Sometimes peoples ask what a typical day is like for me, and the fact of the matter is that there is NO typical day…there is always a new adventure, and new joy, a new sorrow, a new crisis…. Because i can’t really write out what a typical day is, I’ll just “news flash” you with the past week’s worth of events….

 

Monday,is our day off, but still a lot of people are in and out of our house (both those that live with us and those that dont).. neighborhood girls stop by while I’m cooking dinner and have a “stomp/dance” that they’ve practiced for me.  I sit on the couch as the perform it, and I take great delight in A) their creativity and B) their desire to perform it for me.  I whip out my old school Out of Eden C.D and we all have a major dance party as i finish cooking dinner and setting the table.  VERY fun time…the boys who were in and out of our house thought we were crazy…. 🙂

 

Tuesday, I feed Safe Haven staff lunch and we have our prayer and planning meeting.  One guy, Rod, usually joins us (even though he’s not on staff) and he’s loaded with questions about his friends making fun of him because he’s not smoking weed with them any more. We dive into a long conversation about the cost of following Christ and persecution. We have a great prayer time afterwards.

 

In the afternoon a dad came to get his kid from the youth center and he steals memory cards out of the game system, a few pencils from the cabinet, and one of our lightbulbs that was IN USE from the ceiling…all this was caught on video…we have deemed him “world’s most pointless thief” (except for the memory cards).  No wonder these kids are struggling.

 

Wednesday, a woman stops by who I’ve been counseling and praying with.  She needs prayer again so we spend the next 30 minutes before the  Lord.  The Spirit led us through times of worship, intercession, silence, and tears.  She came out of the prayer time really feeling like the Lord spoke to her heart and that God was setting her free little by little (she was locked in closets and abused and stuff as a kid)

 

I set out for my bi-monthly big grocery venture.  Takes a LONG time to load up on everything, i’m late for another meeting with another woman who needs lots of help. After stuffing frozen items in the freezer, and leaving all the other groceries strewn over my kitchen floor, i race upstairs to nurse Trinity, before i go run to the woman’s house…while nursing Trinity I’m thinking “ALL I WANT TO DO IS BE A MOMMY…NOTHING ELSE!” 

 

Get back from prayer with her, to start dinner for the crew.  Four girls show up and want to help cook dinner.  I have a little kitchen, but still they all ended up helping…We had 15 people around the dinner table that night…good thing i went grocery shopping!

 

Thursday–  shuffle the kids out the door by 9am to go meet another pastors wife for prayer…REALLY hard to stay focused and keep my eyes open during prayer…Lord give me strength!

 

In the afternoon I have my middle school girls over for Bible study..a JOY and delight…these girls are like a breath of fresh air to me….Bible study spills into having them help cook (they love it!) and then having them stay for dinner…we need a longer table and more chairs…rolly chairs from the office have to suffice.  Dinner’s got to be quick and early because the boys have their FutureMan Bible study at 7:00 (I have assumed the role of Bible study time-nazi and bark out orders to eat faster so that they can all make it over to the church in time…I think we all have indigestion on Thursdays)

 

Friday-try to get housework done but also appease my son who is always dying to play “bah” (ball) outside in the gorgeous weather (i don’t blame him).  Friday afternoon, a fight breaks out outside my kitchen (ear piercing screams will quickly bring your attention drama in the streets).  Evidently a guy was beating his kids on the bus and another guy punched him for doing so (as soon as they got to the bus stop, which happens to be my “front yard”).  This makes the abusive father even more angry and they start beating each other outside my window…someone breaks it up but then the STILL angry abusive father grabs a glass bottle off the street and starts to chase the other guy in an attempt to bash it over his head…cops eventually come…the guy who was actually trying to defend the little girls who were getting hit gets arrested and probably the abusive father continues to beat his children. I HATE SIN.

 

Feed guys dinner.  Go to Crossover, our weekly youth event.  Come home to put kids to bed and go back over for tail end of Bible study. 

 

Saturday– Danny and I take Trinity with us as we go to visit the homes of the kids in our after school program..(DJ stayed home and took a nap).  I tell yah, walking through the projects is a boost of self esteem because we’re like celebrities to the kids…they all come running 🙂 I was hanging out in the courtyard of the projects while Danny was inside talking to kid who had stolen an ipod from one of our teens. I was walking around praying when all of a sudden a big fight breaks out….between a kindergardener (we’ll call him Freddie) and a first grader (we’ll call her Christy) !  All the other kids found this to be a great opportunity to all get a whack at Freddie.  There was biting, pinching, punching, and dogpiles involved.  Freddie was hyperventilating, he was so mad…*here i would like to interject that Freddie has been kicked out of Sunday School. He would show up without his mom and was ABSOLUTELY out of control.  When I was pregnant with Trinity I thought I was going to go into labor because i would have to physically remove him from my Sunday School room with him kicking and struggling the whole time.  I only did that once though…i realized that my unborn baby was more important than struggling with this kid- next time I recruited a strong male to physically remove him.  Anyways when we brought him home to speak with his mother about him needing an adult with him rather than the  10 yr. old who would bring him, we  found her high as a kite. we didn’t get very far in our talk with her. but it DID explain alot about his situation.   back to the fight.  So I jump into the middle of the fight to embrace  Freddie, not roughly but in a hug -the rough thing just doesn’t work- and spoke softly to him that it was going to be ok….Its weird how my first reaction was to comfort him as if he had fallen, instead of bitten a girls arm and gone crazy at anyone who got in his way.  He stayed in my arms and cuddled with me for a good 10 minutes as i talked to him and prayed with him.  I wondered when the last time he was hugged.  He was calmed down and I sent him on his way, but as I was leaving I turned around to see him flick off the girls, then the girls crowd around him to yell at him, and then hear him rattled out a string of expletives to them which made my ears burn…I managed to convince the girls to ignore him but then had to go. My heart breaks for Freddie…his mom isn’t a mom to him-she’s too busy getting high, and in the meantime every girl in the projects thinks that they can boss him around, hit him, and curse at him to try to do what he’s suppose to (because his mom isn’t around to do so), which makes him even more rebellious and out of control.   Its a vicious cycle and only unconditional love is going to break it. 

 

Sunday– wake up early, plan children’s church, usher my kids over to church to be watched, while i run to the project to pick up some kids, I play mommy to both my kids and all the kids without an adult with them during the worship time, we have childrens church and one of my girls (who is diabetic) gets low blood sugar and i run around trying to contact her mom and feed her juice and lunch, while trying to keep my class in order. After church we feed all the kids, then load them all up for a special pajama give -away at another ministry sight, get back around 5:00.  Take MY kids home (they are in-tow for all of this) feed them dinner and then get ready to go on a date with Danny.  Aaahh…sweet time with my husband. but even then we run in to people who we know…we talk to them and pray with them…and they think its cute that we’re on a date…I convince Danny to stay in the parked car with me JUST a little longer to delay going home where I know a ton of guys will be hanging out…

 

eventually go home knowing that tomorrow is a work day because our day off has to be postponed for all the NEW and different things that will be happening this week (aka, Mayor Cory Booker coming)