oh the hats i wear...

I've had two weeks of my own programming now and couldn't be happier.

The nature of my position here gives me the ability to fully grasp and be fairly involved in every area of our ministry here in Houma. Each day i have the oppurtunity to go to our work sites, hang out with the house owners, shoot over to senetors circle and play with fifty urban kids then hang out with high schoolers for the rest of the night. Thats my job. Its incredible. I'm getting paid for this.

One of my favorite parts of the day is going to meet the owners of the houses my teams are working on. Most of these individuals are in very poverty stricken areas and its tough to see sometimes. However, each day I make my way up an old deck or to the front door of a trailer and shake hands with a new home owner. These broken individuals have spoken into my life in areas where college professors have failed. I"m learning so much about true, pure, relationally driven ministry. I feel as though until now all of thoughts and theories about ministry and the way it should be carried about has been just that, thoughts and theories. I've known for a long time that Christ centered ministry should be something that is relationally driven, not through aggressive abrasive words, but through showing unconditional love and people showing a better way through acts of love. the way Jesus did things.

Last week this all made sense to me.

two weeks ago we worked on a woman named Erika's house, she lives in a trailer that until last week had no pluming, was missing one window and was in horrible over all disrepair. When I met Ericka she explained to me that she lived in this 3 room trailer with her six children. Ericka is 28. I spoke with Ericka for about half and hour about her life, where I was from and what we were doing in the area. The next few days my work projects staff Scott brought teams out to her house and continued to help her with her house, it was rough the work was tough and one team commented that they had witnessed a drug deal go down at the house. The last day we were working there I went out to access what had been done and speak with Ericka again, as I said good bye Erika hugged me and I walked away knowing that no matter what happened from there we had given her Christ like love and I felt ok with that. A few days later Scott rushed up to me and told me that Ericka had grabbed him when he was working on the neighbors house and asked if we could give her a ride to church on Sunday and get her kids registered for vacation bible school. It was bone chilling. There was no pressure, there was no alterier motives, there was jsut pure unadulterated love, love for her, love for her community, love for her world. She saw something in that, and I look forward to sitting next to Ericka in church tomorrow.

Another facet of our ministry is our Kids Club. At kids club 50 or so urban 4-12 year olds get together, hear bible stories, sing songs, do crafts and play games outside. I generally selfishly show up only for outside games :). These kids are good for my soul. They are absolutely nuts and generally attention deprived. Long story short, they terrify all of the cute little subburban church groups for the first day but I love them. Last week a little boy fell during a pretty intense game of Mrs. Clocks. As I swept Zentrel up and brought him inside I began to realize that he had stopped crying and was clinging to me as if for dear life. I sat down maintaining my attachment and felt his soft black cheek laying against my shoulder, we stayed like this for about half an hour. It gave me time to think about Zentrel. Zentrel is one of the toughest five year olds I've ever met, and yet here he was off in the corner of the building laying completely vulnerable on my shoulder. then I began to realize, isent this what every one wants? To be able to be completely vulnerable to someone that will give you love. Zentrel come from a weird famil situation, he lives with his mom who works and her boy friend, I dont know how long he's been around and I'm fairly certain his fathers in jail. I began to feel more and more honered to be sitting with this affection starved boy who felt comfortable enought o let his gaurd down and rest for a little bit. I love Zentrel and i'm real scared for him.

Another example of this is Edward, I met Edward on a baseball field he had walked away from kids club during song time because it was boring, so I played ball with him for a while. Edward is about 12 and plays in a league, I told Edward I wanted to go see him play sometime. He was ecstatic but could'ent grasp why i would want to do that. I realized the treasure chest of wealth that i possessed as a kid with a father who rarely ever missed my baseball games even late into high school.

I could write for much longer about the every little interaction that I've been touched by, but that there is a snap shot of what I've been doing in the community. I'm loving it.

Grace and Peace
benjamin