While at NU, God called me to street ministry with the homeless in Evanston.  After graduation I moved in with a guy from our church and soon had an "open couch" ministry.  A bunch of guys off the street would come and sleep on couches in my apartment.  A young man who was living in his car when I met him got a job and became my second room mate.  To make a living I worked mind-numbing temp jobs at Northwestern and was a substitute teacher in the Chicago public school system. I was sent to neighborhoods all over the city and got a first row look at what youth in Chicago were dealing with.  Pretty soon, we had moved to the top floor of our three flat, and a single mom had moved into the first floor. An African Immigrant family lived on the second floor.  The single mom had a huge family who lived int eh communit- many of them were involved with the gang.  Her daughters would come up for homework help, to use the landline (no cell phone, yet) and we became like a family. They came to church, came to our housegroup. She was a loving mom she knew Jesus, but one night she confessed to me in tears that she was addicted to crack and was scared of what it was doing to her.  Thank God I was being mentored at the time by a 2nd generation urban pastor named Brian Bakke.  I was on mission and I was getting hands on training.  I was invoved at an outreach church in the North of Howard neighborhood through the Evanston Vineyard and worked the Monday night meal at Uptown Baptists Church.  Pretty soon, I started a ministry making movies with kids out of an after school program a couple from the outreach church had started.   

 

 

 

 

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