A Safe House in Homewood

Jesus modeled the type of incarnational living where we give ourselves away to others. We find out where marginalized or vulnerable people are in our world, we go to them, we spend time with them, and God takes everyone on a process of transformation as we build relationships with one another. The concept seems simple enough, right?

The problem is that mainstream society, especially in America, does not hold to those types of values. The American Dream actually causes us to distance ourselves from the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our society. Upward mobility, at its very core, involves making our lives more comfortable so that we don't have to deal with as much messiness or discomfort.

To be a follower of Jesus, we should be downwardly mobile. We should be spending time with people in the places where God asks us to go, the very places where he promises us that we will find life if we will only give up control of our lives. We find the Holy Spirit at work in surprising places in our world, the Almighty God giving scandalous amounts of grace away to those who need it most... both the comfortable and those of need find God's grace in the margins.

My friends in Homewood, Pastor Freedom Blackwell and his wife, Freed, live out incarnational ministry like Jesus on a daily basis. This week they led a housing blitz in Homewood where an abandoned home was converted into a safe house for children in the middle of the neighborhood. It will be a place of refuge for kids to get off the streets for a little while. It was rebuilt by residents of Homewood for residents of Homewood.

I am excited to see what God does through the safe house in Homewood. Many of the children who have spent countless hours playing at my house or eating dinner at my dinner table will now have another place to go. The young people who are some of the brightest assets in the community now have a place to go that is an asset in the community.

I know that we will still welcome people into our home in Homewood, Pastor Freedom and Free will, and there are several other people living out incarnational ministry in Homewood who will continue to do so. Still, it is great to have another place for kids to go when we are unable to be there for the kids. I am praying that God raises up many more people in Homewood to live like Jesus in many more houses that are restored by the residents of Homewood in partnership with volunteers located throughout the city of Pittsburgh. God is truly doing an amazing redemptive work in Homewood, and I am privileged to experience that work up close.

Grace in a "Mom's" Embrace

A boy I mentor in Homewood has had a severely strained relationship with his biological mother for a long time. His mom battles addiction and homelessness, and she has been unable to take care of him. Their relationship was abusive when he lived with her, so he is no longer able to live with her. As long as I've known him (four years) he's bounced around from house to house, staying with whoever will take him in for the night. Now a freshman in high school, from what I have been able to see he is pretty much raising himself.

I had the opportunity to meet his mom one time, which was early on in our mentoring relationship. I needed to have some paperwork signed by a guardian so that he could be in the mentoring program, so my young friend showed me where his mother happened to be staying at that time. There was no way to reach her by phone, so we would have to go directly to her house to try to catch her. On that day, let's just say I caught her at a bad time. I did manage to get her to sign the paper, but that visit to her house came at a cost to my mentee. Although I've probably seen this mentee every week for the past four years, I have not seen his mom since that day. In fact, over the last year or so he has even stopped talking about her. I know he is deeply hurt and wounded from not having a relationship with his mom, but he distances himself from her out of self-preservation.

So I was surprised a few days ago when, after hanging out together, he asked me to drop him off at a new house... his "mom's house." I was shocked! He had not mentioned anything to me about being reconciled with his mother. I was nervous about dropping him off there at this new house with her. He got out of my car, and I always wait to make sure the kids get into their homes alright. As he slowly walked to the front door, he noticed a kid who I know is his best friend walking down the sidewalk toward him. He stopped on the steps to this house, greeted his friend, and then they both went to the door together. The door opened, and a woman who I did not recognize greeted them with a warm smile. She hugged and kissed my mentee's friend. Then she opened her arms wide for my mentee, she embraced him for a while, and I overheard her say, "Welcome home, baby! How was your day?" Needless to say, I was confused. When my mentee slipped out of her embrace, he turned around and saw me still sitting there in my car with my window down... staring at them with a dumbfounded look on my face. He said, "Mr. B... come here. You gotta meet my mom." Of course I got out of my car to meet her and figure out what was going on. She invited me to come in, so while my mentee and his best friend went into the kitchen to get something to eat, she explained to me that she was not his real mom. She was his best friend's mom, and she had taken my mentee in to live with them for a while. She had become a "mom" to him. I had the most incredible conversation with her. She doesn't have much, and she struggles to meet the needs of her own son, but by her measure... "Everyone should have a mom."

There is power in a mother's embrace, even if that embrace doesn't technically come from a "real mom." In church we talk about grace. A few days ago, on the front porch of a broken down row house in Homewood, I got to see grace lived out in a woman giving out a "mom hug" to a boy who desperately needed it. God let me see that hug, and I got a snapshot of the Kingdom of God in that moment. The Holy Spirit works in vulnerable place with hurting people, and grace isn't just found in church buildings on Sunday mornings.