A note about our neighborhood...(from nate)

Hey beautiful people,

We need your prayers! Vanguard is in the middle of some very difficult times and we need everyone who knows how to pray, to pray for our city and the neighborhoods we are working in. Let me explain.Gang activity in Kalamazoo, historically, hasn’t been too intense. Sure we have had our share of murders, shootings, and drug activity, but overall the situation has not been as violent and chaotic as a lot of other cities. But over the past two years the hostility between the young men of the south side of Kalamazoo and the young men of the north side of Kalamazoo has intensified. Last year there were 357 calls to the police department for shots fired. There were 22 homicides with a gun in the last seven years. From January through March of 2007 there has already been 85 calls to the police for shots fired, several homicides, and we’re not even to the summer yet. I personally believe that the enemy started setting us up for this moment generations ago, and here is how:Within the inner city neighborhoods there is an enormous void of fathers. There are boyfriends and uncles but fathers are few and far between. Vanguard did interviews at the Boys-n-Girls Club a few months ago and, of the 40-or-so kids we interviewed, ONE had a father in the home. ONE! Many of them only had a picture of him and had never met him in person. What am I saying? We have two whole neighborhoods (The north and south sides of Kalamazoo) full of fatherless young men. One thing I have learned about manhood is that it is conferred upon you by another man. When my sons want to know if they’re becoming strong, they don’t test it out on my wife. Yes they wrestle around with her sometimes but when they really want to test themselves out they come after me. They love hearing from their mom about how well they did during their football games, but regardless of what she says they ask me if they did good. My affirmation brings them into the belief that they have what it takes to become a man because another man of significance in their lives has told them so. This cannot be done by a woman. Can you see the connection? Two whole neighborhoods, full of fatherless young men, are trying to prove to themselves and to each other that they are men and have what it takes to be a man because there is no one to confer that manhood upon them. Throw a match like murder (which happened to a 14 year old young man last week) into an explosive situation like that and chaos is just down the road. The neighbors are almost hopeless. We were ministering in the neighborhood the boy was shot in, the day after his death. I have personally, never seen so much despair and hopelessness as I did on the faces of the mothers there. They are stuck in one of the only neighborhoods they can afford to be in and losing hope in the ability of the authorities in place to keep them or their families safe. Where does their help come from?The only answer is Our God working through the church. We have to be on our knees in prayer. But one thing about us that is different from them is that we are in different economic and social categories than they are. We are not touched with the feeling of their infirmities as Jesus was with ours. I minister in the neighborhood and get to see first hand what this does to the people living there. When I go to pray I feel the compassion of the Father for the young mothers who are worried sick for their sons. When I pray I see the tenseness in the faces of the teenage boys who shouldn’t have to worry about if they will see tomorrow. This encourages me to pray with a certain urgency which is missing from the prayers of those who are not privileged to minister in the areas I am. My request is this: when you get some time sit down in a chair and allow God to show you what it looks like to live in a situation like this. What does it look like to come home and see bullet holes through your living room window? What emotions go through you as you hear a commotion outside your kitchen window and find that your neighbor boy was just shot in the head at only 14 and you have two sons around that same age? What kind of frustrations would you feel as a single mother if you came home exhausted from work, to a home falling apart at the seams, with bills that exceed your income, and no father to share the burden of raising kids in this neighborhood? If you will take a minute to let God show you his heart in this matter your prayers cannot be the same for the people He cares about so much. And the urgency in your prayers will move His heart and He will not be slow in coming to the aid of people who don’t have any other advocate. We really need your help and your prayers!

I love you guys!
N8