Brokenness

No matter where you go there will be common and unique brokenness and pain.

In Uganda, there was sickness, death, and poverty.

In Russia, there was excessive alcohol and a lack of beliefs and values.

In the Bronx you can imagine that there are all kinds of brokenness, but the one that seems the greatest has had its effects in the other areas of the world I have been to as well.

We were talking to a group of women who had just came to the Bronx to teach at one of the local schools. They were asking people lots of questions like what they did during the day, why they were here and specific questions to us like why are you here, has this worked at all and other lines of questioning. They said that a police officer had mentioned something profound to them earlier that day and shared it with us . . . he said "the biggest problem of the Bronx is not in its crime, drugs, or anything you might first think of . . . its the lack of fathers."

Growing up without a male figure (or female figure for that matter) creates brokenness (at least in the sense that it lacks wholeness).

This creates tons of secondary problems as well. There is a lack of leadership because no one has seen a mentor or father figure lead in their lives. Males and females alike do not know how to step up and shepherd others, but only know how to get by themselves.

This naturally creates problems within a church that relies on mentoring and lay leadership.

In conjunction with this, I am reading a book called The Shack, which eventually personifies the Trinity. God, "the father," is portrayed as a large black woman, which is interesting in itself and most definitely throws the character in the book off a little bit. God responds to the question of why do we call you father/mother/or whatever we call you. In the book God answers by saying "we knew that fathers would be lacking in people's lives more than a nurturing mother so we chose to be primarily represented in that way." (This is all my paraphrasing by the way). Of course God is not male or female, and he has qualities that reside in both and all, but I thought it was interesting how the author saw fatherlessness as a huge problem in which perhaps God understands the best (of course) and hopes that we will be able to live a whole life by taking him as our mentor and father if we have a good one or not here on earth.

It would be great to pray for this hurting section of New York and for New York as a whole in this area. That God would raise up men willing to stay with their families and be responsible in their lives, which will hopefully in turn produce leaders that are more able because they have learned from the leadership of males and females alike!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


There are a few other "problems" and struggles/frustrations we have been going through as well lately and I believe I am better understanding why and how and what etc, but prayers for patience and an abundance of love would be great as well! Perhaps I can elaborate more at some point or another . . . I hope your summer is going well and that you are constantly learning about the community around you, about yourself, and about the King of the world!