I have a weird bedtime habit. I fall asleep with headphones in my ears, listening to the same audiobook that’s guided me into sleep for years: God’s Smuggler. I carry on each night just a few minutes further from where I started the prior night.
Brother Andrew smuggled Bibles into Communist countries, encouraged fellow Christians there, and preached and evangelized in their church gatherings.
Words from his biography, plus some other books I’m reading now, have convicted me I haven’t spent enough time praying for God to heal the tremendous brokenness in our immediate neighborhood.
Renovation Community’s Parsonage is the only single-family dwelling on our block, where every other building is a rundown duplex, townhome, or small apartment building.
The constant change in cars reveals the high turnover in residents. And many cars’ constant presence during the day shows how few work regular jobs.
It’s not unusual to find a used condom lying on the ground near our property. Trash and alcohol bottles constantly blow on the streets.
Children far too young to be unsupervised have walked down the middle of the road. CPS has removed children from homes after the terrible neglect I’ve reported.
Piles of everything in an apartment regularly sit on the curb after another tenant gets evicted, lying there uncollected by its former owners until the monthly bulk trash pickup.
Screams from the mentally ill come through our windows. People high on drugs and/or mentally unstable have broken through our courtyard, hopped our fence, and repeatedly stolen our property.
And the brokenness (especially financial brokenness) extends into our own church family, where people struggle to pay basic bills, much less give any meaningful donation to the church.
So lately I’ve been praying more for my street… praying for boldness to reach across racial, cultural, and moral barriers…praying for ‘open doors’ into hurting neighbors’ lives…praying for wisdom on how to provide tangible help that empowers rather than enables… praying for workers willing to join our church and reach my neighbors for Christ.
***
Some of the most heavily-persecuted Christians Brother Andrew visited were those in Communist Romania.
He wrote,
“I met every shade of attitude from the extreme of defeat to the extreme of courage. It was easy to sympathize with the defeated ones. “What can we do?” was such a natural reaction. So many had only one ambition: to get out of Romania altogether.
Oddly though, the more devoted the Christian, the more likely he was to stay put.
In Transylvania we visited such a family. These Christians had a poultry farm that was still, at least partly, their own property.
However, the State had given them a production quota that was beyond their capacity to meet. When they failed to reach it, they had to buy enough eggs on the open market to make up the difference. Year after year this had happened and the economic suffering was great.
“Why do you stay then? So that you can keep your farm?” I asked.
The farmer and his wife both looked shocked. “Of course not. In fact we certainly will lose the farm.”
“We stay because—“ he let his eyes travel across the valley.
“Because if we go, who will be left to pray?””
***
For years God has sustained Renovation Community with unrequested gifts in the mail like this one. I’ve thought He does this to show the world He’s able to provide for those who sacrificially follow Him. Someone I just met described our church’s financial gifts as “manna from Heaven.” For years I’ve believed God wants to show how He still can send “manna from Heaven” when He chooses.
And yes, I think that’s part of it.
But I’m thankful to an unknown poultry farmer and his wife in Communist Romania decades ago. They remind me of another reason God might sustain our church and family on this broken street…
“If we go, who will be left to pray?”
Unlike in heavily-persecuted Communist Romania, I know there’s other Christians who live on my street and around my block. I trust God, too, will inspire them to pray for their neighbors.
Renovation Community, and I have a role to play in God’s plans for the hurting people on our street. I don’t know with certainty how long our role will last. But, to the best of my current understanding, I trust He can sustain our every need for as long as He desires us to stay.
So we will stay as long as God wills.
We will love God and love neighbor.
And our church, and this pastor, will pray.
