7/1 - 7/15
After a week at home for back to back weddings Jesse and I returned home to Charlotte to find things in full swing as usual. Since it has been awhile since our last post I will try to just hit some highlights. Our wonderful train hopper friends stayed for five days and we all became extremely close. They left us sadly on the Friday the 29th and have stayed in touch since on their way to Seattle. We had many so amazing conversations and fun times together and truly consider them family. Also on Monday the 25th we had our first free neighborhood cookout. That night just as we began to cook it started pouring and people kept coming so we ended up feeding around fifty or so people like 60 hotdogs, 40 hamburgers, and ten pieces of chicken. We got to know a lot of our neighbors better and even a bunch of our friends from the art community came as well. God really is blessing this simple idea of a neighborhood cookout and we greatly appreciate those who have graciously given to support this type of generosity. I wish I could say more about the already dozens of lives we are being let into and the amazing stories of each person but I don’t want to betray the many confidences we are being entrusted and trust is not an easy thing to regain. We have had three more cookouts since and things have gone incredibly well quantity in size but never in quality.
Also somewhere along the way during the last three weeks we have been making many new friends who have greatly enriched our lives as well as widened our ever increasing circle of friends. Inside the Art Warehouse (Area 15) where we often work there is a bike co-op where some civically minded bikers from around town fix up bikes (often very nice wealthy nadyme-downs) and sell them for profit in order to fund two key services. They do free bike trips every weekend for under-privileged inner city kids. They also offer free bikes to inner city kids if they go through a 6 week program one night a week where they learn bike safety, maintenance, and repair. It’s pretty sweet and we had gotten in the habit of going down and hanging out some nights, working on our bikes, and chilling with the dudes that work there and in this process we made one of our best new friends, Lee. He is just a totally rad guy and works in the city as a bike messenger and has begun to introduce us all of the many bike messengers and bike enthusiasts here in Charlotte. They call themselves the Rag Tag Armada and we are finding them to be intelligent, amiable, and inviting.
Also our inner circle has acquired two new key members. A few weeks ago while our friend Laura was visiting we met her friend Christy who happened to be looking for a new local church body and somewhere to serve more deeply in a “community that can’t financially give back” as she put it (I had to ball park the quote, sorry Christy). She spent all day with us and our train hopper friends; going to church, to the Italians ( community/church dinner), and just hanging in the neighborhood. Monday she came back and was crucial and helping pull of the first Liberation Cookout (as we have come to call them). Christy is finishing up her masters and in the weeks since we have had the priveledge of getting to know her boyfriend Russ, who is also a student. Christy lives only a few blocks north and Russ has already decided to move into the neighborhood with us. They are extremely kind, funny, and wise and their love for God is evident and they have already become critical in many major decisions we have had to make in the last few days.
And so you are up to date in general although generally speaking a week here feels like a month. So much happens every day I cannot overstate how much we would really like you all to come visit. Mondays cookout went great and Wednesday we met as a family to discuss how best to help a new friend of ours. We met her through the cookouts and she is 25 with 5 young children. She is really sweet and in a tough patch and we really desire to help her out more long term. God has really been using Lindsey in her life and we are looking to all engage and really help out so we covet your prayers there.
Also this week I had the opportunity to help one of our neighbors out. Robert is 50 and had a serious construction accident breaking both feet, legs, and ankles. It has been a year and a half since and due to the extent of the injury and lack of medical insurance and no income he cannot work and sits most days in a wheel chair outside his house. Monday I took him to run some errands and sure up some of the details of his lawsuit, which is pending regarding his accident. After his first accident he was hit by a car when crossing the road on his wheel chair and the second suit has complicated things. We had a good long talk amongst driving and he told me he would love to come visit my church but first needed to buy a new shirt cause all the ones he had are stained or ripped. I told him it didn’t matter at our church but I knew that wasn’t really the issue it was more about respect and dignity. So Saturday night after the whole gang met up with Lee for dinner we dropped by the store and attempted to by Robert a new polo shirt, we had trouble deciding so we picked him up two we all agreed had the best chance of suiting his taste. Last night his great nephew, Gary, who is 17 and becoming one of our best friends, came over and hung out with the whole gang. We had a blast and played a really fun game Lindsey taught us which had us all laughing but Gary definitely stole the show. Afterwards Gary, Lindsey, Christy, and Russ headed for their respective homes and Jesse, Jeremiah, and I decided to take our good friend mike on a late night center city bike ride. Mike has been one of our best friends since early on in high school and has been visiting for the better part of the week adding his usual and welcomed joy into the mix. We rode till 1:30 or so in the morning meeting up with a few of our newly acquired bike messenger friends and enjoying the beauty and Chaos of an unseasonably cool July night.
This morning Mike and I picked up Robert and Gary and met up there with the rest of the gang at church who had biked there. It was a great Sunday as Matt spoke on the importance of truly loving oneself in the equation of loving our neighbor. It was very powerful and he quoted several passages from 1st John as well as from a great book I read some time ago called “Blue Like Jazz”, which, I highly recommend. The whole service was great and I am sorry I can’t do a better job relating it. Afterwards we took Robert and Gary with the whole gang and us to lunch and then took Robert to the hospital for a checkup and some meds.
Also somewhere along the way during the last three weeks we have been making many new friends who have greatly enriched our lives as well as widened our ever increasing circle of friends. Inside the Art Warehouse (Area 15) where we often work there is a bike co-op where some civically minded bikers from around town fix up bikes (often very nice wealthy nadyme-downs) and sell them for profit in order to fund two key services. They do free bike trips every weekend for under-privileged inner city kids. They also offer free bikes to inner city kids if they go through a 6 week program one night a week where they learn bike safety, maintenance, and repair. It’s pretty sweet and we had gotten in the habit of going down and hanging out some nights, working on our bikes, and chilling with the dudes that work there and in this process we made one of our best new friends, Lee. He is just a totally rad guy and works in the city as a bike messenger and has begun to introduce us all of the many bike messengers and bike enthusiasts here in Charlotte. They call themselves the Rag Tag Armada and we are finding them to be intelligent, amiable, and inviting.
Also our inner circle has acquired two new key members. A few weeks ago while our friend Laura was visiting we met her friend Christy who happened to be looking for a new local church body and somewhere to serve more deeply in a “community that can’t financially give back” as she put it (I had to ball park the quote, sorry Christy). She spent all day with us and our train hopper friends; going to church, to the Italians ( community/church dinner), and just hanging in the neighborhood. Monday she came back and was crucial and helping pull of the first Liberation Cookout (as we have come to call them). Christy is finishing up her masters and in the weeks since we have had the priveledge of getting to know her boyfriend Russ, who is also a student. Christy lives only a few blocks north and Russ has already decided to move into the neighborhood with us. They are extremely kind, funny, and wise and their love for God is evident and they have already become critical in many major decisions we have had to make in the last few days.
And so you are up to date in general although generally speaking a week here feels like a month. So much happens every day I cannot overstate how much we would really like you all to come visit. Mondays cookout went great and Wednesday we met as a family to discuss how best to help a new friend of ours. We met her through the cookouts and she is 25 with 5 young children. She is really sweet and in a tough patch and we really desire to help her out more long term. God has really been using Lindsey in her life and we are looking to all engage and really help out so we covet your prayers there.
Also this week I had the opportunity to help one of our neighbors out. Robert is 50 and had a serious construction accident breaking both feet, legs, and ankles. It has been a year and a half since and due to the extent of the injury and lack of medical insurance and no income he cannot work and sits most days in a wheel chair outside his house. Monday I took him to run some errands and sure up some of the details of his lawsuit, which is pending regarding his accident. After his first accident he was hit by a car when crossing the road on his wheel chair and the second suit has complicated things. We had a good long talk amongst driving and he told me he would love to come visit my church but first needed to buy a new shirt cause all the ones he had are stained or ripped. I told him it didn’t matter at our church but I knew that wasn’t really the issue it was more about respect and dignity. So Saturday night after the whole gang met up with Lee for dinner we dropped by the store and attempted to by Robert a new polo shirt, we had trouble deciding so we picked him up two we all agreed had the best chance of suiting his taste. Last night his great nephew, Gary, who is 17 and becoming one of our best friends, came over and hung out with the whole gang. We had a blast and played a really fun game Lindsey taught us which had us all laughing but Gary definitely stole the show. Afterwards Gary, Lindsey, Christy, and Russ headed for their respective homes and Jesse, Jeremiah, and I decided to take our good friend mike on a late night center city bike ride. Mike has been one of our best friends since early on in high school and has been visiting for the better part of the week adding his usual and welcomed joy into the mix. We rode till 1:30 or so in the morning meeting up with a few of our newly acquired bike messenger friends and enjoying the beauty and Chaos of an unseasonably cool July night.
This morning Mike and I picked up Robert and Gary and met up there with the rest of the gang at church who had biked there. It was a great Sunday as Matt spoke on the importance of truly loving oneself in the equation of loving our neighbor. It was very powerful and he quoted several passages from 1st John as well as from a great book I read some time ago called “Blue Like Jazz”, which, I highly recommend. The whole service was great and I am sorry I can’t do a better job relating it. Afterwards we took Robert and Gary with the whole gang and us to lunch and then took Robert to the hospital for a checkup and some meds.
posted by My Epic at 6:08 PM
1 Comments:
hope all is well, my friends. we miss you guys.
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