Over the last 6 months we have had over 50 shootings and 15 murders in Little Village. Things are rough, but the work goes on! On March 1st, we will be taking the Urban Life Skills Program to Sydney Australia! We have a great friend there who is getting married. A group of 4 of us (Matt and Sarah DeMateo, Art Guerrero, and Vince Torres) will be going to Sydney for 2 weeks. However, the wedding is only the grand finale of our trip. We are going to speak at a variety of different churches, missions groups, and also meeting with high end donors who may be interested in supporting the ULS work in Chicago. This trip is to push the vision and mission of ULS to many donors who have already given thousands of dollars to ULS! By meeting with them in person we are hoping to expand our relationship and see a strong prayer and financial support team built! We need YOU to help get us there. We have had over $4000 donated to make this trip happen. We need to raise $2000 to get the whole team there. We will all be sharing testimonies, pictures, and casting the vision for what God is doing in Chicago. We are asking for 80 people to give $25 to help us get there...would you join us? By signing up as an attender, you are saying you are willing to donate $25. We will send you the link on how to donate the money. For more info on the program go to www.urbanlifeskills.org

I have never before witnessed a party like this. Just before Christmas, I was invited to attend the celebration at New Life Centers - Little Village. At a time of year when gatherings abound, this party was set apart by its guest list. This party was for members of the Urban Life Skills program: youth involved in the Latin Kings street gang, placed on probation and court-ordered to attend this gang-intervention program. Each ULS youth was invited to bring their family. Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, babies--all were welcomed free of charge. Over 200 ULS youth and their families attended that beautiful night. The party was fit for kings. Catered meals, served to your table. Professional family photographs for all. 200-person BINGO. Desserts galore. Food left over. A gift for each youth. A gift for each family. A gift for each child sibling and cousin. Food for each family. Another gift for each family. More gifts for each youth. Toasts and blessings, and then turkeys for each family and a brand-new bed for one grand prize winner. By the end of the evening, families taking the bus would have had trouble getting it all home. The grace of it was staggering. Gang-involved youth--those who had turned their lives around and those who hadn't--heaped up with gift after gift. Surrounded with friends, family, mentors, and the vicarious good wishes of dozens of donors. In a city plagued with youth violence, these young offenders were for a moment simply loved. Blessed. Appreciated. Gifted. In a world where each of us is valued by our merit--our work quality, our timeliness, our social skills, our follow-through--it is a welcome glimpse of God to witness pure, unadulterated grace. As I left, I could think of only two things: a background song playing that evening-- "He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane... O! How He loves us!" --and a single, grateful prayer: "Lord, as you welcome these Kings who come to You, welcome me."

The fancy name for them is non-reciprocal transactions: gifts given to a nonprofit where the giver receives nothing in return. It is astounding to me how many generous ones bless us with non-reciprocal transactions: time, finances, supplies. On behalf of our children, our families, our staff, our future participants, thank you. Thank you to the organizations who supported our organization when it was so small that if you blinked, you'd miss it. Thank you to the givers who increase their generosity when the economy turns sour. Thank you to everyone who provides Spanish tutoring for kids' bilingual homework. Thank you to the youth groups that give us one week to change their outlook on life forever. Thank you to the schools that bring us into their classrooms to help our kids. Thank you to every college student who recruits his friends to come help. Thank you to the partners who load their dogs into their cars every week to come read to our kids. Thank you to the grantors who maximize their allowable amounts to bless us as generously as possible. Thank you to the staff who forego benefits and higher salaries to become "family" to our kids. Thank you to the church that lifts us to a higher level. To all those dear ones who make it possible for a child to call her after-school teacher "mama," thank you.

One of our wonderful ministry partners provides us with donations to give away: bags of food, blankets, hygiene products. The donations are to be given with listening conversation, humble kindness, and open sharing about the Christian faith. The vision is that the gift will open a relationship with the recipient, and that relationship might lead to the recipient to fullness of life. There is a hotel near New Life-Humboldt Park, which also happens to be near my home. The hotel is a home for transients, frequently-homeless folk, persons with disabilities, and recovering addicts. The corner near this hotel is so fraught with prostitution that any woman simply crossing the street there is frequently thought to be "working." We know dear ones with disabilities who have chosen to live in an abandoned house rather than stay in this hotel. That said, the hotel looks like a Jesus-place to me: the place where Christ would have eaten and preached and perhaps stayed the night. It looked like a perfect place to serve a warm breakfast, deliver gifts of warmth and hygiene, and meet people who could become new friends. Tonight, my neighbor approached the innkeeper for me to inquire about renting a hall to fix breakfast and deliver gifts to her residents. She turned us down on all counts, asserting that she limited donations or giveaways as "dehumanizing." She wanted to have her residents keep their dignity. The Christian Community Development Association espouses this same principle, which I believe holds merit. CCDA states: "All people have inherited dignity by being created in the image of God. Oftentimes, charity demeans a person and strips him or her of dignity. The last principle of empowerment affirms a person's God-given dignity" (http://www.ccda.org/philosophy). Relief, CCDA asserts, is overused. What is needed is development: equipping individuals to provide for and lead themselves. While I believe this concept at a CCDA conference, applying it to this particular hotel is giving me pause. What is more dehumanizing than prostitution? What is more humanizing than sitting down to have breakfast alongside another person? How could a breakfast full of love and giving possibly make life as a hotel resident worse? Can't a kind breakfast be the start of a life of empowerment? I leave you with www.ccda.org, the book When Helping Hurts, and your own experiences. When you come to an answer, don't keep it to yourself.