Education Coordinator Michael Rhodes recently sent the following email to the Advance Memphis staff members. Take a minute to read Michael's words, as well as those he's included from GED student Melvin Johnson (pictured above at his Jobs for Life graduation).
Dear Team:
I asked Melvin Johnson to write an essay about his neighborhood to get ready for the GED. He’s staying down off S Parkway. This is what he wrote, in its entirety:
"My neighborhood is not safe. There are a lot of crimes being committed. My neighborhood is full of gangs and drugs. Add there are a lot of burned down homes all over. With crimes, gangs, and burned down homes my neighborhood is not safe.
In my neighborhood crimes are committed daily. The stores are broken into at night. In the day time cars are broken into. And also sometime people become victims of robbery at gun point. By stores and cars being broken into, and robberies being committed the crime rate is very high in my neighborhood.
The neighborhood I live in is full of gangs and drug. Gangs in my neighborhood are called vice-lords, GD, and cribs. There are drug homes on every street. The gangs fights with one another all the time. With the different type of gangs, drugs, and fights my neighborhood is a gangs heaven.
There are burned down houses everywhere you look in my neighborhood. Some of the houses are burned down by homeless people trying to stay warm at night. Some are burned down to cover up a crime. And some are burned down by kids playing in empty houses. By homeless people, gangs and kids burning down the houses my neighborhood the area feels unsafe to live.
My neighborhood is very dangerous. The gangs have taken over my neighborhood. The burned down homes have made the property values go down. And the crimes that are committed makes the neighborhood scary to live in. The robberies, gangs and drugs and burned down houses my neighborhood will never be safe."
This morning I happened to read Isaiah 25 during my devotion, and came across a passage that was read at our wedding. What a contrast! It reminds me that we must claim God’s coming rule as our own, must declare that the future security of the kingdom of God will undo all the death experienced in our neighborhoods in the here and now. One day, those who know Jesus will declare, this is that which we hoped for. Let’s keep prayerfully exhorting our neighbors and ourselves, in the face of so much death, to claim the One who will swallow up death forever.
The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain.
At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine –
tender meat and choicest wine.
On this mountain he will swallow up
the shroud that is over all the peoples,
the woven covering that is over all the nations;
he will swallow up death permanently.
The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face,
and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.
Indeed, the Lord has announced it!
At that time they will say,
“Look, here is our God!
We waited for him and he delivered us.
Here is the Lord! We waited for him.
Let’s rejoice and celebrate his deliverance!”
For the Lord’s power will make this mountain secure.
Isaiah 25:6-10
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