An expensive mistake

Remember the cheap Trans Am I bought as a second car? It's been nothing but trouble since I bought it. It didn't cost much, and I tried not to spend too much to repair it, but I had to invest a sizable amount of money to fix safety-critical items like the brakes. After experiencing numerous problems over the past few weeks, it finally refused to start. When its rear tire slowly leaked all its air, the apartment management threatened to tow it if I didn't move it immediately. Since it would cost hundreds of dollars more to repair, I sold it for a pittance and took a major loss. I never liked this car, and I am very relieved to see it go, although the financial loss stings big time.

You may recall why I got into this situation in the first place. It is clear to me and others that driving my primary car into Brookside is foolish; everyone recognizes it, and several of them want to take it. Thus, my interaction with the kids would devolve into a silly cat-and-mouse chase and distract from more important matters. I bought the Trans Am so I could have a cheap car that could be secured and/or abandoned easily. Although I had wanted to get a sensible, fuel-efficient, and relatively ugly vehicle, my friend W insisted that I buy an attractive car so the kids wouldn't shun me. I never really agreed with him, but since he had given such good advice regarding locating Brookside and getting involved initially, I decided to take this one on faith. I don't hold him responsible in any way for the outcome, but maybe I could have avoided it by following his advice only when it made sense to me.

The next step, since I still need a "hood car," is to revert to my original plan and get a sensible, fuel-efficient ride. It will most likely be a early '90s Civic. If the kids don't want anything to do with me, fine. I can't afford a hot car, and driving one may suggest the insidious notion that financial wherewithal is the barometer of success.

Speaking of money and expensive things, the closing on my house has been delayed. I had a professional inspection performed, and the two major concerns that came to light were the roof, which has minor hail damage, and some mold in the basement and on the chimney. Since neither was on the sellers' disclosure, the sellers need to remedy them (if they don't, I'll probably walk away). It will take a couple of weeks to finish the work, but I'm just happy I don't have to pay for it. The house has a range which leaks a noticeable amount of gas, so I need to replace that, but they had already included a price concession for the decrepit kitchen. And the furnace is ancient; although it functions normally, I will probably replace it because a new one will easily pay for itself in energy savings.

Did I mention that I am absolutely itching to get past these materialistic obstacles and actually get involved in Brookside? I don't enjoy my cars, and I don't enjoy my house nearly as much as I should; rather, I view them in purely utilitarian terms: they appear to be the bridge to building substantial relationships with kids in the neighborhood.

I think I'll go to Brookside as soon as I get my "new" car, even if my house isn't yet available. Maybe I can at least pick up a couple of good guys and take them out to eat and chat.

Hill Fest

After church today, we went up to Northview Christian Life, which is a big church on the north side of Indianapolis that has partnered with ours. Many of the Sunday school teachers attend Northview on Saturday night and come to our church on Sunday to help out. Northview hosted a small carnival for their neighborhood, and our kids loved it. Here are some of them:

A fight

This week, Bob invited me to his house to meet an electrical engineer from Monterey, Mexico who is working for one of Bob's friends at a metal plant. This engineer lived in Canada the last couple of years and met his girlfriend there, and he's only in the Unites States temporarily. Unfortunately, companies in the United States and Canada don't recognize his degree because he earned it in Mexico, and his current job involves managing several guys in the metal factory. We talked about the possibility of getting a master's degree here, which would enable him to get a good engineering job. Since he is in the U.S. temporarily and doesn't have a driver's license yet, he was staying in a hotel. When Bob found out about that, he invited him to stay at his house indefinitely, which profoundly impressed this guy.

There is a professional boxer named Jimmy Campbell who hails from England but lives in Indianapolis and works out at Bob's gym, so of course Bob knows him. On Saturday, there was a big match for local and semi-local boxers, and Jimmy had the last and most important fight. Bob invited the Mexican engineer, another friend who lived with Bob for an extended period of time, and me to the match. Bob never called it a boxing match; he always called it a fight. "We're going to see a fight on Saturday!" It was Bob's and my first time seeing a boxing match, and we both enjoyed it. But Bob said wouldn't like to see another fight because he doesn't like to see people get hurt. It doesn't bother me—I mean, they kind of asked for it, right?

Jimmy Campbell has an interesting story. According to Bob, he used to have a shady lifestyle which landed him in jail, but then he found God, who transformed his life. He goes to the local Vineyard church, and his pastor joined him in the ring before the match to support and encourage him (in the picture at right, the pastor is on the left, and Jimmy, the "British Assassin," is in the middle). Bob also knew one of the more amateur boxers named Ronny because he used to come to Bob's basketball program.

Speaking of boxers, one of the two lay pastors at my church is named Alphonso Bailey, and he also is an accomplished boxer who made poor choices in years past which landed him in jail. He has an inspirational story and is an outstanding pastor who can relate to people from all walks of life.

Finally, here are the four of us; you should be able to figure out who's who:

Season of Life

A good friend from college, who is acquainted with the latest activities in my life, recommended that I read Season of Life, by Jeffrey Marx. It is a poignant account of former football star Joe Ehrmann, who was a captain of the Colts (in Baltimore, before they moved to Indianapolis). I won't spoil the story for you, but suffice it to say that Ehrmann started an urban ministry called The Door in downtown Baltimore in the late 1980s, and he and his family moved to a house in that area. He soon realized that much of what he encountered—drugs, crime, illiteracy, family disintegration—were merely "symptoms of the single biggest failure of our society. We simply don't do a good enough job of teaching boys to be men."

And with that, he started a program called Building Men for Others, which declared that a man should be defined by the following four traits:

1. He accepts responsibility.
2. He leads courageously.
3. He enacts justice on behalf of others.
4. He expects God's greater rewards.

Ehrmann became a coach at a high school, and he used the medium of football to teach these values. Whether his team won or lost, he taught his boys to always behave with integrity and honor, and to consistently be outwardly focused and empathetic toward others. The book was extraordinary, the kind I plan to read again. My thoughts on urban outreach mirror Ehrmann's, especially in regard to building substantial relationships, and I deeply appreciate his example and wisdom.

The saga continues...

Bob has talked for a long time about building a base of operations for his program, and he is hoping to buy some land from the local Masonic Lodge, which is located on an oversized lot in Brookside. The Lodge hosted a fundraiser breakfast today, and Bob had several of his kids and volunteers come out to show that they were an active part of the neighborhood (oddly, though, no one in the Lodge seemed to be from Brookside). It was a good breakfast, though.

The two kids I chaperoned last week at the airshow (pictured below) were at the breakfast, and they wanted to talk aviation, which suited me just fine. "Can you fly an airplane?" they asked, even though they already knew the answer.

"Yes, I can, and here's how it's done..." I gave them a demonstration with gestures and sound effects.

"Can you fly a space ship?" they asked.

"Well, no, they only let the best pilots fly those." I should have lied.

Bob has a red Chrysler Sebring convertible, which is wildly popular with the kids, and he asked me to drive them home in it (all of three blocks). I had two girls in the passenger seat, one on my lap, and about five in the back seat. Two little ladies "helped" me drive. That was fun.

After the kids went home, Bob and Carolyn had a long talk with John and his wife. John is one of the two lay preachers in my church who preach on alternate Sundays. It was helpful to get an insider's perspective of the organization and catch a glimpse of the challenges the leaders face. Bob, for example, desperately wants a school bus and a driver for his after-school program, since he has to move 140 kids each day with only two vans.

I've had my eye on one house about a mile and a half from Brookside, which seems to be priced right and is nice enough to have guests over frequently. I talked to Bob about it this morning, and we went to look at it together. A very nice Mexican couple is living there now, and since the wife was home, we got to go inside. Bob told her all about the program and who I was and what I was doing, and he seemed to be impressed with the house itself. "If you get this house," he said, "it would be much easier for you to be involved in our program. I'd probably be over here three or four times a week, and the good kids [names withheld] could come over here too." It means a great deal to me that Bob is enthusiastic about the house and optimistic about the opportunities it will provide. I am still negotiating the price, but if all goes as planned, I'll be moving there in about a month.

Labor Day

Bob invited me to his home for lunch. His wife Carolyn is a great cook, and she made a delicious meal out of hot dogs and potato salad and blueberry pie. Bob's sister and brother-in-law were there, and a businessman friend of theirs was as well. Everybody was several times my age, so the discussion inevitably turned to health problems. Skin cancer runs in Bob's family, and Bob mentioned that he'd had two melanomas about twenty years back. "It was time for me to die," he said, "but the devil didn't want me, and God wasn't sure, so I had to stay here."

Bob and Carolyn are very welcoming, inviting people, and they said that they've always had people coming and going through their house, which they built 40-odd years ago. Carolyn said, "When he was a principle, Bob would bring kids home like some people bring home cats and dogs." Bob and Carolyn strike me as very happy people, and I'm so fortunate to count them as friends.

In other news, I'm planning to forge ahead with the house. I still don't know exactly how it will be used, but I do believe this is the right next step. I've consulted with several people much wiser than I, and I have prayed about it a lot; in a case like this, I think God wants me to do what I already know to be right rather than wait for the proverbial writing in the sky to confirm it. I ran up to that neighborhood today and did a thorough search for houses, and I'll get my realtor to show a couple to me sometime this week.