Remembrance

I took my 4th grade class to music, and slowly walked back upstairs to my classroom.  A colleague touched my arm, and asked, “Did you hear what happened?”  I could tell by her tone and eyes that it was something big. 

One of the Noble

“A plane just hit one of the twin towers.”  As I processed this information, understanding hit.  It had to be an act of terrorism---NYC would never let a plane fly that close to the city.  And then the 2nd "AHA", more chilling than the first---This meant war.  Maybe even World War III.

Sometimes I react backwards to things, the exact opposite than the way most people do.  Little things can trip me up, and put me in a spin for days.  But the big things?  The hard things?  The how-do-you-even-wrap-your-head-around-it things?  Those are easier.  Those I have faith for.  As I stood, rapidly making sense of what I was hearing, my body’s defense system kicked in, and adrenaline took over.    The danger and senselessness woke me up, and energized me in a way I’ve never experienced before or since.

This is the kind of event that you really can’t have drills for in school.  There’s no developing a safety plan for THIS. 

Yet PS 87, or “One Family Under the Sun” as we called ourselves, operated flawlessly.  A determination was made at the first plane’s hit, that no adult in the school body would tell a child what had happened.  We were a strong school, with as many different opinions as there were individuals.  Everyone had a voice from the youngest child to the out of district parents and no one ever held back.  But on this day, the decision was made quickly and not one adult broke rank.

We felt it was in the best interest of each child to be told of the tragedy by the people they trusted most, their family.  Every out-of-classroom adult in the building was mobilized as an army of chaperones, retrieving one child at a time from classrooms, as their parents arrived at the office, to take them home and hug them tight.

At first, it was one child leaving early in my classroom, and then a few leaving at a time, until finally the dam burst and kids began leaving continually.  The children knew something was up long before we were ready for them to.  They had seen adults whispering to one another in the hallways.  They read our worried faces, and realized that their peers were not going to doctor or dentist appointments.  We did our best to appease their worry and pretend that nothing bad was happening, but they knew better.

As teachers with our doors closed, and a city crumbling outside, we had little outside news of what was happening.  When we could, we talked about what to do that evening.  We made plans to keep the school open for whomever was left, not knowing if we would be watching over orphans that night, not knowing if we would be personally effected by loved ones who we would never hear from again.

Those of us who lived in the outer boroughs found buddies who could put us up if we weren’t able to get home for a few days.  By lunchtime?  All but 4 of my kids had been picked up.

In the days following September 11th, it was like living in a dream.  Ground Zero pulled at me constantly-how could I not go help? Yet, my place was with my students.  Was it enough?   The city turned into a big prayer meeting with churches staying open 24 hours a day for those needing solace, and answers, and a place to find God.  Gifts of compassion poured in, from strangers, from schoolchildren.  Our auditorium had posters from different parts of the country which somehow had found their way to us.  Love was everywhere.

But so was death.  I’d walk thru Grand Central Subway station daily on my way to a connecting train.  There were hundreds of pictures posted of people still missing.  They haunted me, and I couldn’t pass by without stopping and looking and weeping.  Grief hung over the entire city and clung to me, making the normal everyday routines of life exhausting.  Copycat terrorist acts followed like aftershocks, and the media was faithful to inform of us of every single one.  At times, work was the only respite from the sheer volume of video footage and hours of rehashing and commentary. 

I never felt the need to visit Ground Zero in later days, because I had lived it.  The whole city was Ground Zero.

In times of great evil, God draws near.  Heroes rise, and ordinary people do great things. The overwhelming love of God for “THE CITY” was never more apparent to me than in the immediate aftermath of September 11th.  Men, women, and children became His hands and feet and He reached around and gathered the city under His wing and hugged us close for a long, long time.

This Wednesday is the 12th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks.  The world will pause and remember what happened that fateful morning.  As I join in mourning the precious lives evil took, and as I join in honoring the men and women who rose up and risked their lives, and served, and put love in action for strangers----I will also remember the courage of my children, the open hearts of New Yorkers who experienced unthinkable horror together and united, and the embrace of a GREAT, COMPASSIONATE GOD who is never far from the brokenhearted.

I will always remember.

---

Picture credits: September 11th Cross on Pixaby: Michal Lech

Fireman: Jim Watson of the US Navy. Obtained from Wikipedia Commons, Public Domain photo.

Sehnsucht

This picture that I took from my first summer in NYC has always haunted me, and captured the gritty longing I have for a place which so many clamor to leave, or that so many long to make their fortune in.

I expected to love New York City.  I had been dreaming of it since age 13, when I had first began watching the show "Love Sydney" which had an opening shot of Tony Randall and a little girl (Kaleena Kiff) playing in Central Park.  I knew that the reality would be exactly as I imagined it.

And it was.  New York is one of those few places that the camera captures accurately.  When you watch crime shows and feel the steaming hot pavement and can almost smell the urine-soaked streets?  It is exactly like that.  When you feel that pull of the glamour and glitz of Broadway, and the excitement that those in movies have to go to "the city" it is exactly like that.  When you see the unquenchable crowds crossing any downtown street and feel claustrophobic just imagining their press, you feel exactly what a person crossing the street there feels.  And to me it was glorious.  All of it.

At age 17, I took it all in, with all the wonder of a child in Disneyland.  From the beaches of Coney Island (we handed out Bibles to newly arrived Russian Jews who had never held one before), to the shops on Steinway Street (where a Lebanese man kept fondling my upper arm, trying to get me to come with him in the back---even AFTER I told my entire team, and the guys insisted on going back so they could catch him in the act but DIDN'T) to our trip to Metro Assembly in Brooklyn to see the "Sunday School" of all Sunday schools, I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF EVERY MINUTE. 

I expected to love it.  What I didn't expect was the overwhelming all-encompassing feeling that haunted me from the moment I arrived.  There was an undeniable, unmistakable sense that I was in the place designed for me.  That all of my life I had been seeking the place I now stood.  That until the moment my feet set foot in Gotham, nothing had truly been right.  As the summer neared it's eventual end, the feeling got stronger and the thought of leaving seemed impossible.  In this place, I was alive, in this place I was at peace, in this place, I was who I was created to be.  I was heartsick at the thought of ever being anyplace else.

The Germans have a word.  Sehnsucht.  It's almost untranslateable and Wikipedia has a whole article devoted to trying.  It's that piercing longing, that force deep inside of my stomach that I got anytime I thought of the city.  It's the familiarity I had with New York before I ever saw it, and that sense you sometimes feel when you meet someone that you know was preordained to be in your life---that "Where have you been?" recognition that washes over you when they finally show up.  It's a deja vu to something new, it's an unanswered call that resonates from your entire being, the desire to be found. 

Jesus is like that.  When we feel lost, and discombobulated.  When we are deeply lonely, and deeply longing for that person who fits us perfectly, or that we think does.  When we feel outside of ourselves, like we don't quite fit our present circumstances, when we have a thirst that we cannot quite quench.  When we try to satisfy it with food, or TV or Facebook, or church, or coffee dates. 

He is there, calling us softly.  The great initiator who waits for us to realize what we really long for, is Him.  HE is our HOME.  He is the  old pair of blue jeans that come out of the washer and feel just right.  He is the scent that we remember but can't quite find.  He is the person, and THE ONLY person who fits us just right.  He is the drink which when we finally remember to drink---we take in in large gulps like medicine.  He is the answer, the only answer to Sehnsucht.

We all have our Stories

Kentucky Crew

Tonight I was talking with a dear saint from the church I attend. She was telling me the story of how her and her hubby got involved for a period of time in "tent-meeting" ministry. Her daughter was praying for her son who was moving to Seattle. The Lord gave the daughter specific coordinates of the address he was to move to. When they went to find the coordinates---it was the address of a church. They walked into the church and told the pastor that God sent them there, and eventually ended up in this tent meeting ministry.

I started to tell her, "I wish I had that kind of story." But I do . . .

When I was quite young I started dreaming of taking a missions trip as a youth. You had to be 13, so I was younger than that. About that time a TV show became popular. It was called "Love Sydney" and it starred Tony Randall. The opening and closing scene were of he and this little girl running thru Central Park.

God used this show to plant in me a desire to visit NY. When I was 17, I went on my short term mission trip. TO NYC. It was with one of the few charismatic teen mission groups around, Teen World Outreach. I fell hard in love with the city and vowed to return.

If I had my way I would have been back forever the next year. But as I waited for the timing of God, it was tough and I started doubting whether He had anything for me in the city.

The summer of my Junior year of Bible college, I felt led again to go on a missions trip. I researched all kinds of organizations and had settled on one and hoped to go to Italy. The morning I sent it off, I told the Lord, "If you want me to do something else, please let me know."

That afternoon I got a call from a pastor in Kentucky. He was leading a team to Mexico and I had filled out a card for his organization indicating that I spoke some Spanish. We got to talking and I felt led to go and spend the summer at his church in a discipleship program. At the end of the summer, my fellow students and I were slated to accompany him to Mexico. They did it every year.

Throughout the summer I joked with the director that we should forget Mexico and go to NY instead. Nobody took me seriously. Then one day we walked into our meeting place and there was another group there watching Dave Wilkersons "The Cross and the Swichblade." The Lord ignited something in the heart of the director and he asked us all to pray about going to NY instead.

I FELT very led this way. So did the director. NO ONE ELSE did, esp. not the pastor. We called up David Wilkerson's church and said, "We'd like to come to your church and help out." They said, "No, we can't use you. Don't come." The director continued, "When we come to your church, where should we stay?" They said, "Don't come."

We went anyway! It was the most horrible 10 days I think I've ever had. It was 105 almost every day. We went to NYC on a Mexico budget. Which meant our director felt led to have us fast for 3 days in 105 degree weather where we were ministering 10-hour days.

But it was glorious anyway. We helped a pastor plant a church in the South Bronx. We spent 10 days witnessing in the Patterson projects and I think in 10 days only one person refused to talk to us. The people were warm and welcoming and we had long divine appointments. God was faithful.

The point of my story is this:

God supernaturally changed the course of this church's history for ME. I needed to know that I was called to New York. Like Gideon, I needed a sign. God provided one.

I later moved to New York and gave my life for 10 years to the people and children of Gotham. My FIRST teaching job was in the South Bronx 2 blocks away from the place we ministered for 10 days. My SECOND teaching job was in the middle of the Patterson projects.

God supernaturally led me to the place of my destiny. He will supernaturally lead you too, if you cry out to him for your life.

We all have our stories. What's yours?

Jumping off my First Cliff

The South Bronx "hub" .

Everything I owned was packed into my Ford Escort hatchback.  Many signs and confirmations over the years had brought me to that August of '95.  My friend Jill, in a spirit of adventure, offered to drive across the country with me.  She insisted on buying a car jack, but I knew that we wouldn't get a flat.  Sometimes my faith is small in the little things of life, but I knew that I was way too stressed by the circumstances ahead of me for God to let a flat tire happen.

The trip itself was fun, if rushed.  We drove across the top of the US, and stayed with friends I had accumulated over my 28 years--a friend from PBC, a friend from my Teen World Outreach days, a friend from my summer in Kentucky.  We drove into NYC on a hot August day and spent our first night at the YMCA near Times Square.  

I was quickly reminded of the harshness of the city.  When I went downstairs to buy a sandwich from the cafe in the same building the teenager at the register insisted that I had to pay extra for tomatoes on my BLT.  "The menu says it right here," she said.  She was right.  The sandwich section the BLT was located in did state that there was a surcharge for tomatoes.  But it was a BLT!  I argued and won, the first of many times assertiveness was required for respect in Gotham.

Here I was in my new city, with no job and only $500 to my name.  I had known on some level, since age 13 that I was destined for this place, but even so it was tough to sit in on "mandatory" new teacher training not knowing where or if I'd have a job.  One speaker had everyone in the place who did NOT have a job raise their hand.  2/3 of the 1,000-or-so-member audience raised their hand.  It was daunting.

But then a union rep got up and announced a raffle for some off-Broadway tickets of "Scrooge."  Something inside me jumped, and I knew that I knew that I knew that I would win.  The play was in November, and if I won I knew it would be God's way of telling me that He would provide the job that would keep me there that long.  My name was called among the 1,000 or so I sat beside, and His assurance swept over me.

The actual finding of a job was simpler than I thought.  I was told by the Central Board to call the districts I was interested in working for and set up appointments to go see them.  I had eyes only for the South Bronx.  District 7 gave me a list of schools and principals.  "Call down the list until you find a principal in.  Let us know when you find someone YOU think you can work with."  The second principal on the list answered, and asked me to come into an interview that day.  After an hour conversation, the job was mine.

It's the small things in life which challenge my faith.  Moving to New York City jobless, friendless, poor was easy.  It was so big, such a leap of faith that God had to catch me--there was no other option.  I think we all need to jump off cliffs once in awhile.  To build our faith, and to keep life fresh.  Just be sure God told you to jump before you leap.  And if God told you to jump, don't let fear (or lack of a job) hold you back.

Mott Haven by Dusk

By Jim.henderson (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It was my second year of teaching. Fatima's brothers were late. They should have been at school 15 minutes ago, to pick up their little 7-year old sister.

I didn't mind waiting with her, but it was getting dark, and certain janitors kicked us out at 5:00, so that they didn't have to be responsible for teachers in the building.

No one answered when I called the house. I figured the boys must be on their way, and so Fatima and I set out for the projects she called home.

We crossed St. Ann’s Avenue and cut across St. Mary's Park. I shivered. And not from the cold. St. Mary's Park was this massive park across the street from the school, which in another neighborhood would have been a school's treasure. But this was Mott Haven, Fort Apache, the precinct known for the highest homicidal rate in the country . The teachers knew St. Mary’s Park only as a place where rape, murders and drug deals happened regularly.

But Fatima was leading, and I was not so young as to not know whom was protecting whom. Fatima’s face was known in this neighborhood. Mine was not. I followed her.

The older boys outside of the projects scowled at me when they called out to Fatima. Fatima hollered back at them, and we took the elevator up, while I wondered if they would have something to say to me when I returned alone.

Fatima’s brothers were at home, caught up in some activity I’ve long forgotten. They didn’t seem surprised to see her, nor did they offer any explanation or word of thanks.

I hugged my 2nd grade student, and exited the building, starting the trek to the subway, chiding myself for breaking so many rules. A white teacher with a black student. A teacher alone with a student. Leaving the dark school with a kid whom I only hoped would have someone to look after her when I got her home. Thinking myself invincible in a barrio where most white New Yorkers will never venture.

I wonder how Fatima experienced that night. Was she worried about why her brothers were late? Did she realize that she was the one providing safe passage that night, or did she generalize that adults are always the safekeepers? Was she excited for her teacher to see where she lived, or was she embarrassed that no one came for her? Was the park a place with fond memories of the BIG ROCK, or did she know the rumors?

Does she remember our walk at all?

“In the South Bronx, where does the trail lead? From the house, around the apartments, past a metal gate, under a dry cleaning line, with a sunrise walking beside. To a store on the way to school. Where does the trail lead? Through St. Mary’s Park, past the gigantic colorful rock, beside big dogs, bulldogs. To PS 27, the school that is 100 years old. In the South Bronx, the trail leads out of PS 27x, past the ice cream truck with it’s “Ding-a-ling-ling,” past the smell of garlic on pizza, to a house over the hill. In the South Bronx, the trail leads home.” –Class 2-304