FROM AFRICA TO LOVE CITY...
Back in the early days of open gym, we had over 175 kids a night coming to the Mackin building to hang out and play ball. It was loud, boisterous, sometimes contentious when games didn’t go their way, but there was always a lot of love in the building. One evening an acquaintance we had met who worked for Catholic Charities Refugee program showed up with a large family that had recently arrived from a Tanzania refugee camp. It was a mom and dad and their six children, 5 boys and one girl. They were from Congo originally and had been living in the refugee camp in Tanzania for the past 15 years. Their oldest son, Sadiki, was only 17, so almost all the kids had only known life in a refugee camp. They ranged in age from 17 to 5. The Catholic charities worker thought it would be good for the kids to come to the gym to meet new friends.
They had just rented the family a house further down on 26th street and the Mackin was within walking distance. As the kids looked around, apprehensive at going into the gym and trying out basketball, I had an idea. I went into the gym, had all the basketball kids move over to one side and set up two small indoor soccer goals someone had just randomly donated to us the week before on the other side. I grabbed a soccer ball from the ball closet and headed back to the lobby. “Who wants to play football?” I said holding up the soccer ball. Immediately 6 small heads whipped around and stared wide eyed at me. Two seconds later there was a lively game of 3 on 3 soccer happening on one side of the gym.
Raziki, Jafi Jr and Willoja playing soccer in the gym before it was renovated in 2018.
The family settled into their house down the street, and we would occasionally see them walking back and forth to the store or waiting for the bus for school. They didn’t really come back to the gym to play, until one day, the mom and dad, Jafi and Zaina along with their oldest son Sadiki showed up in front of the Mackin building seriously upset. Shawn had been sitting in the front office when he noticed their car pull up out front on 26th St. Sadiki came to the door asking for help. Shawn went out to see what the problem was. Immediately he noticed the dark black spray paint scrawled all over the side of the white SUV. Jafi and Ziana were animatedly talking in Swahili, of which Shawn knew two words, hello and thank you, from multiple trips to Kenya. Sadiki was clearly there to translate but his English was still developing so communication was difficult. Then Zaina said something Shawn recognized as French, and he immediately sent someone to get me. I spoke enough French to have rudimentary conversations, so when I arrived on the scene it took a minute or two for me to understand the speed and dialect of French Zaina was speaking. Through Sadiki’s English, and my French we were able to piece together what had happened. The spray paint on the car was not the first time that had happened. Their new neighbors down the street had not been very welcoming. The kids were afraid to catch the bus to school, they were being harassed every time they walked anywhere, and they didn’t know what else to do. Even though they had only met us once, they felt like they could come to us for help.
Jafi and Zaina's daughter Raziki participating in the first Ribbons and Blues.
We were able to calm them down, and the next day we went to visit them at their house. It was a camelback shotgun house that was too small for their large family of 8. The past month we had been praying about what to do with a house across the street from the Makcin building. It was a large two story 4 bedroom house and we had received offers to sell it but just didn’t feel right about it. We had even entered into a contract to sell the house and the next day we were supposed to go to closing. We left Jafi and Zaina and called the purchaser to let them know, we weren’t going to be able to sell them the house, closing was off. We returned to Jafi and Zaina’s house the next day, and offered them the house across from the Mackin to rent. We took them on a tour, explained that we would be right across the street at the Mackin and we would make sure no one would harass them. We offered them $450 a month in rent, which was substantially lower than the $700 they were paying for a smaller house. A week later we signed the lease and they moved in across the street. With the lower rent Zaina could now afford to stay home, they were able to get a new car and start living securely. The house they rented happened to be next door to one of our greenhouses. Zaina asked if she could garden in the yard at the house. “Of course,” we said, and the next thing we knew, she had hand tilled up the entire back yard and turned it into a corn field. The younger kids now got into the habit of coming over to the Mackin regularly to play soccer, either in the yard on the side of the building, or when it was cold or raining, in the gym.
Oldest son Sadiki preparing pork butts at Porkland.
Later that first winter they lived in the house, they called and said their heat wasn’t working. It was the coldest week of the winter so far and they were freezing. Shawn went over to look at the furnace and see what was up. He opened the basement cellar door and stepped onto the first step into water. The entire basement was full of about 7 feet of water. He immediately went out to the street and shut off the water. There had to be a leak somewhere. We called some friends and borrowed some pumps and started pumping the water out of the basement. But the water just didn’t seem to go down. We brought more pumps, finally the water started to recede, but it wouldn’t go down past about 2 feet of water. We were able to wade into the basement, and noticed water coming through the side of the wall closest to the house next door. The house next door had been vacant for a long time. When Shawn pulled up the water meter cover at the house, it was spinning. We shut the water off at the street and were finally able to get the basement dry. Both the furnace and the hot water heater at Jafi and Zaina’s house were in the basement and had been submerged in 7 feet of water. Amazingly we fired up the hot water heater and it came back to life. The furnace, however, was completely dead, there was no resurrecting it.
We brought as many space heaters as we could find over to Jafi and Zaina. They were from Africa, so their furnace going out on the coldest week of the year was the worst-case scenario. We had another house we were getting ready to rent that had a furnace that we could switch over to Jafi and Zaina’s house, but Shawn didn’t feel like that was the right call. He prayed and we waited. Two days went by, then it was 4 days, on the 5th day, Shawn got a call from a local manager of Trane. They had some extra furnaces and wanted to know if we could use one. Well, we could use one. Shawn told them the story of Jafi and Zaina, and Trane arranged to send down the furnace the next day. The Trane rep also had a contact with an installer, who he called himself and arranged for the installer to come down and install the furnace. The installer was so moved by the story while he was installing the furnace, he now has done almost all of the HVAC work in all of Love City’s buildings.
Over the years the family settled into their new life in America and in the community. Sadiki, the oldest, worked at Porkland for almost 2 years after school and during the summer. When he got accepted to college on a soccer scholarship and couldn’t work at Porkland anymore, he could hardly get the words out through the tears, he was so sorry to leave and didn’t want to let us down, after everything we had done for his family. Jafi and Zaina became leaders in the Congolese community in the United States. They asked us if they could use the church building at St Cecilia for a national Congolese conference. A couple years after they moved in across the street they welcomed their 6th child a boy they named James, because he was American. This past month, Sadiki came to bring the rent to Shawn and let him know they were moving out. They had saved enough money to purchase a 6 bedroom house in the south end off dixie highway. They had lived across the street from the Mackin for 5 years. I took a picture of Sadiki and Shawn when he came to return our truck they borrowed to finish moving. We’re truly grateful to have been their neighbors and their friends these last 5 years, and we’re excited to see what the future has for Jafi, Zaina, Sadiki, Bwami, Raziki, Jafi Jr. Willoja, and James.
It's still Lent and we still have fish! Come by and grab some fish today for lunch or dinner!
2519 St Cecilia St
Monday - Thursday 11am - 2pm
Friday 11am - 7pm
www.porklandbbq.com
This coming Tuesday at 6pm at Porkland BBQ. We are having a public meeting to go over the zoning changes for 26th st in order for us to create a pre school in the neighborhood. If you are available and can come we would love to have your support !
Porkland BBQ
6pm
Tuesday April 12
PARTNER WITH US
At Love City we believe in time, talent and treasure.
Mighty Oak Academy Amazon Wish List
We've started the new semester and our supplies of snacks and breakfast items are running low. You can find some on our Amazon wish list, but if you make a grocery run or Sam's club/Costco run and can pick up an extra box of any of the following we would appreciate it!
Granola bars
Yogurt cups or GoGurt
cereal
Veggie Straws
Goldfish/CheezIts
If you would like to partner with the school, you can visit our Amazon wish list and purchase items to ship directly to the school. Visit this link to view the list: https://a.co/77dqBIT
If you are interested in volunteering or to find out more information about supplies needed please email: info@lovecityinc.org or call (502) 272-078.
Please consider partnering financially with Love City. We are looking for sponsors for students at Mighty Oak Academy as well as partners to help fund construction of our new preschool. Click the button below to donate today.