Holy tomatoes

Last week I was at one of our garden sites and we were busy harvesting hundreds of pounds of tomatoes when I saw my friend Timmy and this two friends walking by.
Timmy is homeless. Timmy has alcohol and girlfriend problems and goes back to both of those things even though they are slowly killing him inside. Sometimes he sobers up and doesn't talk to the girlfriend... then a few weeks later he is stumbling drunk around Franklinton with girlfriend. Sometimes he goes to sleep on the sidewalk under a bridge on Souder. Sometimes he can't even stand upright. I have been friends with Timmy for many years now and love him more and more every time I see him, despite the state he is in. I love Timmy more and more because more and more I am able to see what a wonderful man he is. He has an adorable voice with a little stutter and always talks like he is flattered or blushing or something. He always calls us girls "sissy". Which is what he calls his female homeless comrades, so I have always taken it as a compliment. "Sissy" this and "sissy" that which sounds funny but its how I know he loves and respects us. It's been a long long struggle for Timmy and I hope the streets don't swallow him before he can get off them and really live his life free from the oppression of alcohol and girlfriend.

He is always walking around Franklinton and walked past the garden with girlfriend and other friend, Billy on this day last week. I called out for him and the three of them walked up to the fence to stop and talk. They looked so rough and so ragged. Faces red and eyes bloodshot and tired. Dirty, over sized clothes, and broken backpacks. I stood on the other side lookin in pretty rough shape myself. The fence is about 5 foot high. We stood there talking about what they were doing and what we were doing and they were impressed with all the tomatoes we were harvesting. Then they asked if they could have some tomatoes. I found myself really surprised for some stupid reason and quickly ran to get them the most gorgeous tomatoes I could find in the pile.

I handed them over the fence, commenting on how it felt like prison sort of, behind the fence. I was wondering what they were going to do with the tomatoes, no utensils or plates or salads to add them to. They packed some in the backpack but then the three of them stood there and bit into each of their tomatoes like it was an apple. Juice and seeds leaking down the front of them, they were in tomato heaven. I just stood there watching them for a minute and wishing that scene was on film because there were no words to depict the scene. It was so holy and so damn beautiful to me. If those were the only three who ate the tomatoes we grew it would be worth it a hundred times over. Spreading the gospel of tomatoes has never felt so rewarding.

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Awesome day

Today was wonderful.

Franklinton Gardens had a work crew of high schoolers come out today to volunteer. When I brought a group of them over to the garden at our house our neighbor kids naturally ended up in the garden with us trying to help. There was about 10 of them. I kept trying to find jobs for them to do, because they are so eager to help! They really only want to do jobs which include the use of tools somehow. I gave them three push mowers to start and they beautifully figured out that two at a time can do it if they each hold one side of the handle. Two by two they were holding onto the push mowers and cutting down grass as a team. “Look Ashley, we sharing this thing” (Awan).

After the grass was cut I gave them all shovels to help move some mulch and finally after all the work ran out they asked if they could just start digging holes. They were in the back yard where its just a bunch of dirt so I told them yes, it’d be helpful.

I love having them here even if they are just digging a hole in the dirt because they like to work and it occupies their time and makes them feel needed. They feel like they have been given a job and they need to complete it. They love learning about new tools and love being given the responsibility of using them.

A few weeks ago a kid who lives on our street, Vikeem (sp?) stopped by when I was outside building lettuce window boxes and he desperately wanted to help me drill in the screws. I was being anal and hesitant at first because I wanted them to be just right, but so did he, and so we worked together on that and built them perfectly. He’d never used a drill, said he has seen people use them and had always wanted to. I’m so honored that I got to be the one to teach him how to use a power drill. Thats cool. He said that maybe he could go into construction when hes older because he can drill and I told him he should.

Anyways, back to digging the holes. The kids kept finding things as they were digging (bricks, rocks, plastic, trash). When they found the brick they thought that maybe a house was under there and they could dig it up. Someone else thought that maybe there was treasure, or gold, so they kept digging. What a joy to overhear their conversations about what was under the ground.

Eventually we had to take the work crew back so I told the kids we had to go. But they wanted to come, and they wanted to carry all the tools so I brought them with me to walk the work crew back. They helped some more over at the farm house with a project Ryan (a friend of ours in the neighborhood) was working on. He was really really good with those kids. He was teaching them all kinds of things about garden beds and somehow even made it fun for the kids to shovel piles of mulch onto burlap sacks. He had a great way of engaging them while teaching them and kept calling shovels full of mulch “blobs.” Then started calling the kids blob-erators and they just ate it up. Then thwere asking questions thinking blob was a real garden word. I love seeing them smile and laugh at stuff like that. especially the ones who always try to act so tough. I was so proud of them. And Ryan too for being so great with them.

Then all 8 or 9 kids and I decided to walk up to the bike shop because they have been dying to see it. So we started that hike. Kids walk so darn slow. It was a nice walk. Nice to hear them interact with each other and I felt like one of them. I felt like a kid hanging out with my friends, roaming the streets. We went up to the bike shop, popped some bubble wrap, got a sense that we were bothering the boys working and decided to head home.

I loved being with them today. What great friends to have. What sweet little smiles to see and laughs to hear.

Responding to Violence

It’s taken me a few days to reflect on this incident I encountered the other day. It’s also taken me a few days “repent” from the way I responded to it. I feel like it’s a good experience to share.

Greg and I were driving back from dropping off Heather just after getting our bee hives. We were in the Franklinton Gardens Truck which looks something like this…

Needless to say, we don’t blend in well with other cars. We turned a corner and saw a group of about 20 kids all gathered around two children fist fighting. We pulled the truck over and as we did noticed our kids (by ours I mean the lovely kids that live next door to us that have become apart of our family and we are very protective over). Not only that but we noticed adults, mothers, watching this fight take place on their sidewalk. Also noticed an 18-year-old (ish) male shoving the kid who was trying to walk away from the fight, back into the circle. Every time the child stepped out and tried to talk away, the guy would push him back in the circle and tell him to fight. It wasn’t just kids slapping each other, this was a violent fight.

Greg jumped out of the truck and walked into the circle immediately to break the kids up. I started gathering all our kids and the kids on our street into the truck. By gathering what I really mean is a was sternly yelling at them to get in the truck and get away from this. When Greg asked the man in the circle why he pushing the kid into fight he went off and started threatening him. As the kids were loading up in the truck the police showed up and the man facilitating the fight instructed everyone to split. As he was walking away and walked past me and the kids in the truck I just lost it. I was so extremely emotional and fearful of what just happened and I was so angry at that man. I confronted him asking him why he is doing this to children and why he is exposing children to this kind of violence and who knows what else I said in the heat of the moment. He came back at me with some nasty names and a threat and a “you don’t know me.”

We got the kids home safe. Had a talk about what just happened and the fact that when they get old enough and the police show up to something like that and they are standing there that they will get arrested for even just being there. We talked about just walking away from those things because there is nothing good there to be influenced by. Not sure they really cared what I said but I love those kids so damn much and want to protect them from everything bad in the world. I don’t want these kids to grow up and resort to violence every time something goes wrong. I want these kids to have good lives. I don’t want to see them in fights or even worse, shot. These are the same kids that have come over in the morning before school to have us tie their shoes and now we are dragging them out of fights.

I know they are exposed to it a lot. I know they see fights almost daily. Violence seeps out of the sidewalks down here. But I am glad that at least this once we were able to get them out of the situation and let them know how damaging these things can be. Someone there to say that this isn’t normal and this isn’t ok.

I regret confronting that man the way I did. It’s not his fault. He was right when he said I don’t know him. I don’t know where he has come from or what he has seen or what he has been exposed to. It’s not right that he was pushing kids into fight, I am not justifying that at all. But talk about a man growing up in a terrible situation that has resorted to him thinking this kind of thing is ok. It was just as violent of me to come at him like I did. Rather than try to engage with him and talk rationally. I am never rational in those types of situations and how can you be?

Rain down justice upon us Lord, that we might live in peace.

lexy

I just ran out the door real quick to go borrow some powdered sugar from Patience’s house and our neighbor Alexis was outside. Alexis is 12. And we had the following conversation.

Lexy: “Hey Ashley”

Me: “Hey Lexy girl. Whats up?”

Lexy: “Guess what?”

Me: “What?”

Lexy: “I just saw a dog get killed.”

Me: “What?! Where?” Lexy points west. “How did it get killed?”

Lexy: “The po- lice shot it”

Me: “What? Why?”

Lexy: “I don’t they was arresting some man and the dog kept barking so they shot it 6 times in the throat”

In front of a 12 year old. Thanks for furthering the already present themes of death, violence, and murder in this neighborhood mr po-lice man. You are perpetuating a lie that so many people believe. You are just as much apart of the evil in this neighborhood. And people wonder why kids down here grow up not trusting cops.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

surviving winter

Picture update!
Greg and I in vermont before Christmas!

Sippin skinny girl margs with kelly and the buddah

the view from my bedroom window. such a beautiful tree. it gives me hope

Heath!

the newly weds :)

Superbowl Sunday

I came home from work today to a completely empty house... which is very unusual around these parts because when you live with 6 people there is bound to be someone around.

I heated up some leftover soup from the street church meal that our community makes and serves once a month (today was that day), got some water, buttered some bread, and sat. Alone. In the kitchen.

"I'm lonely" was my first thought... then I just absorbed the silence and thought "this is nice." Halfway through my bowl of soup I tuned on the Marie Antoinette soundtrack to keep me company, then felt guilty for not being able to sit in silence tonight.

While I do enjoy the occasional home alone times, living alone would make me a very sad and lonely lady. Especially in the winter when things feel sad as is.

Everyone is watching the super bowl, all the groceries stores have special displays, all the corporations have spent lots of money and time on the creation of clever commercials and I feel sickened over the thought that super bowl weekend is the one of the biggest human trafficking events in the U.S. Women (young women, minors) are being "shipped" down to Texas to meet the demand of all the men down there looking to purchase sex along with their football. Never mind that most of these men probably have children themselves, and are paying to have sex with another mans child. I hope that one day they will know the evil they have caused in seeking their own pleasure.

To my sisters being trafficked at this very minute, I am praying to our mother God for your rescue.