Tonight’s message is brought to you by the letter “A”.

Tonight’s message is brought to you by the letter “A”.

The letter A will never have the same meaning that it did a week ago.  “A” a week ago, was the start of the alphabet and that was about it.  Tonight, after this weekend, it represents something new to me and something I’m trying to sort out.  A is the first block (I think.) east of Front Street in Philadelphia.  Where I was, it’s an area known as Kensington and an area where no suburban white guy is told he should ever go.  It’s a land of open drug deals and prostitution, litter and graffiti, and Love and Faith in our LORD like I’ve never witnessed before.

I volunteered to serve at the bouncy slide this past Saturday night at a block party sponsored by Urban Hope at A and East Tioga Streets.  I think I met every child in a several block area of Urban Hope, a ministry that serves the people literally right outside its doors.  These children, sort of ranging in age from two to twelve, shared their lives with me as they waited their turn to climb the inflatable ladder of the bouncy slide.  Children of Kensington, Children of poverty, forty minutes from my rented house in the suburbs: Caucasian, Hispanic, African, Asian, and so much more, looked into my eyes and touched my sole as it has never been touched by a human before.  In a language I don’t yet understand, they conveyed their unspoken message of hope and love and dreams and desires and fears. 

I don’t know where this journey is going but thanks to God, I know that I will never look at the letter A in the same way again…