Thursday, November 08, 2007

HardTimes Cafe

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hardtimes cafe + heartside neighborhood + ourplace + calvin college

looks like a lot of people were involved in this event!  hardtimes cafe goes down every wednesday evening at downtown’s westminster presbyterian church, and the general idea is to celebrate community by having dinner with heartside neighborhood homeless folks.  because this was my first time attending this sort of event, i didn’t know too much about the organizations involved.  all i know is that i’ve lived in grand rapids for 2+ years now, and i don’t even know where the homeless are.

luckily, two of the local homeless filled me in on the current situation.  bernie had been living in the heartside neighborhood for over 20 years (homeless for the last 5 years), and he and his friend kim told me how the homeless were getting pushed out of downtown grand rapids, mostly around division avenue, because of new condo developments.  the homeless were being forced out, and there wasn’t enough subsidized housing to go around.  i know that my church, mars hill, has partnered up with habitat for humanity to build subsidized housing in eastown/downtown.  at the end of summer, they finished building a triplex on franklin ave, and now they’re working on another building.  i’m fascinated at how everything is tying together: i hear about hardtimes cafe through young life, only to go there during a calvin-sponsored event where i discover that my church is already involved with the situation.

i was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of my friends at the event too.  i met the calvin chaplain, andy dejong (he also gave my housemate and i a ride home.  quite a nice fellow), calvin barnabas head nalini (i played drums for her when she led worship at madison square church), fellow young life leaders matt and jon (matt mentored me when i started out at young life.  now he’s one of the top dogs for my area, forest hills), mars hill member sylvie (i think she organized the whole event), brother of my YL co-leader jared, friend of my mars hill area leader ben, random friend i met at the library christie, and my fellow house church members jessica, ian, and mary-margaret.  i think i almost knew all the calvin people there, and by the end of the night, i had met a few more i didn’t know.

Posted by Nehe555 on 11/08 at 11:37 PM
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