It's been a year...

I wrote a status update yesterday that made me stop and think about how much has changed in the past year and how little I have had a clue of what was going on. A year ago, we had a vision for working with college students and the people of North Central Troy ("the hood") together and bringing the hope of the gospel to both groups, seeing the miraculous healing power of God at work on the streets of Troy, and seeing churches come together and help each other in this work. And no idea how to go about this vision.

And there were many, many months of discouragement. Many months where all I was doing was praying in my own apartment, teaching the youth group in a church in another town (which was awesome, incidentally, but my heart was burning for Troy), unsure of how this priesthood thing that I was called to worked, and barely making ends meet while working as a cashier. Months of walking around the block in Troy praying, dutifully making pilgrimages to the Stewarts to get my cup of tea and talk to anyone who would make eye contact.

Months of just trying to obey. God would throw us a bone every once in a while - just enough to keep us going, but it was rough. And lonely. Walking the streets in winter praying for people whose faces I didn't recognize and names I didn't know. And we all but gave up on the college ministry side of it because we just couldn't get in. Every door slammed. Our mentors got slammed with all kinds of things and just couldn't meet with us. Winter storms pretty much killed any social endeavor.

But you were praying. And we just tried to obey and follow blindly one step at a time. And God is faithful.


Wednesday made me realize just how much things have changed already. In May, we started walking and praying at least once a week together with our collars on. God gave us some local clergy with the same heart and passion (and who had been here longer and are much wiser and more experienced than we are). And we prayed together. We joined with some of the local pastors at Compelled, the random, last-ditch effort to keep a Christian Missionary Alliance church going on Wednesday nights that unexpectedly brought in a bunch of college students. Now we're playing worship music and leading a small group there. And some of them have joined us in North Central. And some of them have joined us for ice cream.

Compelled folks praying with North Central kids

And we kept walking and praying. And God is bringing down strongholds. We started monthly barbecues in the park loosely structured around a bible story/game/craft/worship/prayer time. And God gave us a church from 2 hours away who have faithfully come up and helped us put it on, and the youth worker from a church across town, and some Compelled folk and some people from my youth group church and some folks we worked with at the summer camp last summer and we have always had enough help. And we got a small army of children.

First cookout; thanks to Scotty Gladstone for the collages and photos

We started going every Sunday in between and doing small snack/game/bible story time. Last week, three kids gave me a hug. The bully circled around and didn't disrupt and told us his birthday is this week. The older kids joined our softball game. One boy made us retell the bible story he'd missed (because he was rough-housing) just for him. A little girl told us her name for the first time. Two young brothers helped us unload the car (and hunted for cookies). A man rode around the neighborhood on his bike and brought his friends. We prayed for another. The the guys in rehab made a woman with a miscarriage let us pray for her. The former Jamaican Baptist evangelist who's always stoned or drunk and knows everyone in the neighborhood has decided that the two crazy nuns walking around are his friends.

September cookout

And then there was the "Sanctuary for Independent Media" lady who's doing a documentary on the neighborhood. She chased us down and asked us to share what we were doing on camera. So we explained about praying for hope and the freedom of Christ that we were praying for in the neighborhood with a smattering of spiritual warfare and freedom from drugs and crime and poverty. She'll catch up with us again eventually.

And then there was Wednesday. We had an hour. We took an hour and a half and finally ran away so we weren't crazy late to Compelled. But Pastor Willie, from the only open church in that side of town, the black gospel street mission church, was sitting outside. We'd encountered him before and were praying about how to work with him. He asked us to sit with him, and started telling us about his experiences in the past 4 years of being there and how he needed help. We told him what we were doing on the other side of the neighborhood, and he asked us to teach his kids bible study so he could separate the kids and the adults, who were all in one group. Pastor Willie asked us to teach his street mission kids!

And the two crazy nuns kept walking and praying and had real conversations with several people. And several people interrupted their conversations to wave and say hi. And some of our kids stopped us to ask about the cookout (and discuss birthday cupcakes). And a random kid stopped us to ask about our collars and if we ever got to take them off (which totally cracked up his mother).

It's been a year. God has given us a place, jobs (I even got to stop being a cashier, which is just a bonus) and people. The kids know we're there and that we'll come back. Some of them even know that we love them. The praying walking nuns are part of the landscape now and people often say hi. In one day, we talked with three different churches to work with them for the sake of the Gospel (plus preaching/celebrating at the cathedral, which was kind of a culture shock). God is doing things through the prayers of his people. Now we just need to pray for a place to continue down there during the winter.

Summary: God is good. He alone can fulfill the vision that he gave us - in so many unexpected ways. I know there will be many discouraging moments in the future, but if I can just look back on what God has already done, hopefully I can take heart for the future. And hopefully, this is encouraging to others of you who are on this journey with me.

Praise the holy, mighty name of Jesus!