4th of july fun
Today we went to Highland Park, the most dangerous and run-down neighbourhood in Detroit (our neighbourhood isn't the only bad one), for church. The neighbourhood is so run down that there are places where there are no street signs. The service was great. The congregation's building there is also the Community of Christ African American Ministries Centre. I heard the best sermon so far in my time here this summer, I felt like it was speaking to me personally where I'm at. It was both challenging and inspirational. It was a good place for our first communion service (since this is the first first Sunday of the month we've been here for) of our time in Detroit. Yesterday also marked the end of week 4, which means we are halfway through our time here, which is kind of sad.
We had a little 4th of July party at the church in the afternoon. We bought lots of hot dogs and sausages and served them up to our kids and to a few adults passing through. I took some great pictures of the cookout, but the memory card they were on is corrupt, so I don't have them, which is sad. I do have a few pictures from another camera though. After eating, John and the two girls that went to camp led everyone in a few campfire songs:

We also had some flav-o-ice freezies that we gave out for dessert. An older fellow from the Restoration Towers senior's home next door to the church came by, and for some reason I love this picture of him eating his freezie:

After we ate, since it was Pastor John's first time back since we started our little Heart and Soul band, we had to play for him, and fun times were had:

Our little Dancing Queen, Brittany:

To cap off a great 4th of July, Jacob and I took John to see Fahrenheit 9/11, which we didn't mind seeing for a second time. We thought it was a very patriotic thing to do. I had a revelation afterwards when we were talking about Michael Moore. John said something about the fact that it's silly that people say Michael Moore isn't patriotic, it's obvious he loves his country. I said that criticizing your country shows you care enough about it, you love your country enough, that you want it to be the best it possibly can be.


A Belated Happy Canada Day and a Happy 4th of July. Go find a way to make your country even better.

Posted by shanneranner at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Sunday, 18 July 2004 9:28 AM PDT

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thursday report
Thursday was great, we had a good time painting and playing dodgeball with the brand new ball we bought. We played by the rules from the movie, which meant a longer game because in the movie, if you catch the ball, not only is the person who threw the ball out, but the team that caught the ball gets to bring one player back in who was out. We had lots of fun with that. Here are some pictures from our adventures on Thursday:

Then the ball popped, which was not fun. But, there are funny pictures:

After dodgeball we made some music again. The kids are so funny. This one kid, Dave, is very particular about everyone starting together on his beat, it's great. Here are some pictures:

The mural is coming along well, Jacob's doing a great job, and the kids are having fun helping out with it. It was so hot on Thursday, however, that we couldn't work for too long. Here is the in-progress mural:

Then, on Friday we went up to Bluewater campground to hang out with some friends and to pick up our kids who were there all week. The grounds are nice, with a beautiful view of Lake Huron. Last night we watched the moon rise, it was spectacular. I took a couple of pictures at the lake during the day:

The kids made masks at camp. John made one too and someone painted it to look like his actual face. It is very creepy. From the picture, it's hard to tell that it's a mask.

I think that is all for now, that's all the pictures I have. I'm getting better at remembering to bring a camera along with me.

sabbath wednesday
today we took a sabbath because we were exhausted and knew that we would have a hectic few days ahead of us. Weekends aren't exactly relaxing when you're doing ministry. So we went to Spiderman 2, which was tons of fun. It's a great story that even had some positive messages: sometimes you have to sacrifice some of your dreams in order to do the right thing.

I appreciate the comments people have been leaving for me, and I think I should clarify something for a lot of you. Your comment won't appear right away when you post it because I have to approve the comments first. When you post a comment, I get an email letting me know someone has left a comment, then I can choose whether or not it appears, that way I don't have any weird people I don't know leaving random comments.

Tomorrow is game day at the church and we are going to go out and buy a new ball so we can play dodge ball - the kid who owned the ball we used before took it home, so we thought we should get our own. I think we're going to try playing using the rules from the movie Dodgeball (if you haven't seen it, wait and rent it, it was funny, but not quite worth the admission price). In the movie, if you catch the ball, not only is the thrower from the other team out, but the team that caught it gets to bring back in a player who is out. Jacob and I are hoping it will make for a lengthier game with more chances for kids to participate.

Dodgeball in the sanctuary = fun times.

a kinda sorta bible school
So no one showed up for Bible school yesterday morning, which was a bit of a downer. But, we got some spraypainting done as the base coat for the mural Jacob is painting on the side of the church:

We kind of looked like hoodlums with our yellow rags to keep us from inhaling too much paint, but no one noticed us.

The kids showed up after summer school got out at 12:30, and we played elbow tag for awhile, since it was a big hit last week. I took some pictures because they were having so much fun.

After that we fed them cookies and lemonade, here are a couple of the really little ones who are really cute. This first little guy just liked to lick the icing out of the cookie and then wouldn't eat the rest. He was cracking us up. The little girl didn't want her picture taken at first (I have one of her hiding under a table), but then she decided to strike a pose.

Then we shooed them out to try to decide what to do for the rest of the week. We decided to do activities in the afternoons - one activity per day - and if they want to be at the church they can participate, otherwise, they can go home. We really don't want to encourage them to just hang around doing nothing at the church. So today we worked on the mural with the kids - it looks phenomenal already, Jacob has done an awesome job, he is a great artist. I will take some pictures of it later this week. We also had the littler ones do some sidewalk chalk to brighten up the area.

We used the Bible lesson we were going to teach yesterday at the bible school for pizza church this evening, which worked out well. Psalm 100 was the scripture we looked at and we talked about how you need lots of instruments to make a band, and you need lots of people to stick together and do God's work. Jacob had an awesome object lesson with a rock and some twine that showed the twine was stronger fused together than spread apart.

After a bunch of the kids left, a group of boys stuck around and started their own little music group, with two playing heart and soul on the piano and the rest drumming beats in the sanctuary with whatever they could find. I brought in the rhythym instruments we'd used for the bible lesson and we had a little band going, it was a ton of fun.

This week may not be shaping up the way we thought it would, but God works in mysterious ways and we are trying to let the Spirit move us in ways that will touch the lives of these children and build community in their neighbourhood. Coming together to do art, to study the Bible, to eat and to make music is a great place to start.

Farenheit 9/11
Today I went and saw the new Michael Moore movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11". It is a very good movie - go see it! I cried through the part of it where they talked about and showed film of Flint, Michigan. It looked just like the neighbourhood we are working in here in Detroit. The movie talked about how many poor people have little choice but to join the military, then look what happens to them. It's as if the poor are disposable members of society whose sole purpose is to ensure that the lives of the rich and powerful remain as comfortable as possible. The movie showed how following the trails of money reveals just how inbred and corrupt not only the U.S. government is, but many of the multinational companies who fund the U.S. government and pour money into the U.S. and global economies. The reason to attack Iraq, as many people know, had little to do with terrorism and much to do with greedy folk who want Iraq's oil.

I know that the sensationalism of the movie was intended to rile me up, and it did just that, and I'm glad. It reminded me of part of the reason we are working with these kids - we want them to have options other than going off to get killed in a pointless war. We want to deal with their immediate problems but also begin to address and realise the institutionalized oppression that maintains the stratification of our society. This is not the way God wants the world to be. Anger at the way things are is a good thing when that anger is productive, when that anger sways votes and creates responsible citizens who are willing to take action to change the world. Too many people are complacently comfortable in their little gated communities. It is that complacency that ends up breeding generations of apathetic, ignorant people who continue to oppress the last, lost, labeled, least members of society.

Go see this movie. Go see what could happen to my kids here in Detroit. Go see how greed can truly be sinful when it kills innocent people. Then remind yourself of whose side God is on - those last lost labeled least.