Galatians 6:1-3
Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Living in community is no picnic, and learning to deeply love is no easy road. People are weird, messy, and broken. They are either too clean or too dirty. They talk too much, express too little, and find ways to push your buttons. They know too little or they know too much. The list goes on and on (and obviously none of this applies to me).
So why do it? Why live and commit to people who are not family? Why share stuff like cars, groceries, and financial debt? Life is so much easier when you are by yourself. No complications. Get up, work, eat, spend, do what you want, go to bed: it’s as simple as that. It’s not like we are married to each other. Why do it?

One word: Jesus.

Jesus was crazy. He travelled with 12 men, was homeless, lived simply, talked about change, and showed how to love the outcasts. In today’s terms, he was crazy. Why did he do it? Why did he show up as a human, consort with prostitutes and lepers, and constantly put up with dumb comments from his followers? He lived in the middle of the dirty, annoying, drunkard, oblivious, broken people. He loved. He didn’t abandon ship when it got tough. He stuck by his 12, even when they just couldn’t get it right.


So, why do we do it? One word: Jesus. If Jesus loves us as the dirty and broken pieces that we are, with an unwavering commitment, than we can continue to inch forward, trying to find that love for each other.


In the film About A Boy, the main character, the little boy named Marcus, is trying to figure out the tough stuff in life: why his mom tried to commit suicide, how to get girls to like him, and trying to deal with the hurt of not fitting in. He eventually befriends Hugh Grant’s character who is a man that lives as an island and is proud of it.


By the end of the film, the odd pair became friends. Despite their differences, they find family in each other, along with an assortment of other quirky characters.
Marcus’s words from the film have always stuck with me: “All I meant was I don't think couples are the future. You need more than that. You need backup. The way I saw it, Will and I both had backup now. It's like that thing he told me Jon Bon Jovi said: "No man is an island."”


Jesus was far from an island. He committed to loving and being part of a crazy cluster of freaks, outcasts, and wandering vagabonds. Sounds good. I’m in.

One Mile.

Boulevard Rd. in Atlanta stretches for a few miles. In my world, it starts at the Federal Penitentiary (near my neighborhood), drives passed one of the best parks, and ends a block away from one of my favorite grocery stores, Trader Joes in a very nice neighborhood in Midtown. In the past, when I have had to give directions involving certain sections of Boulevard people say, "oh, I avoid that section of Boulevard." Usually I shrug my shoulders at them and say, "well, this is the way I need you to go in order for you to get here."

Either way, for me, Boulevard is a stretch that reaches the depths of diversity, economically and spiritually, that exists in this city. On one end it is a block away from the very, very rich-large houses, Piedmont park, and a stretching skyline. On my end, the very very poor-prostitutes, crack addicts, imprisoned, homeless, immigrants, and mental health. I've been perplexed by this for years. How can a one mile stretch of land have so much economic inequality? How can a city be so rich AND so poor at the same time? How can there be so many Christian here in the south and there still be so much racism, prejudice, and injustice?

These are questions that I still have not fully answered. In fact, most of the time, I am frustrated with what answers begin to materialize. So, I continue to cling to Christ. "Christ, who is our life." Colossians 3:4 Jesus, the man who had nothing but the peace of a loving father. Jesus, who's heart would break at the sight of such inequity. Jesus, the man who said sell your stuff and serve the poor. I cling that his love will prevail.

Kids R Us.

Crumbs gathered on the floor as the boys crowded together in the kitchen eating their peanut butter crackers, the dog frantically licking them up. “How come we don’t have youth group everyday, Miss Andra?” I almost spit out the gulp of water I still had in my mouth. “What?” I asked. “We should have youth group everyday,” Marcus said louder than the first time. I finished my water and laughed at what they just said, “Because, you kids would drive me crazy!” The boys smirked at my typical response and ran back upstairs to continue a heated Mario Kart race.
A week hadn’t even passed since the last youth group, didn’t they remember? It’s perplexing because I am pretty sure I spent a good portion of youth group giving this same group of boys a lengthy talk on what “respect” is and what it should look like. I was not happy, and neither were they. Yet, there they were standing in my kitchen asking me why we didn’t have youth group every day of the week.

The kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Mark 14

Until about 5 seconds ago, I’ve always viewed this verse to be about the innocence of children. But what if it is so much more than that? Picture it: clumsy, scuffed up, probably somewhat smelly, and loud children crawling all over Jesus. Like the boys standing in the kitchen, mouths full, crumbs dropping to the floor, and smiles on their faces…The boys full of excitement about next week, different games, and youth leaders who always come back despite the casualties of the week before…Like us standing before Jesus excited, dirty, clumsy, and expectant of His love and acceptance, regardless of our actions the week before…day before…seconds before. And we KNOW that he will be there.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not in any way comparing the youth staff to Jesus, but somehow, someway, understanding people helps me understand the mystery of Jesus. Jesus-a King, a celebrity, a Savior-with dusty children crawling into his lap holds open his arms and welcomes me in.

A Season of Hope

by Katie Lewis

The advent wreath sat on the table in the front of the church. Four candles: four weeks until Christmas. The candles stood tall, expectantly waiting to be set ablaze, each one serving a deeper meaning. The flame from the lighter quickly drew near the first candle – lighting it. Immediately, the aroma of HOPE danced through the air.

The sight and meaning of that candle got me thinking. Hope has become something that fascinates me. I used to think of hope as something nice, something pleasant, something… I don’t know…happy, I guess. And then I did Mission Year. As I struggled through that year, watching so many hopeless situations, hoping took on a new dimension for me. It was painful. In order to hope, you have to genuinely EXPECT. You have to keep on believing that things will change, that good things will come, that God will be faithful. And that is both scary and painful, because you can’t hope for those things, without caring, without feeling. You can’t shut out the realities and still hope. You can’t grow numb to the difficult situations and still hope. You have to live in the realities as they are, and still cling to the hope that things can and will change for the better.


This Christmas I was reminded again to hope. It is so easy to become so involved in my own day-to-day activities and forget to look around me. If I’m not careful, I can end up working, socializing, and just plain living without ever thinking about anyone else. I can shut out the realities of my neighbors, my neighborhood, and the world. But that is not why I live where I do, and that is not what God has called me to. God has asked me to see, to love, to feel, and to hope.


So, like the small flame of an Advent candle, hope lights my darkness and grows. And I hope some more…

I hope that I will feel what God feels for my neighbors
I hope that the level of privilege and comfort I have will make me uncomfortable
I hope that the addictions and the drug dealing in my neighborhood will be stopped
I hope that prostitution in this neighborhood will cease to exist
I hope that in spite of odds stacked against them, the kids I’ve met will live successful, happy, and meaningful lives
I hope that the schools will improve, & that these kids will get a decent education,
I hope that as the church we will speak God’s love with our actions
I hope that we will prioritize people over things
I hope that God’s Kingdom will come as his will is done, in my life, in my neighborhood, in His Church, and in our world.

And I hope…that you too will hope.

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born!!!

Body Parts.

I Corinthians 12:12-14
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.



When I got home from school that day my dad’s coworkers were at the house working on the basement. My sister, in the living room watching Oprah, specifically instructed me during one of the commercial breaks not to go near the basement steps because it was dangerous. I trotted off, oblivious to her instructions, and went straight to the basement door.

My dad’s buddy was standing there literally with the staircase in his hands, as he finished ripping them down from the wall. “Whoa!” I thought, “A door that leads to no where!” I quickly sat down in the door frame and dangled my legs down from the edge that used to lead to stairs. I was excited and fascinated by the work they were doing. Legs swinging, chatting away, I didn’t even notice the nails sticking out from the bottom of the door frame. Not even seconds later, I noticed my leg felt kind of funny. Blood dripping down to my ankle, I snuck to the bathroom, wet down a washcloth, and looked at the back of my leg: not good.



There was a hole in my leg, presumably from one of the nails sticking out of the door frame. “Aaaapppprrriiiiil?!” I called her, worried about what her reaction was going to be. After the initial panic, she and my dad took action. Squished into the sawdust covered seat of my dad’s truck, my dad gripped the steering wheel and my sister held my hand as we rushed to the emergency room where I proceeded to get stitched up for the third time in my life. Crisis adverted.

Quick action, lots of love, and a trip to the doctors, allowed me to be home in just a few short hours. That day, my family operated as one body. My injured leg took precedence because my well being affects everyone else in the house. I Corinthians 12:12-26 reminds us that, with Christ, we are one body with many parts. All the parts are essential and depend on each other to fully function. This thought began to haunt me soon after seeing the movie Waiting for Superman. The movie’s narrator shares his shift of thinking from only worrying about his children and their education, to worrying education and well being of all children. It is the body of Christ.

If this were a logic problem, we would say if my leg is bleeding, then so is my family because we operate as one body. So, as if we were one body, we took care of the wound. Therefore, when Christ says “we are one body”; when schools, cities, my neighbors, etc. are bleeding from injustice, poverty, etc., then I too am bleeding and should be driven by the suffering coming from my body. “If one part suffers, every part suffers” (v. 26). Until, something changes…until I make changes…the body cannot function at its fullest capacity.

At fullest capacity, the body soars, knowing that God created us for this.



“My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.” ~Leo Tolstoy

A light house of sorts.

One of the things we’ve always struggled with as a community house is succinctly explaining who we are and what it is we’re trying to do. There are so many aspects to what we do, so many facets of living in a Christian community in the midst of a low-income neighborhood. There are programs we’re involved in, there’s the communal life of the house, there are our values, our beliefs, our passions. How do we sum that all up? A few days ago, Andra & I were asked to come and share what we do with a church group. We sat and talked and planned together and came up with something, and then stood up and gave our little talk.
At the end of it, someone said “So….what exactly is your mission?”
“hmmm.” I thought, “guess we weren’t as clear as I’d hoped.”

That’s when a good friend jumped in and said it for us. Our house is a light house. It is a house people know as a good place. A safe place. A place where, if they really need the help, they can come and they know we will do everything we can to offer it, no strings attached. It’s a household attempting to operate as much like Christ’s body as we possibly can. All that crazy stuff we do – like sharing money & cars, like living where we do, like trying not to let jobs dominate our lives, like making neighbors and kids a priority, - we do it so we CAN live and give that way.

And when I think back on the last couple of years, I can think of example after example where it worked. Where someone needed us, and we were able to be there.

Like Adam, who used to live with us. One night he left without a word taking a computer, i-pod, and some other electronics with him. We were frustrated, and later learned he ended up in jail. But then he sent us a letter and Andra corresponded faithfully with him. Now he’s out, and recently he rang the doorbell at 4 in the morning, knowing that we would do what we could to help him.

Like James and Wes, whose mom worked 12 hour shifts and was the sole care-taker of them. When they moved out of the neighborhood, but still attended school here, she had to drop them off at 6am so they could get to school, and she could get to work. She’d drop them off, and they would come to our house. They knew we would let them in, fix them some breakfast and make sure they got off to school on time. They knew our house was a safe place.

Like the 10 kids who live in two households across the street. They come over every day asking if they can just play with our dog in the back yard. They know we have sidewalk chalk, and bats and balls. They know one of us is likely to make sure they have some ice cold water or Kool-aid, and maybe come and do some sidewalk art on the patio with them.

All these little things add up to something big. A light house. A safe place.. In the middle of a dark place, there is light. In the middle of pain, there is hope. In the middle of anger, there is love. In the middle of evil, there is good. That’s what it’s all about.

Thank you for your prayers, for your donations, for your encouragement, and for your love. We couldn’t do it without you.

Love,
Katie (Mike, Andra, & Leah)

Donations can be made at www.fcsministries.org

Blog negligance...yes indeed!

Once again, it has been way too long. Our updates have been sporadic, inconsistent, and way less in number than they actually should be. So, here we are, again, trying to effectively update you. Please forgive us for our neglect.

So, to quickly catch you up to speed...

It is not that surprising that autumn was accompanied by a swell of change in our community. Mike is newly employed at an after school program just a few miles from our neighborhood. He spends Monday-Friday afternoon/evenings teaching and tutoring third graders. Leah is dedicated to making a successful community garden, even with excessive weeds and a dense Georgia red clay garden bed. Mike and Andra are continuing their Youth Group (ages 12-18).
While, with Katie's help, an additional youth group for the younger kids (9-12ish) of the neighborhood has been added to the mix. Andra is still full time youth pastoring in the neighborhood, helping with both youth groups and at a local after school program.

Other exciting news:

In September, after prayer and a "what do we have to lose?", we put in a bid on a HUD house just around the corner from where we are currently renting. Much to our surprise, we won the bid! Things have been moving quickly and we are currently under contract with the mortgage company. Next step: fixing up the house. The previous owners took everything with them (fixtures and all), so the house needs a lot of work.
Owning a house has been a goal of the Jubilee House from its inception. In a neighborhood high in vacant houses, forclosures, and evictions, stability and commitment are characteristics we strive to possess. We also agree on the importance of hospitality and shared space. Owning a house will give us more opportunity to live out this standard.

In the end, we are excited for what God has ahead of us! Please pray that we will continue to seek out how God wants to use us in our neighborhood and in each others lives. Pray that we have the strength and courage to stick it out when it gets hard. Most importantly, pray for our neighborhood: for growth, for peace, and for God's presence to be known.

Thanks to everyone for the continuous prayer and financial support!!!

Donations towards Andra's salary, our ministries, or the costs of purchasing the house can be made at http://www.fcsministries.org

Much love,

Andra, Katie, Leah, & Mike