Please Pray

On Saturday night we left our kids home with a babysitter and my wife and I went out on a date. While out, we received notice that our next door neighbors had been held-up at gun point in their house and robbed by a young black male. It is suspected that this is the same young man who burglarized and raped a young lady in her house a couple blocks away earlier in the week. Last night we heard the ambulances drive off on the block behind us. They were responding to a triple shooting. Two survived, one died.

In days like these, life in my neighborhood is scary, chaotic and hopeless. How will things ever change? Of the people I have known over the years who commit crimes, their stories are always tragic. They are often stories of severe poverty, neglect and abandonment which often leads to the drug scene and then to violent crime. Their desperation brings destruction.

But somehow, God is gracious to remind me that He’s here, that He hears our cries and that He’s still at work redeeming and restoring all things. This Sunday after church a couple of our young black men called for a meeting of the men in the congregation. This was their goal; that together we would create a “band of brothers” that would encourage each other to grow in our faith, that would provide accountability with each other and that together we would reach the young men of our neighborhood.

Often when the police release descriptions of perpetrators, it’s often a black male 18-24 with dreadlocks, the same description of these two young men who were infectiously admonishing us to pursue God. Throughout God’s redemptive history, God has used unlikely people from unlikely places to redeem and restore that which is lost and broken. Here He is doing it again.

My heart breaks over the violence that has occurred here recently but God, the hope of the world, is still at work. He hasn’t abandoned or forsaken us. His rescue plan that was revealed nearly 2000 years ago in a dirty stable, in the form of a helpless baby is still at work.

We ask that you continue to pray for us. Pray for our protection and pray that God would use us to be agents of His peace and His healing.

In Christ's Redeeming Love,

Ben McLeish
Development Director