Meet Me In the Hood...it's goin' down...

So here in J.T. Williams at the PlayHouse, we're a safe place for kids to come after they get off the schoolbus, to do homework, play games, hop online and read. We have small groups, do Church together and altogether anticipate basketball season. We enjoy spending time with the kids of this neighborhood, and they're pretty fond of us too.

In fact, this week while Rob's been offsite and I've been flying solo over there, it got to be snacktime and I didn't have enough of any one thing to offer. Those of you who have/work with kids will nod your heads with me when I say you have to give everyone the same amount of the same thing, otherwise, there will be drama.

:-)

So there's this box of candy on top of the fridge that they've been salivating over for a while now, but I think Rob is saving it for something special. Everyday, however, the kids ask me "can I get one of those?" with their hopeful little eyes and best "I won't tell - it'll be our little secret" faces on...but I know what'll happen, so I say "Nope, here's some applesauce instead of candy. Enjoy." Cuz I know that if I gave in to one of those cherubic faces, as soon as that candy was in their hot little hand, they'd be calling it from the rooftops (perhaps literally - these kids have no fear, and no proper playground) that they have something no one else has.

*Sigh*

In particular, one of the big boys - 15yrs old, 320lbs, 6'5 - wanted him some candy. He gave me the googly eyes and the boyish grin, but I stood firm.

" You know that if I gave this to you and the others found out that I would be shot in the street!"

I was mostly joking of course.

His facial expression became dead serious. He looked me square in the eye, and in a sober voice he said:

"Miss Heather, ain't nothing going to happen to you. All of us, we've got your back."

You know? I believed him...and I'm grateful.

So fast forward to MUCH later that night, I was working late at the PlayHouse preparing it for an Advisory Board walk-through the following day. I had been home to bring our two large dogs back with me - so that they wouldn't be lonely (don't cringe Steve!) and knowing that it wouldn't hurt to have the extra backup late in the evening hours.

So I'm working away, enjoying myself and my 96.1FM when I heard something i hadn't heard in a while - a gunshot. Now...this is how I know I've been gone too long. Curiousity directed my legs over to the front window where the dogs where barking like crazy, and I looked out.

I looked out into the dark night from a lit room. *sigh* I'm so...well...anyways.

I didn't see anything, and as there was no screaming I went back to my work (don't cringe Rob!)

As I was finishing up my projects a short while later and packing up the dogs in the minivan, I heard a couple of voices down in the street. I could just barely make out two young men (twentysomething) talking with a woman in a car. The woman's voice was familiar - one of my kid's mom. She comes up to the PlayHouse from time to time to chat with us and check online to see if her current boyfriends has any warrants out for his arrest (yeah - you can do that online here, it's crazy and helpful) I didn't pay them any attention, but my ears perked up when I heard her say to the two men:

"No no, you just stop all that talk she's the pastor, and just leave her be. I'm sure she didn't see nuthin and anyway all y'all shouldn't be messin' around down here with no guns anyhow, so you just put those things away, and don't you mess with her or you'll have a problem with me and everybody else 'round here. Now go on, git."

What a beautiful gift, to know that I've been accepted as a part of a family that takes care of one another, and watches each other's backs. That's something I've experienced in a number of "rough & dangerous" neighborhoods.

There is a shield of protection that exists for me here , that's harder to find within the 'safety' of the walls of church community. Folks there will take you out with gossip, backstabbing, jealousy, factions and the like and the brother or sister who will stop someone short and call them to account when they're spreading that kind of mess about the pastor, the worship leader and everybody else is a rarity.

I still lean on my personal revelation and spiritual belief that when I'm in the place that God wants me to be, right in His Will - wherever that is geographically - it's the SAFEST place to be, cuz He's got my back, and so do the scariest people in the 'hood.

Amen to that.