Diane and I just celebrated our one-year anniversary (actually it was in February, but who’s counting?) of moving into the neighborhood of Vine City and it has caused me to reflect back on what God has done this year in our hearts and in the neighborhood around us.  We moved here from Peoplestown, which is a neighborhood with a similar socio-economic landscape of Vine City located just south of Turner Field and one of the biggest reasons we decided to move to Vine City from Peoplestown was the opportunity to live in an inner-city neighborhood alongside other Christians.  To be perfectly honest, we had gotten lonely in Peoplestown and missed the body of Christ.  There were so many needs that we could clearly see, but as two people, we were unable to even come close to meeting these needs.  There were other Christians doing great things in the community, but there was a deep lack of people living in the community and seeking to love their neighbor.  Also, we wanted to intentionally engage in community with Christians who had a heart to be the hands and feet of Christ to their direct community.  I could feel myself becoming hardened and quickly forgetting that the motivation to love can’t be mustered up, but must come from realizing my own need for Jesus and we needed people who were willing and able to push us back to God’s love and repentance.
So, we made the plunge and bought a little Werther’s (or in my wife’s words, “puke brown”) colored house on the hill on Sunset Avenue, right in the heart of Vine City.  There was already a couple, Joel and Carol George, living down the street and in the few months following our move-in, more folks from Trinity, as well as believers from other churches, also bought or rented houses nearby.  Since moving in, our prayers for a deeper community with believers have begun to be answered in an overwhelming way.  Just a few days after we closed on the house, we had a “paint party” and for 3 days our home was filled with friends and family painting practically every square inch (including the scary black and red room that my little cousin seriously suggested we should just board up and forget about) beautiful shades of blues, greens, yellows, and browns.  Since moving in, we have been able to walk to friends’ houses and share meals, pray together, confess struggles with, and live life alongside each other and it has been a glorious thing.  We have had the opportunity to meet and become friends with amazing folks from the neighborhood, some of which have lived here for 40+ years!  They have welcomed us into their homes and we have shared meals together in our house as well.
There have been plenty of ups and downs, joyful moments and heartbreaking situations, but God has continued to give us our “daily bread” and this is more than enough.  We have been overwhelmingly humbled by how welcoming folks from the neighborhood have been.  Most of our neighbors were living in Atlanta, some living in Vine City, during the Civil Rights Era and endured an unbelievable amount of hate from white people who looked a lot like me.  They have shown so much grace and love to welcome us into our neighborhood to the point where our next-door neighbors, whose kids grew up playing with Dr. King’s children, refer to us as their “grandchildren.”  We look forward to taking walks in the evenings to visit neighbors as they relax on their front porch.  God has been gracious to provide so much relational trust between us, as well plenty of other folks from the church, and the people from Vine City.
One of the most exciting parts about the past year has been how God has connected folks from the neighborhood to Trinity.  Soon after we moved, some of our neighbors became interested in coming to church with us, but we had a difficult time organizing a carpool.  Therefore, we got together with some other people from church and decided to hold a weekly pancake breakfast at our house and invite anyone from the church or the neighborhood who wanted to come.  This has proven to be a great avenue to relationally connect people from church with Vine City and it has been amazing to watch people from the neighborhood (primarily youth) become a part of Trinity.  Just last week, I was coming back from a softball game with one of the kids and he looked at me and said, “I love church, I feel like I get to see all of my friends every Sunday!”  This made me so thankful for the opportunity they get to hear the Good News of the gospel every week in kid’s church and to be welcomed into the family of Christ by the church.  Through the hard work of Katie Rigby and Cheryl Case, a mentor program has been set up and a number of the youth from the neighborhood have been paired with a guy or girl from Trinity who is relationally invested in the neighborhood.  It has been a joy to watch the kids’ faces light up when they talk about their mentors and see God’s love lived out in the commitment these mentors have to the children of this neighborhood and their families. 
We are so thankful for the opportunity to live in Vine City and see the church connect to the neighborhood, understand the needs of Vine City and then seek to effectively meet those needs.  There have been plenty of hardships (tough relationships, heartbreaking family situations, burglaries, etc.), but God has consistently reminded us of his commitment and love for us and this is what spurs Christians on to love and remain committed to seeing “His kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.”