Recap: October's Fall Festival!

Urban Life hosted our 5th block party today in our neighborhood of Wesley Heights- and it was a smash hit!

We welcomed countless neighbors, mentees from our outreach partner Ashley Park Elementary/Middle School, and volunteers from Elevation Church and The Movement Foundation to come together and enjoy community at our fall festival.

We’ve been planning and preparing all month to bless our neighbors with a comfortable and welcoming environment for the festival. This week, the Urban Life apartments at The Summit House were abounding with fall themed decor ready to be used at the festival!

We made decorations, booked vendors, organized crafts and games, and devised a prize system all in the weeks leading up to today.Then we were blessed with some very talented volunteers who helped bring all our ideas into reality!

We had pumpkin donuts, kettle corn, a Green’s Hot Dog cart, cotton candy, and apple cider to sustain our neighbors as they went around the festival playing games and earning tickets to redeem at the prize table.

We even made a photo booth for families to have the opportunity to take family photos and be silly with props and costume pieces.

Watching kids run from game to game, take turns jumping in the bounce house, creating beautifully painted pumpkins and redeeming their tickets for prizes today was awesome. It was also great to be able to spend some time with the familiar faces from our neighborhood that we have established relationships with already! Isaiah came and played the hanging donut game with his friends from Ashley Park who asked as they were leaving when the next block party would be.

Looking out over the field today, as I saw games being played, heard laughter ringing loudly, smelled whafts of hot dogs and sugary cotton candy,and felt crisp fall air and warm sun shining down over all of us, I could so palpably feel Christ’s love for this community and His presence in these streets. It is such a blessing to get to do this work, and getting to spend time with our neighbors today exemplified exactly what we are all about here at Urban Life – creating relationships and loving spending time together!

I'm Rich

I'm rich!!
Today I am filthy rich.
I am not wanting.  


James 2:5 says, "Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?"

My financial situation right now may not be one to envy, and by the world's standards, I am poor. 

But tonight my heart tells me otherwise

I have the capacity, I have the resources, I have the ability to give. 

I am relationally rich. My heart is full. There is nothing more that I want than to sit and reflect on this crazy day and have my heart burst and break at the same time. 

Thank you Jesus for this day. Thank you for your grace that you pour down upon me without ceasing. Thank you for my family here and for choosing me to do this work. Thank you for a light heart burdened with injustice. Thank you for being so so good in hard times. Thank you for shining through the tough situations and the trying days and loving through it all. Thank you for opening my eyes to embrace the struggle that is so real. Thank you for never giving up on me, and drawing me nearer even when I want to turn and run from You. Thank you. 

We woke up this morning and worked out and prayed and we got ready for work, packed lunches, and prepared for the day in 28 minutes. Lord knows that a month ago I would not even step out of the house if I only had 28 minutes to get ready. Thank you for perspective changes and bad business casual outfits thrown together, and frizzy hair and smudged eyeliner and chipped nail polish and a smushed pb&j in my purse all for the sake of doing greater things.

We walk to Right Moves for Youth and on the way I recognize the 30 minutes as an opportunity to keep up some relationships from my life prior to UrbanLife. I've got to get better at that. I'm seeking those few spare minutes every day, trying to stay connected with those in my life that still love me and that I still need, while maintaining the new relationships here and creating even newer ones every day. Relationships are hard work!

We get to the school this morning and meet with the middle school girls group and one troubled girl, who usually acts tough and doesn't cooperate well acts okay in my group. Thank you Jesus. We talk about organization and how we organize our closets and then lead into the "boring" stuff - how to organize our school work. They get it, they laugh, and I walk away from our morning together feeling rich. I hit the jackpot in spending time with these girls who all have walls up and all relating to each other over how we stack our jeans and hang up our shirts. I'm ready to take on the day and pour my riches out over everyone else I encounter. 

I head in to mentor my class for the rest of the day, a 4th & 5th grade math class taught by Mrs. Morris. Her home room, "Eagles Nest," is in the room. And my heart rejoices. These are my kids, the ones who can't sit still as soon as I walk in the room, the ones who I receive 23 hugs from on their way out the door, the ones who have told me snippets of their lives and their hobbies and their families. The ones who I go to lunch and recess with and play ball and do the "washing machine" on the swing bars and tell to eat their vegetables off their lunch trays.  I love these kids. And again, I am so overwhelmingly relationally rich. Who gets to come into a school with kids this awesome who learn so quickly, whose eyes light up and smiles stretch across their entire faces when they grasp the concept of rounding?! 

Thank you Lord for your grace. Thank you for raining down these riches in relationships with incredible world changers into my life. Thank you for choosing the poor and the weak to do your work. I am continuously amazed by you Father. Thank you for giving these kids a chance, thank you for placing me in a position to speak words of life over world changers at a young age. Thank you for your guidance. 

I write a letter to Jayden who is having a bad day because he has to read at lunch due to the fact that he didn't do his literacy homework last night. He is so upset, pouting all through class almost to the point of tears. I hide the note in his binder and on his way out the door, he pulls my sleeve and smiles shyly and says, "Thanks for the note Miss Meg, I'll try." My heart. $$$$ I'm rich!!

I walk out of the school that day fulfilled. And as if my Father hasn't already poured out enough on my in this one day, the newly elected president of our middle school girls Right Moves for Youth group comes up to me with a piece of paper that she thrusts into my hands. Her progress report (interim report card) has all A's and B's and nothing but stellar comments on it. I couldn't be more proud of this girl that I barely know. Praise the Lord!