Go Figure

I am getting use to seeing the police squad show up in my neighborhood. Today I was talking with some of my grandmas in my painting neighborhood. I had brought donuts and was recruiting grandkids for our tutoring club that starts in a few weeks. I hadn’t seen one of the ladies for a few weeks and realized she had a huge bandage on her hand. After asking her she explained that she had part of her index finger amputated because of it being badly infected.

I have spent significant time with these ladies over the last 7 months and am learning about life in South Phoenix. As I am talking with one of them I see not one but multiple police cars pull up with six officers walking up to us. It was obvious they were looking for someone and came equipped to get him. The grandma I was sitting and chatting with responded to the sergeant’s request whether she knew the location of her son. The officer was polite and to the point. Just as quickly as they appeared out of nowhere they also left and said they would be back. This brought the rest of the family and neighbors out to talk about what was happening and who was in trouble. Then the talk started to flow about a house that had been abandoned that had an assortment of ‘hot’ items inside in addition to drugs.

I have started to feel comfortable around this neighborhood and the interesting choice of language still bothers me, which is good otherwise I will start to mimic the trash talk. I continued to listen to the story about the man who was soon to be under arrest because of some poor choices he had made for friends and roommates. I stood next to the fence and listened to the saga of many of the kids who are now adults with kids. As I am listening another car pulls up with policemen who are dressed in normal attire who are looking for one of the older ladies who had recently been in the hospital for an infected finger. After watching the officers ask for this lady she obviously knew they were coming and disappeared. They were like the other officers very polite and to the point and then left. As they left my one grandma friend explained the real circumstances that this lady had cut her finger with a crack pipe and had to have part of her finger amputated because of a serious infection. Wow – as I come back down to earth I begin to realize what God had put me in the middle of a typical neighborhood in South Phoenix.

After finishing our normal Wednesday night dinner and study gathering I was taking home our kids to the different neighborhoods. One of the gals, an older teen, lives in this same painting neighborhood. She began to mention that the night before there had been a drug bust and that a few of the gang bangers had been arrested. We talked a little about her neighborhood and what was going down and why people were so brain dead to get hooked on crack or other drugs.

My night finishes talking to another college student who is part of what we are doing and had just returned from doing a six month internship at Disney World in Orlando. We were reflecting on some of the teens in our group and how to help them figure out life, avoid trash talk, fighting and ultimately ending up like these gang bangers in our neighborhood.

The journey continues - Dave