Our first Ride & $5 for all

So the past couple of weeks have been really tough for me, with school starting, and jobs picking up. It is just an odd time of transition and trust in Christ for His provision in my needs of life. There are many amazing and great opportunities to share the love of and hope in Christ.

I am not sure if i talked about this yet, but I got a new car a couple of weeks ago. It is has been a blessing, and a very interesting thing to interact with. I know that this maybe a big red flag to many of you because, I always talk about tight finances, and here I now have a new car. It has totally been Christ lining things up for me so that things can happen in the neighborhood. When I first started to look at purchasing my house, I got accepted into a special savings program with the United Way in which they matched me $4 to every $1 dollar. I could save up to $1,000 and it had to stay in for 6 months and had to go toward a certified used or new car purchase. The time had run out on me saving in the program, and I decided that I should use it sooner than later because funding could or would run out. So I purchased a new Mazda 3. It has been an interesting time in venturing into learning the car buying and ownership world. The car puts a new burden/implication on my income needs, but it creates a great opportunity in serving my neighbors, and the kids in the neighborhood. When I first got the car, my kids in the neighborhood talked really loud about it, almost in a boasting fashion. I pulled them aside to talk about the car, and what it is for and it was an amazing discussion. We talked about how now we can all goto places together, and take trips to go, camping, swimming and all sorts of other places. They come up with some other awesome places to go as well. They also understood the concept behind not talking about it boastfully, or flashing around the car, so that we can make sure that it stays in decent shape and that I wont have to waste money on un-neccessary things. The car was just as much for them as it is for me. It was a beautiful time...

Our first ride together was for a lunch gathering at Middendorfs with Sojourn-Lakeview Church. Middendorfs is about an hour away from New Orleans, but is a great place for fried catfish. I picked up Stephen, Roger, and Anthony from around the neighborhood, and we obviously ran late. Then we convened with the church folks and headed out. The lunch experience was great, I only wish I could have not felt the squeeze of my budget. Things like this though are great, because I get to dialogue with them about getting soda, dessert, and money requirements. It hurts me that I can’t give them those things sometimes, but I think they understand why and still hang out with me regardless which is awesome.

I killed my budget for the month, because I paid for insurance all at once, and also had to pay for tuition this semester. It will be fun trying to recuperate over the next few months, in the midst of trying to find a way to now work my regular job for income, so that I can actually do ministry well, and not freak out all the time.

God’s Providence is good though, I received some dry food from friends last week, and today I received some meat. This month just seems to be a big test on me being faithful in giving and receiving. I had purchased a bus ticket from one of my students the other day, and now he is crashing on my couch. I made dinner with donated food last night: pasta with spaghetti sauce and red beans. My friend could only stomach a hand full of bites, and desired some meat. Today I was given some meat! So thats amazing, and so it will be awesome to share with him about God’s provision.

I also received a $5 check the other day in the mail. I am pretty excited to see what the kids in the neighborhood can dream up to spend it on. Maybe themselves, or food for dinner, or to get something for someone else. We’ll see what they want to do.