Our church is in part 3 of the 6-week series on the book of Nehemiah “Rebuild”. Our guest speaker for tonight is Bill Staffieri, Lead Pastor of Beach Point Church (on Magnolia north of Slater). Bill has been a resident of Fountain Valley all his life. He took on the job as the Lead Pastor of the church in 2009 after serving there as a youth pastor for 17 years prior.
But for today’s assignment, did you have a chance to pray-walk in our neighborhood yet (and take a picture of anything symbolizing broken walls and broken lives around us)?
If you did please share a photo of what you see (and optionally post it on the web site too).
Every morning I go to a donut shop on the corner of Bushard and Warner for my Hazelnut black coffee before my devotion. Lynn is the Cambodian owner who I invited to our Easter streaming last year. She is not curious about Christianity much because she has been growing up in Buddhism. But whenever her TV malfunctioned, it would tune to a mute Joel Osteen because that was all the signal it could get. Recently her drive-through window was vandalized by taggers. The graffiti was made with a strong chemical paint which burned into the plexiglass and she could not take them off.
What would it be like if she comes to know the Savior and be a part of the community at RP?
As I was doing my walk, I was observing and feeling a lot of things when I was intentionally thinking about each of the places I visited. Firstly, when I was walking out of my neighborhood, I got this sense of sadness because although here in Irvine, on the outside, it seems as if people are thriving and are successful, I really wonder how my neighbors are really doing and what their story is. It’s weird because from the way it’s built and the city my neighborhood is in, it would seem like there is this unity, yet I feel so isolated from those even living nearby me. I don’t know who they are and everyone tends to keep to themselves. Is it bad that I don’t mind not putting myself out there?
Secondly, I passed by one of the elementary schools I attended and felt this sense of brokenness relating to some of my own experiences and also knowing there are other children who are dealing with a lot internally. On the outside, I see the playground and I imagined the kids playing on there, but I also was envisioning how there may be kids there who are going through really tough circumstances like their parents’ divorce, abuse within the home, alcoholism, feeling misunderstood, being bullied, etc.
Thirdly, I was passing by the park by my house and I saw the mountains in the background of the park. Even though the park I live nearby is beautiful, I was reminded that each person has probably experienced a mountain in their life that they have yet to overcome, have overcome, or will have to overcome in the future. I felt this sense of determination yet also this feeling of defeat, knowing how some people are self-motivated to overcome their hurdles and some have lost that hope but my ultimate desire for these people living here in this city would be that they would know that they do not have to overcome this life alone without Christ in the center. It truly is a lonely and unsatisfying life without Him.
After 10 years living in my neighborhood, I feel I have not done a good job of reaching out to my neighbors. I’ve wrestled with sadness and regret because we have not reached out to the neighbor next door to our left. Their oldest kid is at least 4-5 years younger than Timmy, so the age gap made it hard for the kids to play together when they were younger. Our busyness also plays a big part in not reaching out to them. Real neighbor love requires sacrifice and real intentions. We cannot love our neighbors if we do not know them. I will make an effort to get it on my calendar this year to do something fun for my neighbor or neighborhood. I will also pray for my neighbors and as a family, we will find a creative way to reach out to the neighbor next door to our left.
This is a photo of where I’ve been studying for the past few days for hours on end, and as I’ve been studying here, I’ve noticed some broken walls in my community at UCSD. Those broken walls being how people’s “one-thing” or the thing that they have been singularly focused on has been academics, and because of that I’ve seen people get burnt out and come out of school feeling empty and dissatisfied. They have built their walls with academics and accolades and their intellect and those walls are not able to withstand what walls are meant for.
From brother Don
This is a picture of the outside of my next door neighbor’s house. It is meant to symbolize the brokenness of the family living there. When I first moved in, it was the mom, her two kids, and the grandmother. The grandmother passed away a little over a year ago. The mother seems to have some challenges of her own, and does not work. She has many people in and out of the home, and just seems to be a bit lacking in her parenting ability. She is nice though, amd very talkative. Since I’ve lived here, my heart has gone out to her children- a girl about 10 years old now and a boy who is about 6. They are sweet kids. The girls has speech difficulties, and the boy is always eager for attention. I suppose to me this picture would symbolize the broken home.
I did not have a chance to prayer walk around my neighborhood but if i were to walk around the picture i would take to represent the broken walls would be a picture of the freeway construction on Brookhurst to be a representation of the broken walls around us.
As I was doing my walk, I was observing and feeling a lot of things when I was intentionally thinking about each of the places I visited. Firstly, when I was walking out of my neighborhood, I got this sense of sadness because although here in Irvine, on the outside, it seems as if people are thriving and are successful, I really wonder how my neighbors are really doing and what their story is. It’s weird because from the way it’s built and the city my neighborhood is in, it would seem like there is this unity, yet I feel so isolated from those even living nearby me. I don’t know who they are and everyone tends to keep to themselves. Is it bad that I don’t mind not putting myself out there?
Secondly, I passed by one of the elementary schools I attended and felt this sense of brokenness relating to some of my own experiences and also knowing there are other children who are dealing with a lot internally. On the outside, I see the playground and I imagined the kids playing on there, but I also was envisioning how there may be kids there who are going through really tough circumstances like their parents’ divorce, abuse within the home, alcoholism, feeling misunderstood, being bullied, etc.
Thirdly, I was passing by the park by my house and I saw the mountains in the background of the park. Even though the park I live nearby is beautiful, I was reminded that each person has probably experienced a mountain in their life that they have yet to overcome, have overcome, or will have to overcome in the future. I felt this sense of determination yet also this feeling of defeat, knowing how some people are self-motivated to overcome their hurdles and some have lost that hope but my ultimate desire for these people living here in this city would be that they would know that they do not have to overcome this life alone without Christ in the center. It truly is a lonely and unsatisfying life without Him.
I see here a brokenness of a social living. In this street one must be very careful driving through it. Here is a Mexican gang, LMS’s “turf”. There has been Asian that were jumped by this Mexican gang here. There has also been gunshots heard here from time to time. Police patrol this area quite heavily and in a blacked out style. The patrol car has its lights turned off and the officer just slowly cruises through the streets at night. Just to be able to catch drug exchanges, potential robberies, fights, etc. The brokenness here is the way of life, where one must cautious when going through. I pray to be able to suppress this and clean up these areas.
I havent had the chance to walk around yet. But I always hated the way my neighborhood (mobile home) was built. I find dangerous that the drivers and pedestrians share the same street (they have no where to walk). This broken set up is extremely dangerous. It’s also dangerous backing out of our houses because sometimes the pedestrians can be in our blind spots.
Another example (this time a little more relevant to the question) I find the buddist statues and false gods to be weird. There is also a mentally challenged man who runs around my neighborhood creating chaos. He’s not all there in the head, so he would often make abrupt noises. But yeah I think that addresses the question about broken lives and community.