On my third day here, after baking with the neighborhood kids, I was recruited for a backyard game. I didn’t know what I was getting in to, but I was just thankful to have not been the last one picked on the team. (Petunia and I were the oldest ones playing by at least 20 years). The game involved bouncing a tennis ball to hit the opposing players, stacking tin cans on top of paint buckets (in descending size order), saying a magic word, hopping on one foot, knocking the tin cans down, running around, and of course celebrating when your team won a point.

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I have been dreaming about a life in a community since my teenage years. I think three major influences kindled my desire and were my early inspiration.

One influence was growing up in a Mennonite church with strong family ties. While a good part of the bonding occurred along blood lines, what connected most of us young people was living counter-culturally in non-evangelical Germany. We practiced believers baptism, taught pacifism as a characteristic of a disciple of Jesus and began to integrate social justice with the gospel.

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He’s one of those boys with a gentle, sweet smile / That makes you look twice / Here on the streets, you notice what’s nice / See, out here you get picked on if you’re not a little mean / So, he walks the line in between / Stepping from scene to scene / Just wanting to be seen / One day hopping fences with the gang / Another day dropping the game / Looking for respectable gain / But who does he have to show him how? / All these grown kids just sitting around / Having somehow missed the right of passage / From boyhood to manhood / Now lacking the tools to pass on what they should

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The doorbell rings and I cringe.

It is this fear of the unknown. Invading my life. Interrupting my time. Stealing pieces of my day. I do not know who is there. But whoever they are they want something. They came to me. A shower. A chat. A cup of cold water…

Yesterday the doorbell rang a lot of times.

First it was Ninga - one hour and one day early for easter egg painting. It was in the middle of Tuesday morning prayer and it was raining. Poor Grace had to tell him to come back tomorrow. She felt bad, but it was the right thing. We were meeting.

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Walking with my neighbors on their life journey is my greatest joy and privilege. It is also my greatest pain and sorrow. In joining them on their journey, theirs becomes mine and mine theirs. Somewhere along the way we go from being neighbors, to friends, to family.

It caused great pain to watch our neighbors put in jail, taking both mother and father from four beautiful boys. But it is with great joy that we celebrated the miracle of our sister’s release from jail, now filled with Light and Life that she is pouring into those same boys.

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“Dios llora por nosotros (God cries for us)" was the phrase Jose used as he shared his testimony with the rest of the street youth. Jose is 38 years old and started working and living on the streets at age 9. He now sleeps in the dormitory at night and washes cars to earn a living. He goes to church on a regular basis and attends night school, working on his high school education. But Jose’s life was not always so clean...

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This past Saturday a man was shot on the corner right by our InnerCHANGE office.   Words can't adequately describe the sense of helplessness John, Birgit, our friend Ryan and I felt as we first heard the shots, then the commotion as neighbors gathered on the street to see what was going on.  Someone we know and love could've easily been the target of those gunshots.  Violence is so random and unpredictable here. Most of the perpetrators and victims, however, are young men roughly between the ages of 16 and 30....[Read more]

The call to love looks different in different places. Xela, Guatemala is a city rich with history, beauty, education, and all the trimmings of a modern society. But there is an underbelly to Xela—a population of kids who live on the streets and get by shining shoes, washing cars, or working as assistants on the microbuses.

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I leave the house at 6 in the morning -- coffee thermos and latest Cambodia Daily in hand -- my tuk-tuk weaves around early morning traffic and heads for the Central Market, where I catch the 6:30 bus to Kompong Cham, a provincial capital two hours north of Phnom Penh. The city streets and tall buildings soon turn into rice fields and wooden houses on stilts. The bus honks its horn to warn schoolchildren on bicycles, farmers taking their produce to market, and the occasional brahmin cow, to stay out of the road....[Read more]