To be seen and known [Sarah W., Urban Neighbor alum]

If there’s one thing I learned through my time as an Urban Neighbor, it’s that people want to be seen and known for who they really are. It’s easy to shove people in the city into boxes: the poor, welfare moms, gang-bangers, addicts, the homeless. During my years with Urban Homeworks I have learned to see people more like how Christ sees them: kids with hopes and dreams, women with huge hearts, men who’ve made mistakes. When you enter into a relationship with someone, you get to really see them and know them. The relationships I have built with my neighbors have blessed me in so many ways. I wish I had hours to tell you every single story: the neighborhood pizza nights, the ice cream parties, the cook-outs, Thanksgiving banquets, the tutoring. I have been filled with lots of love for my neighbors, and my heart breaks to see them struggling through life. There is one story I will share with you all.

Terri is a middle aged mom who lives with her family downstairs from me. I am amazed at this woman. Despite living in poverty, dealing with diabetes, renal failure, and heart disease, she gives and gives and gives. She has taken in two children who are not her own and I know she would take in more if she could. I love Terri, and I love getting to hang out with her family. We’ve had some incredible times together: pow-wows, cook-outs, birthday parties. Words cannot express how much this relationship means to me, or the ways that Christ has shown himself to me through it. For a woman to be dealing with so much and to still have the heart to remember things like my birthday . . . it just blesses me. Last year she bought me a pair of Native American earrings and had her whole family sign the card. It is humbling and inspiring to know such a person. Often, people think it’s the Urban Neighbors’ job to change or impact neighbors, but Terri has changed my life by being an example of love, dedication, and perseverance.

All that to say we’re not just neighbors anymore, it feels more like family. I know Terri, and she knows me. I know her favorite color is red and that she likes to dress babies in old-fashioned clothes. She can tell when I’ve had a bad day at work or if I’ve got a new crush. There are not many secrets between us. So when I get a call at 11:30 at night and Terri is wanting to come up for a cup of tea, I know there is more to it. So I get out of bed, put on the kettle, and hug Terri as she tells me how her oldest daughter is dealing drugs again, her son is back in jail, she can’t afford her heat, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to make it. Now I want more than anything to fix things for her, to make her pain go away. But I can’t. Being an Urban Neighbor is great, but it doesn’t give me superhuman powers to fix the world. So I do what I can, what God asks me to, and share in her troubles by listening, praying, and feeling the hurt with her. And we both go back to bed. It breaks my heart that I get to wake up the next morning to a cup of good coffee and my job, but Terri wakes up just to go through it all again. But I thank God that she does make that midnight phone call. Or when my neighbor Amanda calls crying because she thinks she got an STD, or when Frank, my friend’s son, calls because he and his mother got put out of another shelter. Because even though they are hurting, they know they are not alone. And for me, that’s what being an Urban Neighbor is all about. In my attempts to live like Christ, I get to see people: the welfare moms, gang-bangers, addicts, and homeless, beyond the circumstances that got them those taglines. I get to journey through life with them, sharing in their burdens when the load gets heavy, celebrating with them in the times in between.