"So You're a Lumberjack?"

Sunday

I went to Global Ministries Christian Church (GMCC) again this morning.  This was my third Sunday morning there (I went last week, and once while I was out on Spring Break).  This is the church that partners with The Boston Project Ministries (TBPM), the group I went on spring break with.  Thus it is also the place where we slept during that week.  I must say, I felt very white when I was there in March, but I didn't feel quite as white this week.  That is, sitting in a pew full of almost all white kids, in an almost all black church, having just arrived from Calvin, a very white school, I felt hyper-visible.  Now, having spent two weeks immersed in more ethnically diverse populations, it didn't seem so odd to me.  That doesn't mean that I don't still stand out though.  There are a handful of white folks that attend GMCC, but most of them seem to be related to The Boston Project.  Thus after service today I was asked a few times if I was involved in TBPM.

After the service, I got to talking with a white guy there who was the former director of TBPM, and it turns out that we are both from Ohio!  Wow!  Amazing coincidence.  Not impressed?  Ok, try: he graduated from Calvin in '05 after living in Boer-Bennink for two years, followed by a year as an RA?  I suppose he may actually be the reason that service-learning spring break trips from Calvin come to TBPM though, so I'll have to ask him more about that.

The neighborhood we live in is all black, except for Nancy's house.  Nancy has lived here for 30 years, and when she moved in it was an all white neighborhood.  She watched white-flight happen over the course of about three years, as all of her neighbors picked up and left after the first black moved in.  It's not too far from here that there were race riots at schools just ten years ago.  Our society still has a long way to go.  When I was working on something out in the yard last week, Nancy was over with some of the younger neighborhood guys and they asked, "Who's that white kid?"  Nancy told them that I was living with her, and that I was cool.  All the neighbors around here know Nancy, and a good word from her goes along way, just like it did in the courtroom on Friday.

Today I was out in the yard working, and two little boys ran by, playing some game.  One of them stopped and asked me what I was doing, and when I explained that I was splitting wood, he concluded, "So you're a lumberjack?"

Jim