Love and Sawzalls…
When Shawn and I first started working on our house on Alford Avenue to prepare to move into the neighborhood, we met lots of neighbors through the process. The house we were renovating had been boarded up for close to 30 years, and we had to take it down to the studs and rebuild everything. The entire floor plan changed to make it a livable 3 bedroom house. As we were doing demo and then construction people would walk by and we would introduce ourselves. We met lots of kids just hanging out on the street looking for a place to play ball. We also met neighbors that struggled with addiction and mental health challenges. Even in the early days, before Love City even existed, we started out with the goal to just show people what love looked like. One neighbor we met was Chad.
Shawn meeting some neighborhood kids when we first started renovating our house.
Chad had struggled with addiction most of his life, he was in his early 20s when met him walking by the house on his way to the corner store. Shawn struck up a friendship with him and evening Chad called Shawn distraught. His grandma, who he and mom and his younger siblings all lived with one street over on Slevin Street, had been arrested in Indiana and put in jail and they didn’t have the money to bail her out. Chad didn’t know what to do and had called Shawn. Bail was set around $400 which was more than they had the capability to pay. We got up, since it was late and we had already gone to bed, went to the ATM and picked up Chad and traveled across the bridge to Indiana to help bail out his Grandma. She had been caught shoplifting at Wal-Mart. We took Chad’s younger brother with us. We bailed grandma out and reunited her with her family. Chad and his younger brother were amazed. They had never seen anyone love them enough to bail someone they knew out of jail, especially when they had been caught committing a crime. It made a lasting impression on Chad and on his younger brother.
Chad (on the far right) and his family the night we helped bail his Grandma out of jail.
Fast forward a few months and Chad had been sucked back into the drug vortex. We had made progress on our house, moved in as most of the interior renovations were complete and were now working on gutters, decks and siding. One of our friends Sam, who had done most of the carpentry work on the interior of the house was working on the roof one day when Chad walked by the house. Sam had his tools spread out on the deck below while he was on the roof working. Chad seeing his Sawzall on the deck opened the gate, walked in the yard and picked up the Sawzall and putting it under his shirt turned to leave. Sam from the roof saw him and called after him, “hey man, please don’t take my tools, I use them to make my livelihood and I need them to do my work.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chad replied as he cradled the Sawzall under his shirt.
“I just saw you pick up my saw and put it under your shirt,” Sam said. “I can see the electric cord dangling out from under your shirt.”
“I didn’t steal your saw,” Chad said, “here, you can have my shirt.” And he took off his shirt wrapping the Sawzall in it and going back out the gate walked quickly down the street.
Sam working on the front porch of our house.
We didn’t see Chad for almost a year and a half after that. Then one day, we were having a party on the porch at the Mackin building and a sober Chad walked by. Shawn saw him and invited him onto the porch. Chad was ashamed to come hang out with us. His last interaction had been with Sam and the Sawzall. Chad started to apologize to Shawn, but Shawn stopped him and said, “you know, Sam is here at this party. It would really bless me if you apologized to him.” Shawn called Sam over, and Chad apologized. Sam gave him a hug and forgave him. A wonderful picture of restoration in the kingdom.
Love can take many forms, sometimes it’s bailing a grandma out of jail, sometimes its confronting someone stealing from you, sometimes it is asking for and giving forgiveness. Especially given the events of this past week in Louisville, we need to really take the time to seek out ways to love one another and understand that love might not look like what we think it should, or what would make us feel better. The events of this week call us to love each other more, all of us, only then will we start to see the kingdom of heaven and push all darkness away.
Inga
While our 1,000 neighbors giving $25 a month campaign has officially ended, we are still looking for partners to help sponsor students at Mighty Oak Academy. If you can join in and partner with us please click the link below.
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