The Weekly Link: Urban Entry

This week was Urban Entry. We loaded up the vans and started our adventure to Kansas City. When we arrived in Kansas City a sweet sweet family had us over for dinner. We played the piano, ping pong, and just hung out until the game began. The rules of this game were simple but challenging at times.

1. no cell phones

2. no complaining

3. no use of personal money

4. be on time

We were given tickets within our family groups, and all decisions were to be made together as a family; breaking the rules would result in a loss of tickets from our family group. We were allowed to use our tickets for phone calls, showers (if we had not already purchased them), snacks, and lunch on Tuesday. My family group is awesome and we agreed on and were happy with all of our decisions. Our cell phones were taken up Monday night and then the game began with a round of jeopardy. There was one girl winner and one guy winner. The winners were each given an envelope with $27.00 to buy breakfast for the next three days for all the girls and all the guys. The girls decided to buy a large bag of honey-nut cheerios, one loaf of bread, peanut butter, plastic baggies, and a box of granola bars while the guys chose to buy peanut butter, multiple loaves of bread, and coffee. 

Tuesday morning we went to the Hope Center in inner city Kansas, not the safest place I’ve ever been, but it was definitely a great learning experience. We were given a tour of the neighborhood and I was shocked at how abandoned it was. The streets were lined with abandoned run down homes. It was just empty. We were told multiple stories of how innocent people were murdered daily in this community for no reason. Talk about a sad life. I couldn’t even begin to imagine growing up in a place where gunshots and sirens were just a part of everyday life. The Hope Center is a charter school that is trying to help the community and restore it to its former glory. It is a Christian organization that wants to give the children of this abandoned community a hope for a better future. These kids cannot help the fact that they were born into this terrible abandoned community filled with drugs and violence; just like I could not control being born into a very blessed family. We don’t choose our lives, we have to learn to make the best of it and give our lives to God. We are here to glorify Him, and use our blessings to bless others.

After the tour we did different things to help clean the school and the church building next door. The church was beautiful but it too was abandoned, and was falling apart.  I had the task of organizing a supply closet with backpacks, school supplies, toys, and books for the children. While I know several of us just wanted to play with the kids, the things we did instead were a great help that would have taken a long time to get done had we not been there.

This is just a little snapshot of what we did this week, but I don’t want to bore anyone with the rest of it. Overall it was a great week designed to show us how blessed we are. It’s so easy to forget how blessed we have been, and complain about the things we don’t have. It’s always good to be reminded of this. It’s important to help others.