Meredith Blough's Blog
thoughts on trash / 11.14.09, 04:05 PM
Last Saturday was outreach day as usual for our team in East Garfield Park. The girls went with our friend Judy from church to go to a thrift store. It was great to spend time with her and check out things we could afford on our $60 a month stipend. Ashleigh found candles for $1 and was VERY excited. She then invited our whole team over for early dinner at her house. Her heart and openness to us, after knowing us only a couple months, is amazing to me.
We arrived back at our apartment around 3 and it was a nice day, so we decided to try and do something on our block. There is always trash blowing around our street, so we decided just to clean up our block. Ashleigh and I geared up with gloves and garbage bags and headed out. It is amazing some of the things we found. A lot of the trash was candy wrappers and chip bags, but there was an overwhelming amount of little drug bags and glass bottles. Our block is not known as a huge drug block, so we did not expect to find so many.
So we went on down the street picking up trash while children were playing and neighbors sitting on their stoops enjoying the day. We definitely worked up a sweat and even became a little discouraged as we went down both sides of our block at the massive amounts of trash. When we finished a lot of our neighbors thanked us several times.
We did not want this to be a one time project or to do it for praise from our neighbors. We DO want to enforce that everyone deserves a beautiful place to live. We want to treat our block the best we can to spur on hope. One thing we knew when starting was that there would be trash on our street again the next day. We have decided to commit a couple of days a month to trash pick up because it can seem very overwhelming and after a while, you can lose hope.
To kids, trash can be a toy. I was walking with my neighbor who is 4 years old and he picked up a liquor box and started to open it. It was hard to convince him that there was nothing inside for him and that he should put it down.
During the week, the kids had Veteran’s Day off and spent the day raking leaves and jumping in the pile. When we walked by I heard the sound of scraping grass. Immediately I thought of the safety issues involved in jumping in a pile of leaves and glass. Children should not have to worry about getting cut by glass. They should only worry about playing, having fun, learning, and being loved. I am reminded that we live in a fallen world and that Christ came to bring life and life to the full. We get to be a part of bringing life and love to our block because Christ lives in us.
These things are not new to the people living on our block, but they have become a norm. My prayer is that our block would be inspired to take care of not only the land and houses, but also to love each other better.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.~ Jesus in John 10:10
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