It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

 Loving your neighbors is something that can be extremely challenging in any neighborhood, but lately, I've been learning that love can sometimes be pretty simple. Letting kids inside to play on the computer after school didn't feel like it was doing anyone any good. The kids played violent games until a frustrated mother came looking for them, and we just had to listen to the obnoxious video game sounds. Well, my family recently made our own corn hole game, so while some boys were over, my dad decided to teach them how to play instead of watching them play on the computer. It was really fun to watch them learn to play and then become pros instantly. We played until it was too hot to stand outside, but what little time we did spend with them was really fun for everyone. I hate that kids these days spend so much time in front of computers or televisions. We are just telling them its ok to be lazy. There's something wrong with this generation and what they are learning from us about the world.

My mom asked one of our neighbor kids what he wanted to do when he grows up. At first he didn't seem to understand the question, but when I asked him what he wanted to do when he was done with school, he told us that he would probably just mow grass. While that could potentially be a decent job, I feel like its a safe answer for a kid who hasn't been taught to dream. When kids don't dream, they don't have goals. If you were a second grader living in a poor neighborhood in a broken home and the only men you saw regularly were the ones who walk down the street pushing their lawn mower from house to house asking if they could mow their yards, you might think it was a good enough job. 

Most kids here don't live with a father. They don't know what it means to be a man or to work hard for something. They are told by their mothers that they have to act a certain way so that they can get a "crazy check" to go along with unemployment every month. Sometimes they even live without electricity or running water. 

This isn't some foreign land. They aren't hopeless kids. They just don't know how the world works or what love really is.

 This little guy is precious. He "helped" my dad pull some weeds in our yard after playing some corn hole with us. Once, he saw a neighbor's dog with an apple and he asked what it was. His older brother asked for some grapes once and didn't know what they were called. I understood when another neighborhood kid didn't know what pistachios were, but fruit?! 

There is a new campaign with Juicy Juice called Fruit for All that is trying to get fruit into the hands of kids who aren't getting enough. It sounds like a pretty great thing, something that most people might not think is a very big deal...until their second grader neighbor doesn't know what a grape is. I  hope that these kids don't just get a piece of fruit, I hope they understand its value and its importance in their diet. You can't give them food and expect them to automatically know that it has more nutritional value than the chips and soda they had for lunch. 

Ok, that's enough ranting about our society. I'm pretty excited about the next picture...

This was a house that we started demolition on at the end of last summer. The top picture is pretty early in the process. The front door has moved, the layout is totally different, and it's almost move in ready! It has been really amazing to see so many homes in our neighborhood come to life over the past couple of years. House to House isn't just building homes, they are building up families and growing people through the mentoring program. It's really cool to hear about families, especially single mothers, going through the financial training class, getting mentors, and becoming qualified to potentially own one of these houses. God is doing big things through this ministry, and I feel like I've really been blessed to even see, much less experience, all of this.  

Beautiful Things

 I was going through some boxes the other day from when my family moved last August, and I found some old pictures. They got me thinking about my life...It's kind of crazy to think that I'm 23. I've been so incredibly blessed, and I am so thankful for all of the amazing things that I have been able to do. I've been to some great school, done all kinds of extracurricular activities from dance and cheerleading to managing sports teams and being active in Girl Scouts. I even got to travel the world from Panama and Ecuador to China, Greece and Turkey! I'm just really grateful for everything.

 This sunflower is outside my brother's house in South Carolina. It stood nearly eight feet tall when I took this picture. There's something about flowers, especially massive ones, that just makes me happy. Don't get me wrong, I love a bouquet of flowers, but potted plants, wild flowers, and gardens just inspire joy and exude the relentless love of our creator. All of creation exists to glorify God; the flowers worship him as they stand, brilliantly colored, providing pollen for bees, doing exactly what God created them to do. When you stop trying to fix the problems of the world and you just let plants and animals work together the way they were supposed to, it just works. We try to manipulate so much to make things bigger and better, but we're making things take on roles they weren't supposed to do. We forget our own purpose when we're so focused on making other pieces of creation do something they weren't created for and we make idols of them. I wish we could all take a step back and let the earth function without us for a minute. Don't you want to see what it does on its own? Don't you want to see the real food cycle without all the crap we add to it? Don't you want to live the way we were intended, in harmony with God's beautiful creation? I do.

 I've been slowly going through a book called Doctrine by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears. The first chapter was on the Trinity. It talks about the character of God, YHWH, and the "constant, passionate, overflowing, relentlessly pursuing, extravagant, limitless, trustworthy and merciful love" He has for us. This love makes me wish our language was more specific to kinds of love. In Hebrew this kind of love is pronounced "hesed." In English, or maybe just our society, its unfathomable. We just can't understand how big and powerful this love is; kind of like trying to understand what the Trinity is in simple English. God can't be reduced to our words. He's way too big for that; but, he still knows how many hairs are on your head. My mind is blown.

 I've always loved laying on the ground, looking up at the cloudy sky to see the shapes of white puffs floating way above me. It's rare that one would think to see a shape in the sky outlined by clouds. It's kind of one of those moments you finally see the trees amid the forest, rather than the forest fore all the trees. You may not even see what I see. You may see it, but it could mean something totally different to you. Maybe angels are praying over us. Maybe its a glimpse above the clouds. I'm just thankful for imagination.

Home is Where the Heart Is

When my family moved from the Carolinas to Alabama, I struggled a lot with not calling Montgomery home since I loved my hometown and all the people there so much. After nearly eight years of being here, I've still very rarely called this place home. 

Now, I'm taking another step; one I've chosen for myself. I'm moving to Macon, Georgia where my boyfriend lives. When William and I were talking about our relationship early on, he just  assumed that he would be moving back to Montgomery. We met here four years ago, and his father lives here, but he always seemed to have the same opinion I did about calling Montgomery home. After visiting him in Macon, I fell in love with the city. 

Unlike Montgomery, Macon has a beautiful downtown, made up of more than one single street. There are several universities and colleges around town, so there are a lot of people my age. Every spring, they have a Cherry Blossom Festival with a month full of entertainment, family events, art exhibits, block parties, live bands, and a parade; not to mention all the beautiful cherry trees everywhere. It's really pretty. 

Its strange to me how it feels like Macon has so much more history than Montgomery. I think part of it may be that most people in Montgomery are trying to forget about its history, or they're just shoving it all into this one block of houses just outside downtown called "Old Alabama Town." Macon has preserved so much of its history with its old homes, Native American sites, and museums. 

So, I love the city, but I also love William's family. Since he moved to Macon a little over a year ago, William has been living with his grandmother and his mother in a neighborhood that reminds me a lot of the one I grew up in in South Carolina. The neighborhood is quiet, but not too quiet; the neighbors know each other and aren't afraid to ask favors of each other. This is where William's mother grew up, and now where she and her three children have come back to. William has a twin brother, David who is engaged, and an older sister, Courtney, who works at the Methodist Children's Home. They are all enthusiastic about the things they do, and they value their family above anything. Something I admire about them is the way William and his siblings share everything with their mother. They respect her opinions and advice, and she respects theirs. I guess I've failed to see my parents as friends; my family has never been very open in conversation. We never talked about relationships, thoughts or things deeper than dinner conversation over how our day was. I admire that relationship William has and I hope I'll have it some day with my own children.

I'm officially moving to Macon on July 8th. I don't have a job yet, but I'm praying that God will open doors for me. I found a cute little apartment, and I am very excited about living on my own. 

 It's an old house that is now five apartments. Mine is on the first floor, with huge windows. The ceiling must be like twelve feet. It's really simple, but it has a lot of charm.

On the left is the kitchen. Small, yes, but still bigger than the one in my first apartment. The bedroom is a nice size, with two huge windows and a nice sized closet.

I'm really excited about moving in and making it feel like home.

This is my pile of stuff, still sitting at Jordan's house. I've been living without it for six months now, so I'm hoping to do a little purging after I move. I have one big tub of artwork and pictures that I don't have enough wall space for, plus  dresser full of clothes I haven't been wearing for six months. 

All of this will be moving to Georgia the week after I move, thanks to my lovely parents who are generously giving their weekend to haul my crap and move me in. :) 

So, Macon becomes home in July. I'll post pictures when I settle into my apartment. Prayers for a good job are definitely appreciated. :)