Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Welcome to the Hood!

We've been living in the South Bronx for about a month now and have finally gotten ourselves settled in. By (semi) popular demand we thought it was about time to start our very own internet blog (thanks Mr Patch!).

In case it's unclear exactly why a group of privileged NYU girls would move to the South Bronx, here is our attempt at explaining the journey that has brought us here to Beekman Ave. In January of 2008 our good friend "set us up " (Sara and Jillian) and we realized that God was going to do some pretty amazing things through our Friendship. We had each been deeply changed over the previous year by reading The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and by letting Jesus speak to our hearts and decided to go out for coffee at Joe's to talk about our journeys. By the end of that first date we had decided to move to the South Bronx together (we both are giggling because it sounds like we are a couple that got engaged after just one date- it really was that amazing though). We began to meet weekly to read about Jesus in Matthew and to pray over how our lives could look more and more like His. After four months of this, God gave us a vision of what His will for our lives in the South Bronx could look like. Over the summer our little relationship became a love triangle as Sara's cousin Kate Henninger decided to join us!

So here we are now, in our beautiful little house on one of the "worst" streets in NYC (we like it a lot though); spending each morning seeking the Lord's heart in prayer, doing our best to give generously to each other and the community around us and learning more and more each day about the love of Jesus for the poorest neighborhood in the United States and all that He has in store for us here. (If you want more details ask us and we'll give you the full low down or even better come visit us and we'll show you!)

We've met lots of people on the block, and now that the curiosity about the white girls has died down we've been able to start forming relationships with people and feeding them lots of cookies. Last week the last of our new neighbors moved in and brought her seven kids along with her. We were making some cookies before having a bunch of NYU people over for dinner when we saw two of the girls sitting outside and decided to go bring them and the other people hangin out on their stoops some cookies. After talking to the girls for a bit we found out that they were locked out of their house until their mom came home from work so we invited them upstairs. They were really fun and we talked to them about their lives for a while and then decided to bust out the art supplies and draw some pictures for our fridge. After a while their mom came home and they left, but then she had to go back out and they asked if they could stay with us so they (plus one more) came up and had dinner with all of our guests. We all ate on the roof since it was crazy hot and the NYU folks got to hang out with the kids from the BX. After dinner and lots more cookies we played jump rope with them (the jump rope was made out of cable wires which gave an extra bit of excitement). The night was such a beautiful expression of the kingdom of God on earth as we saw our friends from school spinning the rope for the girls and vice versa. After a while their mom returned home with the rest of the kids who immediately got out of the car and jumped into our arms to hug us before even telling us their names. I've never had such a big smile on my face.

Later that weekend we were all out doing our thing on Saturday night, I (Jillian) went to an NYU event called compelled that was really encouraging and gave me a great opportunity to hear about other people's expression of God's love throughout the city. The event ran pretty late so a good friend James Richard Chalk III (he is strong and a gentleman) brought me home, at home we met up with Ryan Patch who had just fixed Sara's completely broken computer (he is brilliant and manly). It was after midnight so we thought what better way to occupy our time than by praising Jesus! Jim busted out the guitar and we busted out our voices and spent some really great time worshiping. It was really beautiful as Jim and Ryan are pretty much the ones who have supported us and prayed with us since the very beginning so it was nice to spend that time with them and after making (more) cookies we spent some time in prayer together, asking God to bless them in the way he had been blessing us. Again the Kingdom of God came straight from heaven to Beekman Ave.

Last night when Sara and I got home from class we decided to sit outside and eat some (more) cookies, the kids from next door (this time all seven) and a couple other people from the street were outside so we gave them all cookies. Kate came out and we sat outside for a few hours playing with all the kids and helping the oldest girl with her homework. They drew about a hundred more pictures for our fridge which are pretty much the best, cutest artwork I've ever seen (take that Metropolitan Museum!) They were so much fun and such a joy to be around and their mom was very thankful to have them taken off her hands after a long day at work.

We are now just about ready to go to bed although there is probably a lot more giggling to be done before that actually happens as we still have to listen to our daily Chris Brown and Jordin Sparks. We are so so blessed and are unbelievably excited to see what God is going to do with us tomorrow!

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