visions and sights around the corner

If you read the post on my other blog about needing to get out of my yard sometimes, you'll catch the irony that I just returned from a vacation across the mountains and am happy to begin work in my yard. Then again, the whole point of vacation is to help you return  ready to tackle your normal life with renewed vigor, right?

At least for the first week+ back, we've all felt the extra umpf to work out in the yard we bought last year, which is just around the corner from our back yard. Iz in particular only wants to "work outside" all day, every day. Walk to friends? No, thanks. I want to work in the yard. Eden is happy picking raspberries to share with the neighbors all day long.

You see, we've had this plan. We drew it up months ago on the site growveg.com. It makes me happy to sit and just look at it. We won't get the plan done in one year, for sure. I've been calling it a 5-10 year plan. But the awesome thing is how much of it we've been able to get done in the last month!

There it is! THE PLAN. You can map out your yard (our house is along most of the bottom of this drawing, with the kids' playhouse in our regular back yard at the bottom right and the front of the property on the far left) and fill in whatever plants you want! It automatically fills in the suggested spacing for each plant and will even give you a graph showing when to plant and harvest each crop! Genius! So here's how it's going:

The weekend before vacation, we rented a bobcat to pull as much gravel as possible out of the yard. I think the yard was about 40% gravel, at least a foot deep. Maybe more. An epic 2 driveways and an improved alley later (you're welcome, Muncie...), our yard looked slightly different than it had before the three days of work. We're gradually pushing the wild brush and random stuff back to the edges, at least.

 

At this point, neighbors started coming over to ask what we're doing. One next-street-over neighbor we did not know previously came and operated the bobcat one hot afternoon, just because he has a lot of experience doing it and wanted to be kind. Another just came to check it out and give advice. Others say we are absolute angels for working so hard. (I have yet to figure out how those two things are related. Working on my own yard feels just a bit selfish, though I hope to host people in it eventually...or now.) Some let Eden give them raspberries to eat. Kids see us digging and come over to help. It feels like the way things should be.

We didn't get as much done with the bobcat as we'd hoped, so we have been and will be leveling and smoothing the land by rake and shovel from here on out. It sounded horrible to me, but we were able to level the whole garden area in just four evenings of work. Ta-da! (The garden level we did by hand is at the far end of this picture.)

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This is not in our yard...yet.

The PLAN is to dig a trench pond like the one I saw at the Indy Zoo/White River Gardens. It had these frogs shooting water into it and that seemed really fun to me. (That's the blue in the drawing.) It is so much fun to me to be an adult who is able to see something like that and realize I could put it in my own yard for very little money. (I think. We're not done, yet!) We were going to have it just be a semi-circle near the house, but then we went to Williamsburg and saw the cute bridge over such a feature and thought, Why not? We have lots of extra wood to build one. So I think we'll give it a shot. Not that we know about building bridges. Maybe our neighbors do.

the little bridge at Williamsburg
It will go to the right of the left-hand tree in the picture below.

 

After we got the basic garden shape dug and leveled, we got a bunch of old cedar boards (like 50 years old!) that had been the stands at the fairgrounds in town. We've heard a rumor that John Dillinger's butt may have been on one of these very boards.... :) In one day, with the help of a dear middle school student, we built, filled, and planted nine beds! (We have to leave open space for future construction for now.) To my astonishment, we have not 2 beds of tomatoes, but more than four! 50 TOMATO PLANTS!!! Oops! I kept thinking we didn't really have many. I will have to become well-seasoned at canning this fall.

 

as close as I can get to an aerial view of the yard to show how the overall plan is coming along

So there it is for now. It was long past its due date, but I'm proud of it like it's a new baby or something. But this time of year, everyone's inviting each other over to come check out their gardens. It's what we do. Hope you enjoyed the virtual tour. Come over whenever you want and I'll hand you a shovel as I expound upon this brief history! Holler down the street or send me a link and I'll come check out your garden, too!

you know what's sexy?

There is no deep thought in this post. Now that we're all freed from that burden....

Last night, I responded to a last-minute invitation to join some friends at a bar*. I excitedly jumped at the chance for some girl time.

 I had been working in my yard ALL DAY LONG. Staining the fence, digging up plants, etc. etc. I looked like a mess and only left myself about 5 minutes to be presentable enough to leave my yard. I came in the house and put on some green pants from when I worked in a group home, a black polo-style shirt I got to hide my post-partum belly, and the black sandals I just wore hiking. I never feel like I can quite shake a frumpy mom shadow these days. Whatever. I threw my hair up into two "messes," which accentuated the "not out to look impressive" look in my mind. I'm fine with that. I like to go out like that on purpose sometimes. (I'm not sure it counts as not taking yourself too seriously if you have to think about it this much, but I try, anyway.)

I go to leave and Pat says, "Some guy is going to hit on you looking like that."
"No one's going to hit on me, Pat."
He shrugs in disbelief. I add:
"This is not the bar to go to if you want people to be hitting on each other." It hovers nicely beyond the college scene without going into the old perpetually drunk scene. I tell him the only interactions I have with guys there is annoying my friend's husband, who works there and is often our server. (Maybe he's not annoyed. I don't know. But I think servers must get annoyed with the girl who comes in only for a root beer or a cheap appetizer. Sorry, bar-tending world.) Knowing I'm totally right about the crowd that would be there, I head out the door.

When I return home, I proudly announce that no one hit on me. See? As mom's night out looking as it gets!
Then I remembered and had to admit:  "Well, some dude made a call at me and [my sexy friend] well after he had passed us walking to our cars." Then I remembered another fact that needed to come to bear on the situation. "But, come to think of it, I also got hollered at while I was planting flowers yesterday." (I look SO messy like that and I'm not being humble.) "And I used to get hit on a lot more when I was pregnant. Come to think of it, most of the time when I get hit on, it's at times like that! It's not when I'm dressed up or looking nice. Why is that?" I ask my husband these things because he's a guy. He would know.

(Here I'll include a quickly-assembled collection of photos I'm calling my "If you want to get hit on....". I'm doing this for educational purposes, but also because people like to post pictures of themselves in sexy poses online. Sorry these are uncensored. I didn't know which parts to bleep out.)

Do something really disgusting. There were no males around as I scraped unidentified goo off this bathroom floor, but I'm sure it was safer that way.

Wear your hair up in messes and have a young child with you.



[         TOTALLY CENSORED        ]

Okay, I actually just couldn't find a picture of me pregnant and pushing a stroller.
I didn't know at the time how incredibly hot it was.
Such sexyness is probably too much for a family-friendly blog, anyway.

Wear a t-shirt you got in 8th grade that is totally worn and covered in paint.

Forget makeup. Opt for construction mess.

See? I went home with this guy. :)

We threw around some ideas that would explain this phenomenon. I know I am not the only one who has noticed. Other friends would testify that they get hit on more when mowing their yards or pushing a stroller or whatever. Pat concluded the discussion by saying, "I think the only qualification for a guy to think a woman's sexy is that she is a woman."

Is he right, world? Is he right? What gives?


-----


*It goes without saying that, even though I don't like beer, I think it's SO much cooler to go hang out at a bar with my friends than to go all get our nails done or something. It also goes without saying that we don't get drunk or go there to party hard or anything, so no one's mom needs to worry about us. 

making a difference

So today I realized that the number of kids I know in the youth correctional facility here is up to 6.

Six.

Six kids who have been in my house. Six kids who I have prayed for at times. (Not as faithfully as I should.) Six kids who know my kids. Six kids who we've read with, who have loved our dog.

Six is too many; one is too many.

I had a friend ask me today, in light of this news, "Do you think you're making a difference?"

At first, I was insulted. In my mind, I thought, "Of course I am!" But maybe I'm not.

Then, thinking through the reasons that directly caused some of the kids to end up there, I said, "I can't keep kids from fighting. I can't keep kids from stealing." And I can't. Have they heard these things are wrong from us? Yes. Have they heard from us that Jesus doesn't want his children doing these things? Yes. Have they seen that we don't do these things? Yes. Is that enough? No. Is it making a difference? Well, that's the question I was trying to answer.

It was over a year ago when I heard Bart Campolo speak at a CCDA conference. His message shocked me. He was talking about people whose lives seem to be defined by the hard knocks and addictions in many cities. He said of them that their "cards were already punched." They have issues they aren't going to get over. I have a hard time with that message and I'm not sure it's true or the one we should be living by. We should always hold out hope for the aged alcoholics or those caught in the third generation of abuse in their families or whoever the person with the entrenched issue may be. Hope. Always. But I think he was just getting at how it feels from our perspective on our bad days. And I have my bad days (or weeks) just like the rest of you.

He spoke at length about how he gets weary of the burdens people will likely carry with them their entire lives. He gets weary of watching the alcoholic continue to be an alcoholic no matter how many times he dives in to rescue him from emergency situations. Was he making a difference? Was he?

But then he had a realization: It was only his job to LOVE those people. Love them. That's it.

Loving people is something we can do, no matter whether the other person gets "better" or not. It's never our job to make someone "better." Who am I to do that, anyway? I'm not even very good at making myself better! I can't even do the one thing that is contingent only upon me: loving people! If I can't do the thing that only depends on ONE person (me), why should I try to get all fancy and do something that depends on 2 people? Or 3? Or 20, both living and dead? There is way too much I can't change. That is up to God. Only God can change hearts and lives. And how he does that and how it fits in with that person changing themselves or being willing to be changed or whatever is something I'll never know. And I don't have to. I just have to love people. And that's enough work to last my whole life. It's a lesson that doesn't get old.

Am I making a difference? Only God knows. But probably not, because if a difference is being made, I'm sure him and the other person would get a lot more credit than I would. The only question I have to answer to is whether I'm loving the people put in my life. And if I can do that, then a difference has been made, at least in me.

I don't know many people who have lived a long time and still struggle with their issues. (And the one 60-something alcoholic I know has been sober for 4 years and 4 months!) But I do sometimes see situations and choices that threaten to make me hopeless or put-out. And I remember Bart's words. They don't make everything go away. They don't help what we and our neighbors are trying to do look good on paper. I mean, the stats are pretty grim right now under the "percentage of youth in the McCrorys' ministry currently in the juvenille system." But numbers don't tell the whole story. I couldn't even tell you the whole story, because it's not done yet and I don't know everything that's happened up until now. But I do know that lots of us love these kids, because God loves these kids. And I sure hope it doesn't change just me; I hope God's love changes all of us.

I'm not a difference-maker; on my best days, I'm just a lover.

Summer break! (?)

This summer was FULL!

...(How full was it?)

The summer began with Pat working at In and Out Cleaning, our friend Jake's business, where he had worked for the last several years. But we've been feeling more and more that we need to clear as much time as possible for working with our church and neighborhood -- even taking that on as our primary job. So Pat worked as little as possible there this summer, though he has enjoyed the job working with the men employed there and the friendships that were formed during that time. But, as I said, it was time for a new season in life and we began being paid for the equivalent of one day a week working with Urban Light as youth leaders. And the kids were out of school for the summer so that meant...SUMMER PROGRAMMING! What to do with all this time in our schedule and ours? Well....

We collaborated with Leslie Draper, who has also been working with kids and youth programming in our church and came up with a game plan of activities the kids could earn tickets to do. This would require time helping the kids earn the tickets as well as rewarding them for the tickets they earned. We wanted to be sure the kids kept growing over the summer -- spiritually and academically as well as taller! The main event for earning tickets was a Tuesday reading time. We had collected a small library of books for the kids to read, so we partnered up and read with the kids for an hour and a half each week, including time for a healthy snack. (I have realized providing fresh fruits and veggies -- something lacking in schools and refrigerators around here -- is a passion of mine. I like the challenge of trying to introduce these foods to kids old enough to have established habits to the contrary.) The reading program was a great success; many kids got some good reading time with an adult. It makes me wish we could continue on through the school year to help the kids get closer to reading on-level. Hmm....

With the tickets the kids earned from reading, memorization, and helping out in the community, they got to go on some pretty cool trips. Leslie took some kids to the science center in Fort Wayne. Pat took some kids on a fishing trip. There were LOTS of fish caught out on our friend's private stocked pond. I stayed home with the kids, but it was apparently a beautiful day. We also all had a camp-out with lots of the kids, grades K-12. It was a lot of fun and not a lot of sleep. It was classic, with a camp fire, marshmallow roast, and a scavenger hunt that took the kids through an old cemetery at the back of the property. Israel and Eden went along for that trip, and it was both insane and cool (now that I've slept since then...) having so many kids I love all together camping out. We had to push a trip to Chicago into the school year, so there's more fun ahead for us!

Of course, if you've followed our lives for very long, you know that

we have a huge block party every summer in our neighborhood. We're partnering more and more with our sister church across Madison Street,

Deliverance Temple. This year, youth from both churches came together to paint the official block party sign. We think it turned out just great! Here we are, all lined up on our front porch at work.

At the block party, I did the cake walk and Pat did the basketball tournament, just like every other year. I remember the first year, when we had no idea what to expect from the party. Would people even come? What if people who hate each other show up at the same time? But now the block party comes complete with traditions and growing help from others in the community. People in our neighborhood ask about it and it is truly a source of neighborhood pride!

Pat also took on a "one day a week" job with a program called LACES. We love the mission and vision of LACES! The idea is to have a couple administrators oversee and disciple a group of coaches -- people from our neighborhoods -- who will then form teams of kids in their neighborhood to coach and disciple. We love the idea of it being neighborhood and relationship-based, as that is the best way we've found to really make a difference in the lives of young people. (I know we're not the first ones to find this out!) The program was started over in Liberia and this was its pilot year here in the U.S. Pat and our friend

George (that's him speaking at the end-of-season banquet over there) put in a lot of hours working out bugs and getting the community involved this year. It was a LOT of work and we are relived that it is over for the year, but we are also excited for what will be able to happen with LACES next summer now that all this groundwork has been laid.

Our sister church also invited our youth to join in their step class. A few of our girls have been able to attend and I've been introduced to a new form of art/exercise! We will be able to participate in their youth service tomorrow. It's an adventure learning how to marry two churches when usually these days are about churches splitting. We're happy for the invitation!

We were glad to be able to spend so much time with the the youth this summer. They truly are an inspiration to know. I know they push me to be a better person every day. We're now moving these relationships into the school year. We're tutoring two particular girls (not the girls in this picture, though I LOVE my time with them, too!) every day this year. I am excited for the challenge of working discipleship in with homework and academic exercise. We're beginning a new season of youth group and watching more and more of the little boys and girls we knew grow up and move toward and through high school! We have so many hopes for them. We want them to do well in school. We want them to be able to make wise decisions. We want them to make and meet goals for themselves and to be successful in whatever they do. And I know Jesus cares about those things. But mostly we want them to each have their own relationship with Jesus that stands whether we're part of it or not. Here's to having learned a lot over the summer and to continuing to learn and grow together through this next school year!

"it was a beautiful day"

I had planned for Sunday to be a day about real beauty. I'd been studying the materials put out by Dove (the company that makes the soaps) and had planned a "Real Beauty" workshop for the girls in our church and women who volunteered to serve as their mentors for the day. But I had no idea exactly how much real beauty was in store for me for the day.

I was in and out of the church service while I made preparations for the workshop, but I think I was able to witness some of the best parts about it. When I came in the gym where we meet, I saw we were welcoming two new members into the Family. At a time when I have been studying about absent fathers and the missing roles of men in our culture, I saw a group of faithful men gathered around, praying for a brother. It was enough to make me think about tearing up. I also saw the birth mom of my friends' daughter praying with her new-found family in Christ. How amazing to see a child sitting with every kind of parent she has as they become family in an even more real and meaningful way! I'm not a gifted enough writer to tell you how beautiful and unlikely and perfect it was. I need a metaphor.

By this time, I was feeling a bit bombarded by beauty. It was time for communion and Pat was having to hold one boy back from rushing forward first. "And a child will lead them," I thought. "But don't beat me there. I don't want you reaching the goal before I do. I want you to stay on here after I'm gone to keep it going." The thought of some of the kids we work with being the ones we will depend upon to lead us forward often scares me, but not that day. Sunday, anything seemed possible. My thoughts were interrupted by one of the girls I love coming up to me at the start of communion. "Do you want to commune with me?" ABSOLUTELY! I was greeted by two other girls I love who spontaneously wanted to hug me (a first!) and we all went forward to share in the Lord's Supper. I love this practicing for the meal we'll all share together at the Lord's table once we're all done with this rehearsing.

For now, I am happy with the rehearsing. Like I said, it's almost too much for me. I don't think my frail body could stand up to the force of the real thing. Already I go dumb and nearly mute at the sight of the foreshadowing. I'll need a stronger space-suit. For the time being, though, it was off to another rehearsal. So I set up another table and looked over my notes to make sure it was all right. We waited for the girls to come. We wondered if they would actually come after all the home visits made and the personal invitations and the support of moms. Most of them show up, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was saddened by the ones who didn't. I text, I call, I send scouts looking the streets for them. Some just don't make it. We go on and it was...beautiful. I was able to witness women affirming girls for their particular, real beauty. We celebrated our families -- both blood and spiritual -- and the beauty we get from both. Moms wrote letters to their daughters about why they are beautiful, which is its own kind of beauty. My hope for the day was that the girls would know they are loved in their community for who they are and they would be encouraged to be exactly that. I felt incredibly blessed for the help of so many women who are interested in pursuing that same goal for joining me in making food, planning activities, and making visits to the girls' houses. And I felt truly blessed by the girls who agreed that spending an afternoon together would be fun! It was a lot of work that had a great pay-off. (Let me know if you're interested in learning more about this. All the Dove materials are FREE!)

I returned home to find that my neighbor had volunteered more of his time and effort and initiative to build a sandbox for my kids. They were happily playing in it when I walked in the back yard. I joined them and we were quickly joined by two 6th grade girls. It was some of the most leisurely, not stressful time I've spent with kids from the neighborhood in a long time! We played outside in the sand until dinner, when there came a sudden thunderstorm and apparently also a tornado somewhere here on the southside of town. Our little family was mostly bewildered by the siren and looking out the windows to see what in the world was happening. (We'll know better next time.) The storm was brief and followed immediately by a bright double-rainbow! We ran outside to stare into the sky. It was almost too much. I called friends. "Go look to the eastern sky!"

Before I moved to this neighborhood, I'm pretty sure I could count on one hand the number of rainbows I had seen. But it seems we see a good 2-3 a year here -- big ones that stretch over the whole sky! Of course, biblically the rainbow is a beautiful sign of promise. And we need signs of promise here -- big, unmistakable ones that cover over our whole neighborhood and run through entire 24 hours blocks of time. We need them and we get them, I think, because there are also so many storms around for everyone to see. We need reminded that the storms are a brief part of bringing the promise. Days like this keep me going from promise to reality, cherishing the pictures of future things in the beauty of the current things. I'm not the only one calling my friends. New, bewildered faces join the group of us here looking toward the eastern sky, astounded by the beauty around and above and coming.

and every eye shall see it

Having grown up in Kentucky, where there is an abundance of natural beauty, I often feel starved for it here among the empty buildings of our town. But then, sometimes, the sky catches on fire and all the rest becomes shadow and silhouette.

It is the beauty that comes as the last tears of a storm drop away.

I am told there was also a great, thin rainbow that stretched over the whole city. I must've been tucking the kids in when it happened. Either that, or the lenses on my face were too small to take it in at once, here seeing the reds, there the yellows, there the blues and purples. (All these pictures were taken within the same minute.) One girl said someone tucked one corner of artist's paper under the old factory and the other under the bridge by the river, then unfolded it straight up to the sky. Another said some movie maker stood a projector screen on its side from the bridge over Kilgore to a cloud as it ran away and flung it open toward the north. Whether it was a silent movie or a watercolor so large it only seemed to move, I couldn't tell, but color upon color stacked and blended as far as the eye could see.

two worlds collided

where I spent a couple of hours this weekend

Days like today leave me with many thoughts swirling about, tangling themselves in my head. If one comes out, I'm afraid they will all spill out and plop onto the page. There are many small disappointments that speak doom and many small successes fanning my hope that someday they will add up to something substantial. (Why is it disappointment seems so much more tangible than hope?)

I go through this every time I return here from Kentucky to a greater or lesser extent. I go from being surrounded by the hills, the trees, the extra sets of helping hands afforded by grandparents, and the quiet suburban street where I grew up to the house that needs cleaned, the cars that need mufflers, the projects waiting to be done, the diapers, the noise of kids fighting and threatening to fight, and the relationships that feel more like your next chess move than a book in a cozy chair. It can sometimes be a little too much for a girl.

But, as I was told by a friend recently, I'm ruined anyway, because I am not completely comfortable in the nice and the quiet anymore, either. "We're becoming more like third-culture kids," she said. And she's right. Not at home here, not at home there, but at home with people who know the feeling. Sometimes. I guess I'm not entirely third-culture, either. Is this what Jesus was getting at when He said we live as "aliens and strangers in this world?" Maybe.

I have this never-ending desire to have both worlds -- the white, privileged one and the diverse, under-privileged one -- be together. When I'm alone in the woods, enjoying the sounds of a stream and the flutterings around me, I wish my 12-year-old friend could experience it with me. (But then I wouldn't be alone in the woods, would I?) When I'm here at home, I wish old friends could know the joy of having half the neighborhood (the african-american middle-school girls, the preschoolers from church, the older neighbor who wishes he would've gone to college, and the friend just completing his master's) gather on your front porch -- together -- to see your kids, chat with you, and play with your dog. I wish my friends here could all have the blessing of being taken out to eat at a nice restaurant with their parents. I wish my friends there could have the blessing of receiving a 12 pack of Coke from a youth who brought it to your house because he was just thinking about you when he saw it.

In many ways, then, I have the best of both worlds. And I am glad for that. I'm glad to be able to share both worlds with my children. I'm anxious to see what sort of people this kind of life will make of my kids. My hope is that they will be gracious, generous, thankful, loving, and more naturally accepting of others than me. Heck, I hope those same things for myself in a few years!

But some days it messes with you. Some days I really appreciate the good about both worlds and some days I find it easier to point the finger and despair over the faults of both. Days like today are a mixed bag. There are the adults putting up walls of lies and pride that hinder our relationships with them and with their children. But there's the grandma who is glad to have someone on her team wanting to keep her grandson from failing school. There are the three groups of kids walking the streets, all cursing and talking about fighting each other. But then there's the truly tough boy with his fists up who has his way of letting Pat know he finds comfort in knowing Pat would come to make them talk it out. There's the disappointment of finding out one of "ours" is failing three core classes at school. But there's the joy of seeing her smile when her friends sing "Happy Birthday" to her at her lunch table in school.

But does a song from friends do more to a person than failing in school? Is the grandma's kid really going to do better in school than the hundreds of other failing kids we know?

Just when I think I am going to be overwhelmed, I look back to my time in the woods, away from everything. I remember the little taste of peace. I look around at my neighbors trying against all odds to make life better. I remember that we don't labor in vain. And I look forward to the day when these worlds will collide. I remember the promise of something New. I remember that one day we will all sit around the same dinner table and swap stories. It'll be a new world, then, and we will be aliens no longer, but friends.

me and Israel on our street last summer

Cabin fever!

Two months shy of three years ago, our church started meeting in the cabins at Heekin Park. Perhaps most churches in America would not consider it to be a very luxurious place and, well...I wouldn't argue. Not much, anyway. But at the time it was a great step up. It was the end of an Indiana winter spent meeting in an unheated garage with a salamander. (If you're not familiar with a salamander, it's a heating machine that has a long snake attachment and does *wonderful* things for the air quality. We would have it on before the meeting and then turn it off to start so we could hear the music. But then it would be cold again, so we'd fire it back up while we took a break. Then we'd have to turn it off to finish our meeting. Ah...the good ol' days!)

Moving into the cabins felt downright luxurious because they had HEAT! Our first service in the cabins was on my birthday in March. I giggled because I could feel my toes wearing only one pair of socks. It was a birthday present too wonderful for me! (Okay...maybe I felt like I deserved it.) We rented three of them: one for the service, one for nursery (birth through age 5), and one for elementary students (K-5).The big cabin had a small kitchen with a stove and small refrigerator, which seemed like such a novel idea at the time. It also had a stage area along one of the narrow walls. I laughed thinking we'd go from having someone talk from a circle of people sitting in metal chairs in a garage to having us all listen to someone speaking down to us from a stage. Turns out we never used the stage for that and we were all glad.

When we first went to the cabins, we were a handful of mostly relocators with very few children. But more people moved in, some of our neighbors started to come, lots of neighborhood kids joined us, and many, many babies were born. Neither Israel nor Eden had even been thought of (by us, anyway...) before we moved to the cabins, but both of them were dedicated to our Lord there. We have seen friends baptized in those cabins. Wedding vows were renewed outside the cabins. We grew by all means available until we started running out of room to put enough chairs in the cabin and the kids (many of whom did not exist our first Sunday there) were crazy and loud being put together in such a resonant space. Many of us were tired of making the trek from a cabin to the glorified outhouses in the heat (stinky) or the cold (the toilets were metal). It became more and more cumbersome storing all the things for sound, nursery, kids, and lunch in the trunks of our cars and the back of an old van during the week and hauling them through whatever weather to set up for what had become around 75 people a week. All the wonderful people added to us meant our church had some growing pains that couldn't be ignored while we waited to build a community center where we could also house our church.

The recent news that we had been asked to rent out the Boys' and Girls' Club was met with shouts of joy from just about all of us. It is just across the park from the cabins that have been our home. We were excited to hear that it had not two, but three classrooms and bathrooms and (gasp!) storage space...all under one roof! What glory! On Saturday, several of us gathered to check out our new, rented home. It is about what you would expect from a sort of inner-city non-profit place for kids to hang out. It needs painted. Things are old, torn, outdated, disheveled. I'll admit that my initial excitement met with some I'm-not-sure-about-this as I walked through the rooms and thought about how we would fit into the space.

We got to work cleaning off the various sorts of chairs that had been donated to us to set up for worship in the gym. We rearranged rooms for the kids. We set up tables and chairs for lunch. (We're still a few short if you have any extra long folding tables sitting around....) We found a pulpit in the back of the locker room. That's right...a pulpit. Wow. We got a folding glass wall to put around the drum set. We have room in the storage closet for a sound board and bigger speakers borrowed from a band. It took 8-10 of us a little over 3 hours to figure things out and get set up. That's a long time. Excitement met with this-is-a-lot-of-work.

But on Sunday, everything felt great. The kids, who are already quite familiar with the building, felt right at home and got right down to playing pool and Dance Dance Revolution. There are bugs to work out, to be sure, but the space felt warm and inviting. In spite of all the needed improvements, seeing each other's familiar faces there felt a little like seeing your spouse of years and years dressed up for a date.

Right now I am in the throes of potty training Israel while Eden is pulling on me to help her walk across the room. It actually takes up a lot more of my time teaching Israel to pull his pants and underwear up and down, get situated for the big event, follow through, and wash his hands. It's slower for me to hold Eden's hand while she walks than it is for me to carry her to her destination. Growing up is hard work -- and no less so for those given the task of helping the process along.

Moving to the next stage requires a new commitment to the harder work of doing something new.