of my life and have come to accept that two thirds of the city is falling apart while the rest is desperately trying to stand tall.
I love this city. There’s beauty and hope beyond that barbed wire.
Anyway, Jesse and I talked about location and logistics the entire ride home, both of us unfazed by the condition of the streets we had just driven down. Then, as we approached our own suburban subdivision, Jacob, who along with his little sister had been silent the entire ride, spoke up from the back seat. “Well, I’ve never been to that part of town,” he said.
“What did you think of it?”, I asked.
“It was creepy.”
Heartbroken.
Jesse and I pride ourselves on raising a family that is sensitive to world issues and has an awareness of diversity. We talk to them about equality and injustice. We try to impress upon them the importance of being selfless and giving generously. In that moment, I realized that my son has a love and appreciation for the third world conditions of our World Vision or HopeChest children, but had never been exposed to the neighborhood pictured above, a short 20-minute drive from where we live.
He’s 9 years old, and we have yet to truly teach him about his neighbor. That changes now.
I want him to love this city too. I want him to love his neighbor.
Nicole… what a great Blog… I remember as a child my father used to take me out on his produce route and we used to have to go to the eastern market to get his orders! Anyway he ALWAYS took crazy ways and drove me through the streets of Detroit to familiarize me with what life is like just next door to where we live… I still remember this 25 years later and am grateful that I was exposed to what is right next door and not what is only good or prosperous in our world!!
When Jacob & Jessica came with me to the literacy center, Jake asked if it was a prison. I was stumped for a minute before I realized that a parking lot surrounded by a 10′ high fence topped with barbed wire is normal to me. They’d never seen one. Of course they were also perplexed at the idea that there are adults who can’t read. They’re learning some new and unsettling things. I hope they never stop caring.
This makes me so sad. I love them.
I have a feeling most Americians, both adults and children, have very little contact with the face of poverty if they don’t live right in the middle of it… In our society we hide it away, sort of like death and suffering. I don’t have kids, but I mentor a bunch. For a long time I was a part of different inner city churches. For part of the time they were really good about being a part of the community. They had food banks and threw parties for the neighborhoods and gave away food and clothing… they had job fairs and one of them housed the homeless in the sanctuary one night a week during the winter when the city would allow us to because of the lack of shelters. I always made it a point to bring as many of the kids with me as possible when we were doing events… they helped serve food and refill glasses. They helped set up and run sound, they helped set up and clean up… they helped with face painting and kids activities, they went along to help us take care of some of the elderly people’s houses, helped paint and mow lawns. They made little bags with non perishable food to give to people who looked hungry. They helped collect blankets and socks for the people on the street. Mainly they watched and talked to people and realized they were just like them except they didn’t have as much. I can tell with most of them it effected them a couple of ways. They became more compassionate and less scared of people who were “different” than them. They also became more aware of just how much they had in comparison. I saw a lot of them making different choices about how they spent their extra money. I think there are a lot of suburban poor currently too. The church I’m connected with now works at a food bank together to get food to distrubute to the poor right by the church, and also several other families I know who are middle class but self employed and hurting financially with the recession. I would bet there’s probably food banks you guys could volunteer at, maybe soup kitchens you could serve at or afterschool programs or who knows what else where your son could have a chance to be a part of the solution in a safe way. He’s half way there because you guys have the kind of heart you have. It does my heart good to see you guys having a heart to connect there. The Monkey Town blog has had a few great posts about such things. I’m a hands on kind of gal. I want to sit down next to people and look them in the eye and touch them. In the midst of the state of the country I wish we as believers could see us as being a part of the bigger community and all being in it together. Just think what could happen. Thanks for the reminder of how important it is.
This is one of the things that I have been thinking about for the past several months. I think that mission trips are wonderful and I do support them but we also have mission fields with great needs in our own backyards. I know that our church does many things for our community, which is wonderful, but there are also other nearby communities for outreach, such as Detroit and Flint. I know that our own District has the Flint Eastside Missions that always needs help/supplies and that isn’t very far from us. It’s good to be aware of world needs, but my parents always told me that we needed to be aware of what was happening in our own backyard too (in their discussion about world issues and this relates very well to this subject).
Local missions is so important, especially for our kids!
You’re such a good mom :) And I TOTALLY agree with this: “In the midst of the state of the country I wish we as believers could see us as being a part of the bigger community and all being in it together”.
Wow, Nicole, thanks for some great thoughts. My children are younger (7, 5, 3) and I find myself thinking alot about how to both protect and expose them to the world. Like you, my city is well-divided into affluent areas and urban decay. I’m still trying to figure it out, and I”m glad I’m not the only one.
I have suggestion:
Jubilee Christian Church
4875 Lakeview St
Detroit, MI 48215
EIN: 382445107
Phone Number:
Fax Number:
Email Address:
Contact Person: Ellis L Smith President
Ellis will probably remember me. I was on the board of their charter school, Colin Powell Academy. The have a huge facility, it being a former Catholic High School. It’s fairly accessible from I-94, practically in our old neighborhood.
the phone number at Jubilee is (313) 822-5060
Thank you! I need all the contacts I can get. Do you still know anyone at Grace?
Finding that balance is so difficult especially at these young ages.
WOW… incredible post nicole… we were just having a conversation like this with our friends the other night over dinner. Our kids know nothing other than the comforts of suburbia and are annoyed when they don’t get their allowance when they think they should. They have participated in the homeless bbq that our friends do, but it hasn’t fully hit them yet..
keep up the great work!!!
Thanks Bryan :) U think that this was different for our kids because it was a peek into everyday life rather than a church sponsored event like the bbq you mentioned. So glad that you have a heart for this stuff too!
it’s so easy to take kids to an impoverished country outside of the US. If it is not in our backyard, we don’t have to actually “invest” any part of ourselves for a long-term solution. We can go, cut ties, come home and step right back into how we have lived for our entire lives. When it is in our backyard, there is more required of us. Hence… why most teen programs, youth programs, and churches focus on 3rd world and forget their backyard.
But just the fact that you have an awareness of this Nicole says that you guys as a family are totally on the right track…
Thanks for the encouragement my friend!