I was riding the train into downtown the other day on my Sabbath. Trains in Chicago can be excellent stages for watching people interact. That’s the great thing about public transit; everyone has to wait; everyone rides in the same cars; there is no social, economic, or racial segregation. This particular morning though I witnessed a scene unfold that broke my heart.

In my time working with students at Orr Academy High School I have learned a lot about the cycle that ex-offenders face when trying to re-enter into society. They are often not eligible or looked over for jobs. They often are let out with only the option to return to the place they fell into trouble at or become homeless. There are few programs that are helping ex-offenders specifically in the process of re-entry and often times those programs go un-promoted to the people who need them most.

A man walked on the train, well dressed with a professional looking folder, and proceeded to announce to the train his need. He was an ex-offender with a family, unable to find a job and struggling to pay the bills. In order to be able to take care of his family, he was seeking employment or the goodwill of someone who could connect him to someone that could help. This man spoke eloquently, he was gentle, but you could also tell that desperate circumstances had driven this man to this time and place. He received no response, no acknowledgment even from the many business people on the train. I wish I had thought quickly enough to get his e-mail so that I could have tried to find someone who could have helped but he got off at the next train stop.

A lady a few seats over commented to the person on her cell phone “I just hate riding on public transportation because of “stuff” like this.” It broke my heart. We need more encounters like this in our lives so that we cannot continue to live in such isolation that when we talk about issues or make judgments about groups or ideas we have no faces to those issues. When “ex-offenders” become Joe and Dante instead of a nameless entity, the black and white of a situation melts into the gray. We learn to show compassion in situations we may not have understood at the human level before and we learn to talk about issues with a new openness to learning and understanding that is so needed in our world. I pray that the walls that society has built up to separate us from the reality of our world come crumbling down. I pray that when we make statements about issues it because our heart is tied to the well-being of those who those decisions effect. May God’s kingdom come and His will be done, here on earth as it is in Heaven!

My team and I don’t venture out of our neighborhood very often on family nights, mainly because there are too many great things going on in Little Village to have a reason to leave. Two of the nights that we did venture downtown back in the fall taught me two of the most simple, but important lessons I have learned in Mission Year thus far.

The first evening we were walking towards the John Hancock building to go look at the city lights at night, when, as we were passing a Walgreens, I heard a voice among the crowds ask, “can someone please give us some food?” When I turned to look where the voice had come from, I was face to face with a young woman and three children. She was gracious with us as we tried to decide how we could best get food for the family, and finally, at the delight of the kids, agreed the McDonalds a few blocks away would be our best bet. So we set off with “Betty” and her three kids to find the restaurant. As we walked down the streets the three boys did flips, falling in front of busy pedestrians, and laughing hysterically at each other’s antics. There was an energy that came off of them that was contagious and despite awkward glances from strangers around us, we couldn’t help but have fun with them! When we reached the McDonald’s we let the boys order their food and all set down at a large table to share in a meal together. The boys on our team proceeded to play games with the boys while Emily, Kristin, and I were able to talk to Betty about her life, what had gotten them to that corner downtown, and what the future looked like. We began to unravel a story that involved missing parents, an overcrowded home, and Betty, barely an adult herself, taking care of kids that we never did figure out belonged to whom in the family. After being there long enough to be asked to quiet down and behave by the security guard three times, we decided we should all probably head for the train stop.

As we continued to talk walking down the street, I could not help but feel like the night had been a great lesson about the kingdom. The whole interaction was messy and at any moment the awkwardness, or social “unacceptability”, of the situation was constantly being thrown back in our face by the stares of on looking strangers or security guards. The cool part though was that when you consider what Christ did throughout the Gospels by eating with tax collectors or conversing with prostitutes it becomes completely clear that we should be having dinner with more Betty’s. The dinner we shared with Betty and her family was quite possibly one of the most treasured moments I will take away from Mission Year because in that evening I learned what it means to look past the outer disguise of the people we encounter here and into the greatness of who God created in each person.

The second evening came about a month later when we were once again passing a Walgreens and once again heard the voice of someone asking for money. It may sound harsh, but there is no way that we could or should give out money to everyone that asks for money on the streets, but by stopping and acknowledging someone you often are giving them more than the person who walks by and drops change in without ever looking the person in the eyes. What stopped us in our tracks this time though was the fact that “Rita” actually said “please don’t just walk by me and ignore me like everyone else.” You very rarely here someone say that. So we stopped and started talking to her. Soon after we stopped, the cops came patrolling by and Rita grabbed us by the arms, shepherding us down the street telling us to “play it cool” and that “they were looking for a reason to arrest her.” It was at this point that Rita told us that she had recently been let out of prison on parole and that her aunt that she had lived with before being put in prison had died and the people living in the house now were not people she should be hanging out with. She told us that if she went back to that house it would guarantee her going back to prison because there was too much drug activity and the people in the house would put it all on her since she already had a record. We asked to pray with her and held hands on that street corner lifting Rita’s needs up to God. Rita thanked us and told us how grateful she was we had come along. She told us that before we had stopped she had planned to just go get a gun and start holding people up (we later found out that that was exactly what had landed her in prison in the first place; holding up an undercover cop).

Unlike with Betty and her three kids, this situation had some seriously tense and slightly frightening overtones to it. In the heat of the moment none of us knew the best next step. Some of us wanted to bring Rita along with us for dinner. Some of us felt it was probably best to say our goodbyes. So we went to dinner with Rita down the street and the events that unfolded throughout the rest of the evening still leave me thinking, “How would Jesus have responded?” There sitting across from me was an obviously very broken woman who needed to be loved, needed to know she was more than what life had dealt her and yet we were stuck in the middle of an intense spiritual fight. Rita had singled out a couple of our roommates, one in particular, and had started harassing them with her “insights” about our roommate. She said what I can only describe as some of the most intense spiritual warfare targeted at someone I have seen happen. Our two roommates excused themselves from the table after staying as long as they could, and the three of us left, tried to do what we could to leave Rita with contacts for places we knew that would offer her assistance. We said our goodbyes that night on Michigan Ave. and I couldn’t help but ride home on the train in shock at what had just happened that night.

There is no foolproof method of how to love someone and for that I try to be grateful. In moments like that night with Rita, who knows what the best thing was to do except show her love the best way we knew how.

The interesting struggle that night was how do you best love somebody without it hurting someone else? In staying with Rita, we opened one of our roommates up to being hurt pretty badly. I don’t pretend to know the answer to this still, but it has made me keenly aware in all situations now of the spiritual battle that often takes place in a simple act of showing love to someone and the full intensity of what is really going on when we place ourselves in the middle of those fights. Sometimes we get burned, sometimes someone we love gets burned, but I know and trust that God is bigger than those burns and that the love shown to people like Rita has great value.

 I look forward to Sundays. I feel so blessed by the church body that our team has been partnered with for the year. Each morning when I arrive, I know that from the moment I walk through the door to the moment I leave, I am surrounded by family. Our church knows how to make someone feel welcome. There are greeters at pretty much any entrance you choose to come in. There is no “sneaking in and out of church” here.

Our pastor is full of energy and his family is one of my greatest joys here in Chicago. He and his wife have six, soon to be seven, amazing kids. Their family exemplifies Christ in a way that is contagious. You cannot help feeling full of joy in their presence and the life giving words that they speak to me on Sundays are always such a great encouragement. Often times I find myself, “traveling the world” or playing other imaginative games with their younger daughters, playing superheroes with one of their sons, or just sharing stories with their oldest daughters. The way that our pastor and his wife minister to their church is phenomenal and can be described as nothing short of a direct encounter with what God does with fully surrendered lives.

My favorite moment in church though is when I walk into the sanctuary and look out into the sea of faces and find “my spot”. There is a lady in our church who has captured my heart with her walk with Christ. Every morning I make my way to her side and together we take refuge in our “safe” place. She has weathered a life more challenging than any I have ever heard of and yet she has welcomed me as part of her family. With her I feel so free to be the broken, struggling disciple of Christ I really am. There is no pressure for that perfect face or spotless performance. With her, I feel like I have a place to be in communion with someone else in all the rawness of what being saved by grace in faith really is. We struggle together to understand that there is nothing we can do to “better deserve” the gift of salvation we have been given. She is a strong, persistent woman of God that has no idea how strong she really is. I look forward though to journeying together with her for the next six months and seeing where God brings both of us in our walk with Him.

A  couple of weekends ago we participated in the PROP program here in Chicago through Mission Year. It’s a program that focuses on immersion into the life of those living on the streets. We slept on a cold floor in clothes that were not ours, panhandled for lunch money or train fare, and ate out of trashcans. It was a program I went into very much anxious and worried about what might be asked of us, and struck within ten minutes by the reality that none of it had anything to do with me, and everything to do with those who suffered in this lifestyle. I was being asked to identify with those the world has made invisible, with those that as children we are taught to ignore and even fear. I wrote a reflection on this experience that is far too long for this blog, but I wanted to share parts of it with you. If you want to read the whole thing you can find it here: http://cid-d086434eb17a01af.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Mission%20Year%20Updates/PROP%20Reflection.doc

“Forcing myself to be humble to the point of humiliation, feeling what it might feel like not to have a voice that others will listen to, all of it was such a foreign and uncomfortable place to put myself.

We gave up, tired of the sea of faces tuned into their earphones and cell phones, too busy to be inconvenienced by those around them…We walked amid a group of tourists not too far off in age from us, who looked at us warily, unsure whether to greet as comrades or look quickly the other way. How great a difference my out-of-style clothing, unkempt hair, and exhausted expression made in their assumptions! … I took a cup and rounded the corner, taking up a seat on the cold concrete, shadowed by scaffolding overhead. It was a place no one would want to sit; dark, cold, and removed from the flow of the town. It was the kind of place one becomes invisible… The overwhelming emotions of those we had seen on the video the night before and on the street that day, overcame me and I could not help but feel a small portion of the shame, frustration, and desperation that they must feel. To be forced to humble yourself in such a vulnerable way, to be at the mercy of those passing by, was not only humbling, but utterly disheartening. To see parents pull their kids away from me, someone they could easily have entrusted their child to a school the day before, angered me. How could such a thin layer of circumstance separate that me from the me now on the streets? How many layers separated me from others sharing the same patch of concrete before me?

My world changed in that moment. I no longer could see the separation of myself from the circumstance of those living on the street. How easily could I have been there too if my life had been one degree different? I watched as people walked by viewing me with unnecessary fear, disdain, and at times curiosity. Never was any of it enough to garner their time… What has our world become that we are so isolated in ourselves that we do not even see those suffering around us? How many times had I too just walked by, not even acknowledging the humanity of the person I was passing? Would I do that to my own family or friends? I wanted to say no, and yet how many times had just that happened? A friend sharing their need and my only acknowledging grief for their circumstance with no loving action, or a family member needing from me more than I was willing to give. Too many times I can think of “just passing by” that moment as so many had done to me that day.”

“So what does this experience mean?…I look at what we experienced through the perspective of the scriptures and I know without a shadow of a doubt now, why Jesus chose to lower himself and associate with those he did while on earth. God’s identity is so tied to the poor and the oppressed… From day one, God played by different rules, and that hasn’t changed today. Jesus said to love our God and love others. It says throughout scripture we cannot know God without knowing love for those around us. In Psalms, it talks about how when we mock or show contempt for those who are needy, we spit in the face of our creator. Our Maker chose to identify himself with the very people we have worked so hard to isolate ourselves from. How can we know him, without knowing them? Spending a day identifying with those my Creator has chosen to identify Himself with not only taught me how to love my neighbor, but it taught me who my God really is. It showed me, in a way I have never experienced before, the character of my God and the identity He has chosen to not only have as His own, but to impart to me. In order to be like Him, I must be able to identify with and love those who are pushed to outskirts of society.

This program was such a small step in being able to do that, but a significant one. I feel like the veil has been ripped down revealing to me the truth behind what Jesus says in Matthew 25 about the sheep and the goats, revealing the truth of what it means when he says “whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me.” PROP has opened the door for me to begin to explore who God truly is and what kind of kingdom He is really calling us to. It is a world utterly flipped from the “norm,” and I have the choice now to pursue that or turn my back in disobedience. It is uncomfortable, humbling, and still so unclear, but it is there that my God dwells and trusting in Him I walk forward knowing it is where I should be too.”

Living here in Chicago is going to be one of the greatest adventures yet in my ever so short worldly experience.  I cannot get over the clash of cultures here.  It is fantastic and challenging all at once!  I cannot wait to see what this year will hold; the things I will learn, experience, and be a part of.  It has started out on a great note and I am confident that God has big plans for us in this year.  If you want to keep track of what’s going on with me, Mission Year, and/or Chicago go here www.missionyear.org/blog/katiehargrove

When we get going so fast in life it can often become impossible to hear God speaking.  We slowly lose our time with Him and his voice grows more and more distant as we throw fifteen million things in between us and Him.  Someone told me the other day that ‘fear is almost always tied to either knowing our identity in Christ or forgetting it’ and I think he is right.  I know the moments where I have been so busy that I forgot the truth of what God says about me and what He desires of me are the moments that I feel most distant and afraid from my maker.  Slowing down is the only way that we can enable Him the room in our lives to move and call us to what He desires from us. 

My roommate asked me the other day how I was preparing for doing God’s work in Chicago (she too may be moving soon to do missions work).  It was funny timing because only the night before had I really realized the identity that Christ has given me and the work He has prepared.  I knew full and well what I had signed up for but I still distanced myself from the reality of the step towards Christ.  I told her the only thing I knew to do was to slow down and listen to what God was saying to me, what he desires to teach me before then, get as deeply in the word as I can to know who I am in Christ, and live every moment for the next two months as much in tune with Him as I can.  Only then do I think I will have the inner confidence that Christ desires for us when He sends us out.  This is a season of life where I can afford to slow down a little and take this time, and I know that these seasons of life come fewer and farther between as you get older so I am rejoicing in this season and making the most of it.

The world is not what I want it to be and sometimes it is almost overwhelming living in it.  The anger in humanity seems to infiltrate every corner of society like a plague.  Brokenness, pain, selfishness, madness; they drive people to live at the cost of others in a reckless havoc that pours from the pages of newspapers.  Headlines that make my heart break into a thousand pieces without any hope of being pieced back together.  How did we come to this?  How did we come to the point where we are so isolated in our egos that we cannot even see the pain we cause our neighbor?  How have we come to the point where we do not see the scar we leave on the earth?  What will be left when we are gone?

It makes me feel small.  So small that it feels at times crippling; then I remember where my allegiance lies.   I remember that I serve a big God.  A God who not only can win, but already has won.  A God who with all the power in the world chose grace and love as His chosen weapons.  They move in silence and yet their effects create the cries of melted hearts.  I serve a God who looks at this world that I feel is so big and hopeless and claims its creation.  He knows it by name, knowing what plans He has for it; plans bigger than my mind could ever imagine or comprehend.  Plans for its regeneration and not its destruction.  My God is good, but He is mighty.  He is big enough to make change In the places I would not dare to hope in.  Therefore my hope is in Him; Him who preserves and protects.

A friend of mine works for Google.  At lunch the other day, he told me about Google AdWords, a simple advertising system that Google has set up to allow its customers to advertise.  He suggested setting up an account and giving support raising through Google search a chance.  So I did.  Now if you search for inner city ministry, Chicago missions, and a number of other keywords, my website pops up as a sponsored link.  Now two things run through my mind when I see it:  1) Wow, anyone can literally be sponsored on Google and 2) wouldn’t it be cool if this works?

I mean how cool would it be for people all over the country to know about the need in Chicago and our other urban cities for neighborhood outreach and give?  Other things I have planned for getting to Chicago: 3 dinner parties coming soon with informational talks, great food, and fun; talking to area churches to see if they would be willing to support my ministry, and also many odds and ends fundraisers to come.  If you are local to Joplin and want to know more about any of these, or receive updates from me about how things are going on the way to and once I am in Chicago, shoot me an e-mail at k.hargrove@hotmail.com  I would love to hear from anyone and everyone. 

I cannot express how excited I am for Chicago and the great work I know I will get to be a part of there.  Thank you, if you are helping to get me there!  God Bless!

At our Sunday night College Age thing (not really a worship service, not really a bible study, so we don’t know anymore) we talked about responsibility, graduation, and life change.  Appropriate I guess for the timing and all, but it was weird being on the other side of that talk for the first time.  A friend broke down the term “responsibility” into response-ability.  It is only with our response that we are able.  Nothing will come if we do not act.  It made me think about responsibilities as they relate to my life now though in comparison to life before graduation.  Life just suddenly takes on so much more responsibility and depth after graduation, or at least that’s how I feel about it.  It is the first time that you really step out of that track that you have been racing down in education and set your own path.  I remember last August when Meg and I moved down to God’s Resort.  Moving there was like enrolling in a crash course in adulthood/parenting/missions.  We had responsibilities, a lot of them.  Not just responsibilities to ourselves either; we had responsibilities to kids, their parents, our home, bills, jobs, the church, ministry, the city, and so many others. 

Over the last couple of months some friends have moved into our neighborhood as well.  It is weird because the sudden influx of young adults has caused an insane increase in the traffic of college students wanting to hang out in our neighborhood.  Sometimes it feels like I am living in the dorms again, sometimes it feels like I am living in a communal living room known as my “home”.  I realized last night though that as much as part of me wants to go back to being that college student with no responsibilities; that isn’t me anymore.  It can’t be and I cannot choose to live like I have no responsibilities without being disobedient to where God has me.  It’s kind of weird, but I like being an adult.  The chaos of having no direction, boundaries or responsibilities is not somewhere I want to go back to.  I think it is the same reason we find so much freedom in Christ despite the laws and sacrifices that carries.  A certain order in ones life can be very godly and I’m thinking it’s one spiritual discipline I cannot afford to ignore.

People always talk about going green.  In my town though, you just don’t see it happening too often.  We are a small Midwest town with more restaurants than people it feels like and a Wal-Mart on every corner.  My roommate wanted to start being more ‘green’ though a while back and started recycling.  It’s not an easy thing in our town, but we have been doing it anyways.  We replaced most of our light bulbs with the swirly fluorescent ones.  We carpool on days that we go to work at the same time.  We even picked up a compost bin at the recycling center the other day for Earth Day.  Our newest “crowning achievement” though are our bikes.  Our newest roommate and I went our garage sale hunting this last Saturday at an hour we don’t often see during the weekends to see if we could find three good bikes for cheap.  Sure enough we found three for $50 in need of minimal repairs.  By the end of the day, all three were up and running in perfect condition.  We rode them to the Chinese restaurant and Walgreens so far, but it’s a start, right?  We are excited to get the exercise and lessen our carbon footprints a little bit more.  I am really starting to believe more passionately that this is not just a humanitarian, but a spiritual discipline people should be tuning in on more.  Just as we should take care of our own health, we should also take care of our environment we live in.  What God created, let no man destroy, right?