Chicago

Three years ago when I entered the bilingual education program at Illinois State, I always knew there would be a “Chicago.” That the final culmination of all my studies was a mandatory year-long student teaching experience in Chicago-land. Of the 3 options we were given to do our placement, I always knew I wanted to go to Little Village and experience teaching and living inner-city. It was on my bucket list of dreams for life. Live, work, do life, and find community in the ghetto. Experience things outside of small town, white, rural America. I always thought I would leave central Illinois and never want to come back.

I’ve tried starting this entry numerous times, only to delete every draft because the words just didn’t seem to come out right. I’m not even sure they will this time either, but something in me needs closure to this season that I have only been able to call “Chicago”.  Since I’ve returned, it has felt as though I’ve been told a million times by different people, “I bet you’re glad to be out of there!”

On August 1^st, 2011 home became 2543 S. Springfield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60623. Welcome to Cook County.

Nothing I write below can possibly describe what this last year was really like. We can attempt to explain it to people, we can tell the stories, but I know it will never mean to anyone else what it has meant to those of us who did life together this past year.

Home became this crazy place with gang violence, shootings, and new dangers no one had ever taught me how to walk through before. This place where my students would come up to me and say “Miss Emily, have you ever seen someone get shot outside your house?” and for the first time I could look at them and say “I haven’t seen anyone die, but I know what its like to hear guns go off outside your front window.” And you just hug them and you feel like your seven year olds are stronger with all of this than you are.

Home became this new world where gangs recruit fourth graders outside of school and you wonder which one of your kids will someday be the 19 year old gang bangers hanging out on the blocks. Statistics say most of my kids will be lucky to graduate high school, and it will be rare if any of them ever go to college. They have the highest drop out rates of any people group in this country.

Home became doing life around a kitchen table with 8 other girls who lived in the apartment.  Late nights of homework, lesson plans, crazy dance parties, sitting in our bedrooms telling teaching stories, cooking escapades, family dinners, birthday party celebrations, fire alarm nightmares, carbon monoxide scares, and watching the neighborhood events outside our front window. Home became this new place where, for the first time, I got to live with a lot of people who didn’t share my faith. Where more times than not, the only times I heard the word “Jesus” in my home, was used in profanity rather than in worship.

Recently as I have been attempting to process this last year and preparing to move into another new season of life, the comment “I bet you’re glad to be out of there!” has come to mind a lot.

Chicago.

Where I saw 27 children become readers and break cycles of illiteracy in their families. My kids are reading in 2 languages. Jesus can break statistics.

Chicago.

Where I saw former gang bangers getting baptized in churches. Jesus can save Latin kings, and Satin’s Disciples, and 26rs any day He wants to.

Chicago.

 Where I watched a pastor’s 6 year old daughter get up in front of a crowd of hundreds of people and pray for her community after the loss of her best friend due to gang violence. The Lord has opened up doors for churches to minister to the family of that girl and get the gospel to them.

Chicago.

Where I saw Jesus working in the hearts of 8 girls in my apartment in a million different ways.  Someday He’s going to save those girls.

Chicago.

Where maybe for the first time, I saw people in churches being brutally honest about their junk, about their hearts, and have real passion and desire for gospel transformation in their communities.  To the point where people pray and fast for 40 days for their streets. Jesus loves that. It’s the honest, the open, the confessed, the one who beats his breast and says “Woe is me!” that goes home justified.

Chicago.

Where He did a lot of healing in my own heart. Where He met and pursued me hundreds of mornings at an old kitchen table in my apartment and taught me some things I needed to learn.  “But now you in Christ Jesus, you were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

You see someday, there’s going to be this really, really beautiful table set up with the most amazing food we’ve ever laid our eyes on. And it’s going to be filled with all types of people from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures and languages and races. And those that used to be sick are going to be healed, those trapped in chains and cycles are going to be set free, where the weak are finally going to be strong, where the depressed will be complete with joy, where violence has been silenced forever and peace now reigns, where death is forever conquered and there’s only life, where Jesus is perfectly worshipped and sin has no place near that table. Where many have been brought near because of the blood of Jesus.

Come find me there. Let me introduce you to these girls I believe He’s going to rescue, let me show you some of my kids He freed from statistics, let me show you my church family who fought for their community, let me show you glimpses of this past world that used to be called Chicago.

And rather than “I bet you’re glad to be out of there” may we learn how to say with truth, “I bet you’re thankful for all He taught you there.”