A Walk in Homewood

Friday is usually my day off, and one of my favorite things to do on my day off is go on walks with my wife. We are able to do that much more often now that our daughters are back in school. One of the best things about walking in Homewood is that we get to meet new people, catch up with friends and neighbors, and learn about what's really going on at the street level in our neighborhood. On our walk today, we met an 87 year old woman who has lived in the same house in Homewood for the past 57 years. She was out working on her garden when we met her, and she shared a lot of her story with us. One of the unique aspects of incarnational ministry is how our stories cross paths with other people's stories. Our neighbor told us about some of the history of our neighborhood, and she shared with us about some of her hopes and dreams. While we were walking, a man on is bike stopped and talked to us for a while. He grew up in Homewood, and still goes to church at a little Baptist church in Homewood even though he now lives on the other side of the busway in Point Breeze. He still spends a lot of time in Homewood, and he told us about how he and some people at his church have been working to combat the crime in the neighborhood by taking pictures of people selling drugs and stealing copper pipes from the many abandoned houses in our area. He calls the police when he sees bad things go down. He even pointed out a house to us that is one of the four or five drug houses within a couple blocks of where we live. The house he pointed out is selling alcohol to teenagers... a good thing to know if you happen to be a pastor in the community who works with youth.

All cities have many signs of need and many signs of hope. This is true in Homewood. As we walked today, we passed abandoned houses, drug houses, prostitution houses, trash, graffiti, and many other signs of urban blight. We also passed a relatively new school, policemen patrolling the neighborhood, a community garden from which we picked and ate raspberries, a couple businesses that employ people in the community, a busway that transports people to downtown Pittsburgh in about ten minutes, and new homes that have replaced apartment buildings that were once overrun with drugs and prostitution. The biggest signs of hope remain the people that we meet... the ones who are working so hard in small ways behind the scenes toward the transformation of Homewood. Small signs of transformation pop up everywhere as our neighbors reclaim our streets one small act at a time. I am so happy that God has allowed me and my family to be a part of the transformation that he is leading in Homewood. Change is happening one life at a time, one home at a time, one street at a time, and one block at a time. Who knows what this neighborhood will be like five or ten years from now? No matter the outcomes, I am enjoying the process with my neighbors. Walks are a big part of the urban adventure.