Support Youth Summer Arts Camp In Crown Heights

I feel like I am finally exhaling. I am relieved.

This is true in part because I just finished my first year as a Special Ed Teacher. Teaching is truly an exhausting and challenging calling but I feel like the relief I am experiencing right now is tied to the joy I get when I think about the past year.

This morning I sat with Brianna and talked about how this year was a faith walk. Last May, we experienced the birth of Coltrane, graduation from seminary and moving to Brooklyn all within one week! We were running before that time and we’ve been running ever since.

In preparation of our move to New York, we prayed with close friends of ours who were also having a child. (Their beautiful daughter was born a week before Coltrane). We prayed for the health of our children and that I would be able to find employment in the city of my birth.

As we prayed and conversed, my friends continuously raved about their church and how much they thought Brianna and I would love it there when we eventually moved back home. That first Sunday at Trinity Grace Church Crown Heights was surreal. I’d talked about coming home for years but being a part of this church sealed it. We worshipped in a school blocks away from where my family first lived when they came to the United States; a stone’s throw from where my grandfather ministered at Trinity Baptist Church.

I wanted to hit the ground running in terms of involvement. Youth ministry is the foundation of our church. I play basketball with young brothers from the church regularly as part of our “Youth and Family night” program and Brianna and I co-teach on Sundays. It is a joy to be in this community and a privilege to see our mentees become leaders.

Our church has an initiative to provide a Summer Arts Camp to 70 kids this summer. We need to raise $40,000 in order to make this happen. Please visit this link http://artscamp.causevox.com/ and help us serve.

Much love and God bless,

Chris

Sorry, Doc.

Wanted to apologize for last night.
You came in to do your job
And my elder only saw your youth.
“You’re a doctor?!” she exclaimed,
“I thought you were a nurse!”
Subsequent conversation was unpleasant.

I was not offended but understood
Your grasps for authority.
My elder could not see
How her question accused you.
Fulfilling for a moment your fears
Of being an impostor.

And I’ve felt it.

Like no matter what I do,
Take me to Oslo,
And my aunt will always see me as six.
Take me to Richmond,
I’ll give you a speech
And they’ll still ask if I am from Africa.

Eventually.

The horror of being lowered.
You being a nurse is like me being a janitor or some thing.
But I’ve learned so much from custodians.
Lunch ladies and the least of these.
These people, my people
Respectable carrying receptacles.
Walked so we could run away.

I guess it’s tr…

I guess it’s true that life is full of surprises, but for the three years since Joe’s crippling pain was diagnosed as the result of an autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis, our life has been full of surprises like this one. Pill boxes, trips to the emergency room, early returns from vacation. Terms like “flare-up” have dropped into our vocabulary. We’ve sat in waiting rooms where Joe was the only person without a walker or a cane. Most of our tears have been over the fact that these aren’t the kind of surprises either of us thought we’d be encountering at such a young age.

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