The Changing Seasons

It has been a pretty crazy summer. Natalia and I, with lots of help from her parents, gave the front house a bit of a reset. We cleaned, painted, and installed some new flooring. I wouldn't call it a renovation but it did help freshen things up a bit.

At the beginning of August we decided to rent the front to a group of young girls that were looking for a place to start a community. They are still hoping to find a place of their own but we all thought staying in the Lake House would give them time to find the right place as well as give them a chance to develop a bit as a community. Natalia and I are still doing our best to focus on our marriage and we are glad to be neighbors, occasionally sharing from our experience with this budding community.

Life has brought so many changes lately that sometimes its hard to take it all in. I really miss all the guys and the amazing life they were living here. I still see most of them quite often but it has just been sad to see their time in the house have to end. I am still grieving it.

We always used to say that it was the values that were consistent even when the people change. We had seen our share of individuals come and go and really learned the reality and importance of those stable values which defined our lifestyle. With the transition from those tough and tried dudes to a fairly green group of young ladies it has been hard for me, I feel the loss of the people AND the changes of lifestyle. I have felt the instability at times with the differences but I have also been quite comforted by the familiar and precious efforts at hospitality. Just this week I met a women who had nowhere to go and was really just looking for somewhere to get a few nights reprieve from the streets. In the past I never knew where to turn when I met women in her situation because there are just so few options. When the house was full of men we only hosted men and we always dreamed of and prayed for a sister community that could show hospitality to the women that we met. I have a few female friends that I have called in the past but there was nowhere like our house where a community was postured to receive guests in need. Being that the house is full of women now I jumped at the opportunity to direct this woman to them. I was so glad to see them open the house to her and offer he a place to stay for a few nights. Though the girl's hospitality, prayer, generosity, and even eating from the yard I have found the familiar values which have been so reassuring.

Then of course some things never change! (As in Craziness)

• Natalia had to break up two girls that were fighting about heroin near the alley this week. She successfully broke it up and took one of them to McDonalds for a snack. 
• Another day she had to call an ambulance for a friend that took quite a bit too many pills and needed to be monitored. 
• I ran into and briefly caught up with a dude that broke into the house a couple years ago. 
• We have had a few friends get arrested. One, barely an adult, is potentially facing life. 
• Oh and my favorite moment was when a guy, who was living outside, came up to me and handed me a brand new tattoo machine as a gesture of thanks. He said it was an extra and insisted that I take it along with his words of gratitude. I obliged. (Its only the machine and now I need a power supply, needles and ink but I just gotta say I am SO EAGER to start running this thing.)  

We also started our house church meetings again every Wednesday at 7:30. We have only met a few times so far and it has been awesome to all be together again. There are big things in store! We are beginning the semester with the end in mind and setting goals to plant another house church by December. We are praying hard for guidance on where to have it. Suggestions? Anyway, the Fall season is already off and running. We hope you will join us and walk with us as we pursue Jesus in mission this season.

Tonight is the Conscious Party and we are excited to be together again and share with one another. I am expecting a pretty great turn out tonight and hope you can make it too! Please bring food if you can and as always, bring a friend. Our hope is to create a night out and a platform of expression for our neighbors that are on the streets and everyone else is welcome too!


Lets see....What else?....Oh I have really tried to start writing consistently this summer and have been posting regularly on my blog called Ultimate Concerns. Check it out and follow it if your interested in my ramblings.

Please pray:

• Pray for Natalia and I as we continue to work at our own recovery and marriage
• Pray for 'The Guys' that sacrificed so much for Natalia and I to have the space we needed. Pray that they would be comforted in the loss, convicted in their values, affirmed in their capabilities and strengthened for the work that is ahead of them. 
• Pray for these girls that are renting the house and striving to live an intentional life together as Christian sisters. 
• Pray for the Lake House home churches leadership development, future location and the coming church plant. 
• Pray for our family of ministries: The Well, the Good Sam, The Banquet, The Conscious Party, The Eden Project, Sacred Studios, Underground Counseling, and Chyna's efforts to establish 'Firm Believers'
• Pray for me as I begin trying to fund raise to further support and grow our work among the poor in Tampa. 
• Pray for the recently established Ybor Heights Neighborhood Association. We started it and are working to rally community involvement. There is a lot of potential here!
• Pray for grace & mercy for a young friend who may be facing life. 
• Pray that I can get a vehicle working soon!
• Pray for our Conscious Party tonight to have a great turn out and a ton of fun
• Pray above all else that His kingdom would come and His will be done here, on earth, in Tampa, in our hearts, as it is in heaven. 

'What the hell are all these people doing in the same room with each other?'

"So an old black man, an old white man, and an old Jewish man are sitting around talking..." Sounds like the beginning of a really great joke but it actually was the beginning of a really great house church meeting last night. I could also have started by saying "So an asian girl, a black girl and a white girl were..." or even "So a high school student, a college student and teacher were..." or "So two Puerto Ricans and a Colombian are looking for Jesus..." You get the picture and it is the picture of the Kingdom of God.

Revelation 7:9

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count,

from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb."

Tampa Epoch Kickstarter Campaign

Our Community has been proud of the work being done by Bill Sharpe and the rest of the folks with the South Tampa News. The Tampa Epoch has been providing many in our community that have lost the right to make their needs known an opportunity to sell street papers. The paper is a high quality publication, a great resource in our city and also a huge chance for our neighbors in need to make ends meet. They started a Kickstarter campaign to help with the start up costs associated with this paper and we have decided to give and make the need know to you. Please consider visiting Kickstarter and pledging to support the paper and their vendors.

The Tampa Epoch

After the ban on panhandling I was determined to make a homeless newspaper for the poor to sell in this city. See the city council had decided to make an exemption from this 'saftey legislation' for newspaper sales. I couldn't seem to figure out how selling newspapers made you safer than selling flowers, water, or just asking for help. Well that's why these decisions are left to the professionals downtown. I talked to many people and found lots of writers and even a printer that would help as long as I made it with a legit masthead. I had never even heard that term before. So I called a big street paper in Tennessee to ask some questions and they informed me that Bill Sharpe, who already prints papers is hard at work in Tampa and almost ready to print. I had them get me in touch with Bill and he introduced me to his paper that he was calling the Epoch. What a load off!!! Plus my paper WAS gonna suck. The Epoch is a great paper that highlights people that live on the streets stories, services and ministries in town stories and a lot more. They printed the first edition in December and from what I here they are doing pretty well with it. It has empowered many people to stay on the corners and make that money that they so desperately need. Kimberly from our home church wrote a wonderful article on our house and community in the January edition. Be sure to buy one and check it out. Even after you buy one remember that this isn't just about the paper, the men and women selling these papers may as well have signs that read 'hungry' or 'homeless'. Give generously.

Conscious Party 2012

Its a new year and I want to ask you all to help make this the best year that the Conscious Party has seen. The First Party of the year is next Saturday January 7th. Here are some ways you can plan to help:

• Put it on your calendar and plan on coming
• Start spreading the word (among both artists and the homeless)
• Let us know if you can bring food (dinner or desert?)
• Let us know if I can count you in for rides or set-up at 7:30 or clean up at the end of the night.
• Start working on a poem or song to share. We want to encourage creativity and original pieces.
• Pray that God would breathe life into our effort and that Jesus would be honored by the Party itself.
• Use facebook, google+, twitter, and word of mouth to just help create a buzz for the coming months party.
• Use this as a chance to invite and hang with your homeless friends. (if you don't have homeless friends, make one. Let me know if you need help)
• DOES ANYBODY HAVE A VIDEO CAMERA AND/OR WANT TO HELP RECORD DURING THE NIGHT?

I am so grateful for all the ways that I have seen God's beauty through this party and look forward to gettin' conscious together!

Please click here and let us know how you can help

Criminalizing Poverty

I'm going to go back to February of this year,which was before the election. And I'm going to tell you a story. I was advised by a member of the previous administration, and was, that if I voted, if I did not vote for the, the banning of (panhandling on) arterial roads, that I probably wouldn't be back here in March. I took it very seriously. And it went from first reading to second reading. At second reading, I stood here, I sat here, my knees were shaking. I listened and listened and listened. And I wanted to be able to hear what I needed to hear to bring that vote forward. But what I heard was people losing their jobs. And so I had to come to conclusion. And my conclusion was this. That if a job was to be lost, it would be mine, not theirs. And I did not vote for it. Not only did I not vote for it, it changed the vote on Council. I am here today.

-Councilwoman Capin, voted this week to ban panhandling

Our city council, under immense pressure to pass an ordinance to get the poor off our city streets, has been discussing a panhandling ban for over a year now. It is a problematic law that has been difficult to write in a way that could be defended as constitutional. Council has gone back and forth with ideas and compromises. The first idea was a full ban, then a compromise of a ban on arterial roads was proposed and voted down by the previous council, who clearly favored a full ban. Then there was the proposal of a five day ban that would allow street solicitation on the weekends but this was not supported because it could not be demonstrated that weekends were safer that weekdays to stand on the corners. It has not been easy task to single out and legislate against the homeless since as Councilman Cohen stated “We are operating within murky constitutional parameters.” After a year of legal gymnastics, they finally passed an ordinance that remotely approaches constitutionality. Really its more about avoiding a lawsuit. Councilwoman Mulhurn, the only voice of conscience on council, stated “We have to realize that there is no public safety need for this. And then, let's move on to what our legal department's been telling us about how we can make all these exceptions. What if we make no exceptions and we just don't do it? Then we don't have to defend a law. But the reality is, who is going to sue the city? It's not going to be homeless people. It's not going to be people selling flowers and water on the street. They can't afford to sue us. So who could possibly sue us? The unions or the Tribune. So we're making these decision...based on who can afford to sue us, and that is very sad.”

Feed the hungry (somewhere else)

The Vicenete Martinez Ybor Neighborhood Association is rallying together in opposition to a local organization that serves meals to hungry neighbors. For ten years, Trinity Cafe has been serving meals restaurant-style: china and flatware on a cloth-covered table, with respect and dignity for the people served.

Neighbors are concerned about crime going up and property values going down. Not that they are opposed to any of these negative effects happening elsewhere, just not in their neighborhood. Nor is the V. M. Ybor Neighborhood Association concerned about homelessness or hunger in Tampa, just the sight of it on their streets. How individualized have we become? If people could be dying one street away, and somehow it wouldn't affect my house or your house, would we then not care? If we could tint the windows of our cars with suffering-opaque tinting so that we couldn't see hurting people as we drive to work, would we be OK with that?

Blood, sweat and tears...Actually, mostly sweat.

A couple of months ago, after praying and careful consideration, I decided to move into an intentional community in the inner city of Tampa. The Lake House is a community of men that has been around for about three years. Since its inception, about 7 years ago, the lake house has had women and men living in the same house (with a wall dividing the house), married couples living in the garage and plenty of visitors which are too many to name.

The house is located just a block off Nebraska ave and only steps away from the liquor store. There’s gang activity not too far from here and Nebraska ave turns into a walkway for lone souls late at night. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, since the beginning of this year there has been 101 crimes committed in a 3 miles radius. The bulk of it (43.56%) have been drug-related incidents with 44, which includes possession, trafficking and delivery. Common sense will discourage most people to live on a neighborhood like this. I mean, didn’t my family move to the USA to provide my sister and I with better opportunities? Am I not supposed to accomplish the American Dream? A nice job or business, a nice home, a family, enough money to travel and to give to charity? Is it not the pinnacle of our lives to be able to live comfortable and admiring lives?

These are questions that have plague my mind ever since Jesus became a priority in my life. Apart from the many questions about philosophy and theology, the questions about practice are the ones that have really intrigued me the most. What does the bible say about practicing our faith? How does that look like culturally, economically and socially in our context? These are questions that i don't have complete answers for, but as I dive deep into the relationship Jesus is offering for me i learn more and more. I hope that through living in the Lake House community I’m able to learn from these men that have been at it since a few years ago.

For those of you that know a little bit of the history of the Church, the Lake House looks like a modern monastic movement, currently referred as new monasticism. We’re not monks or take bows, we don’t shave our heads, even though sometimes it happens by mistake, we did not recluse to the farthest point possible from society, yet we live within the margins of society. We plant and grow food: Tomates, pimentones, cilantro, frijoles, sandias and mucho mas. We mostly love each other with an occasional hint of recent. We’re broken people reaching to broken people by pointing to the one true God.

Living here has been a blessing from God. From the late night conversations to the occasional bike rides. It all has been a blessing. I remember moving in in the first week having some expectations of what “community living” looks like. That very first weekend some of the guys went camping and i was left by myself to ponder on some aspects and choices that involved living with others intentionally. Living at the Lake House and sharing my life with its members has been in a sense transparent. I cannot recluse to my room and hide my emotions, i have had to confront my fears and realize that my life is not my own. While dealing with different issues some of the guys have gone through, i realize that those issues are not as foreign as i thought.
Those same issues have been concealed deep within my heart and now Jesus is using a group of men to bring those out. We counsel each other, we joke around, we stumble and we pray. Jesus is in the midst of everything, in our decisions to invite people, how we buy our groceries and how we used our energy. We are family because of Him, nothing else. If it was not because the Grace of Christ, this community would have folded ages ago.

This is still a journey and i have 8 more months of it. I sincerely pray that God will use the Lake House to shape and mold me to the His image. May His name be glorified forever and ever.

The "Drug Bust" Across the Street

If you google 'tampa restaurants' and look at the map that pops up and zoom in to my neighborhood you won't see any of those red tabs. There are a couple small red dots which are a Checkers and the always delicious 'Gyro Land', a small private food stop. If you look at our same hood but search liquor stores you will see about 8 of those little flags pop up in the same community. Our neighborhood is not unique in this way but is a typical inner-city community. We have lived across from OK Liquors for years now. They do well and have a drive through that stays pretty busy. People walk over from every direction in the neighborhood pretty regularly. There are often groups of people congregated on the corner next to it.
I am sickened by the way I have seen addictions wreck the lives of people that I love, people that Jesus loves too. I hate that our neighborhoods possibly most thriving small business is a liquor store. I am disturbed by the glowing temptation that this place is to those in a recovery house not even a block from it. I guess I should rejoice that this place is closed....at least for now. I am still sad to see the lights out on the building and the corner becoming docile. I am sad to see our neighbors put into police cars for any reason. I am sad that its all over such a stupid thing. I am praying for our neighbors that ran the store & I am praying for our neighbors that depended on the store.

Jesus, would you break the chains of addiction in our neighborhood.

From Ancient Rome to Modern Tampa: Empire, Occupation, and The Way of Jesus

This morning has left my mind spinning in reflection on the police in our neighborhood. We have lived in the neighborhood for a little under a decade now and I have only grown more and more uncomfortable with the police here. I have had police run up on a homeless friend and I as we talked on the corner of Nebraska and Lake. Their cars jumped the curbs and they catapulted from their cars in full force to stop what must be a drug deal. I, and many other white friends, have been stopped and either interrogated just for being in this neighborhood or offered help since we were obviously lost. One friend was robbed at gunpoint and then after flagging down a cop for help, he was interrogated for being here for drugs. The cops only added trauma to the traumatic. They never even considered that he was telling the truth. We have witnessed and reported a cop in this neighborhood push a little kid down. We have been pulled over constantly for the slightest of reasons and occasionally no reason at all. They fly past our house at a speed that will kill anyone in their path on a nightly basis, there sirens lull us to sleep each night, and the sound of that ‘ghetto bird’ is as much a part of our evening sky as the moon.

This morning we had a friend join us for prayer and breakfast. He is a black man with dreadlocks. We had a wonderful morning joining him in his ‘power breathing exercises’, eating, praying, and discussing Haiti. As he left our house with his backpack and two apples in hand a police spun around and pulled up on him like he was fleeing a crime scene. The cop starts accusing and questioning him. “Do you live here?” “What are you doing?” Our friend just hung his head and waited for one of us to come out and tell the officer to leave our friend alone and assure the cop that he was a guest of ours.

As I left for work I kept thinking to myself that this must be what it is like to live under a military occupation. I know this may be an exaggeration but I am not sure how much of one it is. Our neighborhood is under constant patrol by a hostile and prejudice force. Their presence is a constant reality to me and my neighbors. This constant presence is not a comfort to any of us. It is a threat. It is oppressive in nature. Our neighborhood has the feeling of an occupied territory.

This thought immediately led me to reflect on Jesus who absolutely lived in an occupied territory. Roman soldiers were a constant presence and threat in first century Palestine and his words from that context are relevant to us today. In that day a roman soldier could randomly choose any individual and force them, by law, to carry their bags one mile. This is why people used to set up ‘mile stones’ a mile from their house so when they reached that point they could drop the bags and return to their houses and lives. It is in this context that Jesus said if someone forces you to walk with them one mile…"Go two!”

I have got to be honest that I have no clue how to apply this teaching. I don’t like it and this reflection is far from over. This question is at the heart of Christian nonresistance and nonviolent resistance. I am reminded of Tolstoy, Gandhi, & King and can’t help but cringe on the inside at their ideas and lives. They are counter to every natural reaction in me and they are heroic for that same reason.

Tolstoy said “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Jesus, help me see you and walk in your ways. I know that you embraced and died on the cross of that occupying people.

It is scandalous!

Prayer, Hospitality, Community, Sweat, and Initiative

So yesterday I woke up early to pray and eat breakfast with my community. We all gathered in the family room and had a great time of prayer. While we were praying 'Empress' Mary came to the door. Natalia went and sat with her while we continued praying. We just met Empress Mary the other day through a guy that was crashing at our house for a few nights. She is also on the streets and we have been doing our best to find female friends to put her up since we can't really host women guests in a house full of guys. She dropped in to get a shower and spend some time with us. We all chipped in after prayer to make a big breakfast to eat together and had her join us. It really was an awesome morning and I realized later how opportunities to love people literally just knock on our door. I am so grateful.

Pass the bread

"When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you."

Happy Thanksgiving

Halloween

Tonight the house on Lake Avenue was flush with light, full of new faces (some of them painted), feasting on the grill and pulsating with beats courtesy of John Langley*. We had a block party for Halloween and invited the neighbors to chill with us. Matt and Will took turns at grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. Yummm. Friends from the Robyn's Nest community joined us and their Drew was good enough to take these pictures, lest all memory of the evening fade in a sugar daze.

Gio,Drew + Alexander jammed and danced with the kids. Natalia dressed up like a hippie. Natalia being Natalia, it was not apparent that she was in costume. Jon did caricatures of anyone willing to be defaced by his pen. Doug + Dennis brought a cotton candy machine to make sure our sugar levels stayed high enough. Some people had awesome costumes like Robbie the caveman with his real actual dreads. Some came as just the studs we are. Everyone was welcome.



*John Langley is, in fact, the man. Just in case there was any question about that.

The Elusive Wheel

Prison, Drugs, Violence, Rape, Poverty, Addiction, Homelessnes, Disability, Sickness, Illiteracy, and Isolation. Our house is daily in relationships with victims of these evil and distructive forces. We meet needs, bandage wounds, listen, and love. But I remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer saying that "It is not only the job of Christians to bandage the wounds of those crushed under the wheels of oppression, but to jam a spike in the wheel itself." I also remember Isaiah writing that we are to untie the cords of the yolk, but he also goes on to say that we are also to BREAK every yolk. What is it that we can stand against? Where is this wheel, this yolk? I heavily felt the weight of this question this morning as the house gathered for morning prayer and began to plead with God on behalf of each of these friends of ours. I know that we are doing good to stand beside them and love them and serve them, but as we prayed and one name followed the next I began to want to find the root. Now I know that I am not here to fix anything and I am not here to be a savior to anyone, but these charges from scripture and giants of the faith are compelling. Where is it that they are to be compelling us? I feel lost and unsure of the direction. I know that we will continue to love and serve the poor but I long to know where I can make a stand on there behalf. I want a crack at the wheel or yolk itsef! Is this a desire for greatness or specialness? I hope not. All I know is that the closer I get to the poor of this world, the more it hurts and the more I rage. Perhaps this is the encounter for the heart of God that we are praying for. A broken heart.

One year ago... Natalia after home church

Tonight:
Cooking for tons of people when I always hated to cook. Sitting and laughing in the crowded living-room, with my house-mates and several homeless people from our community. Pondering James, chapter 1, together. Wisdom flowed between us. In a moment no less miraculous every time it happens, the differences in skin color, in age, in walks of life, all shriveled and lost their power. Lord, we all need your strength. Lord, we all need your love to flow into us, and from us. From the aging addict to the freshman. Grant us your transforming love.

"What Lord, do you have for me here?"

Tonight I felt an answer.

"This, Natalia, is your Eden. Here, you have much to learn. Here, you have the chance to learn to love people different from yourself. Here you will be whom I created you to be. Here your life is not your own, here you will serve others."

So on Sept. 14, I turn 25 and nothing changes. Here I remain. Only, something I had once known but somehow forgotten is again being revealed to me. This neighborhood and it's people are profoundly beautiful. I really do love this city. So does God. And here I will be fulfilled.

Happy 26th!!