Desconocido sigue..

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Hebrews 8:10

Reading that passage makes me think of a few things:

1.       The courage that Abraham had to go into a new place, meet new people, call that place home.

2.       The commitment that Abraham displays to God, to his word, and to the fact that God had complete control over his life.

3.       The faith that Abraham possessed to enable him to make that move, knowing full well it was the plans of the father that led him there.

If I had just a bit more courage, commitment, and faith, what would I do?  If you had just a bit more courage, commitment, and faith, what would you do?  If we had just a bit more courage, commitment, and faith, what would we do together?

In the past few weeks, I feel like God has been giving me an intense, grueling lesson in these three words: their meanings, their purposes, and the easy ways they can be used to do more damage than good.  Not only has coming back from Argentina been difficult in readjusting to life here, missing life there, and wondering why in the world am I here?, I also have taken on a new challenge, a new unknown, one that has taken me out of the (repulsive) comfort of Wayne, PA and into the often frowned-upon, somewhat dangerous, diverse, and absolutely beautiful Kensington, Philadelphia. 

I am currently interning at an agency that provides services to the Latino community of Kensington, Philadelphia.  I am working in a program that offers services to families who have at least one child with a disability.  Mix extreme poverty with a language barrier (they are all Spanish speaking only), with a lack of healthcare, and with a severe special need, and you have a mix of issues that make for some incomprehensibly sad and scary circumstances.  I go into homes, see where they live, and see and understand how the environment also adds another negative factor.

Kensington may be full of landfills, and violence, and drugs, and crime, but it is also full of cultures, of hard-workers (you try working numerous minimum wage jobs to support your family…hard as heck), of people who love the Lord, and most importantly of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  They are ours, because we are all his. 

 Every Tuesday and Thursday, I wake up early and make the trek into the city.  I leave the tranquility of Wayne behind in exchange for Kensington. ..and then vice versa when I come back at night.  To give you an idea of the stark contrast between the two, here are some pictures.  You can guess which is which. 

I stare at these inequalities every day and cringe, I get sad, and I wonder why me?  Why do I get to come back to the comfort of Eastern? Why do I not live in Kensington? What made me get this life instead of that one?  What made them get that life instead of this one?

So basically, I’m on a new adventura in the unknown.  So I guess the name of the blog still fits, and this will now just be an outlet for me, a way to release my feelings, ideas, shortcomings, successes.  A way to write and realize, a way to express and be heard, and way to continually strive to see where God is leading me in this life…maybe another place that is desconocido.