In a word, the neighborhood has taught me humility. Lesson after lesson can be boiled down to God humbling me. These lessons have been difficult, but essential. I came to the neighborhood thinking I had something worthwhile to offer. I thought making friends with neighbors would be easy and come naturally. I heard people say that it would be harder than I thought, but I didn’t believe them. And yet here I am, eating my words.
My first month was the most difficult. I called my parents crying one night. I was interning at Christ Community Health Services and I felt unneeded and more of a hindrance than a help. It didn’t seem like I was having any sort of impact on any of my neighbors – in fact I barely knew their names. I had believed the lies Satan was telling me about who I was to God. Worse than purposelessness, he was hitting me with feeling expendable and lacking value. But the Lord spoke to me through friends and Scripture. He told me I was valuable and more priceless than gold. Isaiah 29:11-13 promises that not only does God have a perfect plan for my life, but also that when I seek him with all my heart, I will find him. He told me in Colossians 3:17 that everything I do should be for God and that it should be done with my whole heart, regardless of circumstances. I was reassured that I have eternal worth in his eyes and that I need to be okay with seasons where I am the one learning rather than the one teaching.
The neighborhood has taught me that being a neighbor is really very simple. A friend of mine that lives down the street once told me, “To learn to be a neighbor, you just have to go outside.” I think there is wisdom in her words. Being a neighbor is as easy as sitting on your porch and talking to your neighbors. It’s as simple as going to the park and playing with kids. You listen to people’s lives, learn their needs, and seek to meet them. It’s that basic. And yet it has been so hard for me. My flesh wars against it every day. All I want to do is go home and relax. If I do go out, I want to spend time with friends who are easy to be with, not work to make new friends with people next door who are literally from different cultures. It boils down to a choice: I have a choice to go outside and spend some extra effort knowing people or to stay in. It’s a choice I have to make every day.
Living here, I’ve also learned that I am very interested in other cultures. I genuinely enjoy learning about them and relish the moments that cross-cultural connections are made. I don’t mind spending the time it takes to attempt to communicate with people who don’t speak my language. If anything it just makes me appreciate understanding even more. I love talking to the refugee students at tutoring about life outside their school work and learning that we have things in common with each other. Even simple things like directing an Afghani man where to get his food stamps are fulfilling to me. This realization about myself makes me feel more confident about the heart God has given me for overseas medical mission work.
I’m feeling tired of this “learning” stage of life where I am surrounded by spiritual mentors whose lives I want to emulate and am ready to start emulating them already! But God keeps using this neighborhood and the people in it to humble me. I think it is a good place for me to be. Until I am able to realize my complete inadequacy and embrace the Lord’s perfect provision, I am in no condition to set out on my own to emulate anyone. In a nutshell, the neighborhood has taught me that I have a lot to learn.
April, 2009
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