Something I wrote to a guy from...

I wrote this to a local News Reporter who was looking into ways to help our friend, Chris Challis, who lived and died with us last year. I wrote this while Chris was alive and in need of living and grocery help.

I am still convinced that a clean place to live, and generous financial relief--relief from the stress of "where'll I eat?" and "how'll I survive?"-- would have produced a cleaner exit for our guy Chris.
You may know that Chris got back into the street life and got shot, shortly after pushing off the church here. He was under tremendous pressure from our local drug mafia thuggie guys. They would literally bust into his apartment. He relied on help from some local folks who used him despicably.

Chris was a fool. But he was God's kid. I miss him. About this time last year, he was making candles and talking crazy in my kitchen... Next month will be year one since his passing.

Here's what I wrote:

Hey M,

Thanks for the chance to talk, this morning. I'm interested in continuing the conversation. I would like to contradict myself. I kept telling you "it's nothing personal" as I called out the things that the churches in Cincinnati must repent of in order to live the Life.
I disagree with myself, now.

Helping, being friends and family with Christians who are "lost sheep", or not even Christians, yet... is very very "personally" important to Jesus. He has very deep personal interest in how his followers, those who are called by his name, "Christian", relate to/love their brethren who are "poor" and "lost sheep".

I know there are many different poverties in this world, but there is ample scriptural material available to prod us into a special sensitivity toward those who are believers, whose lives have been destroyed by physical lack, sickness, jail time, hunger, disability... Past foolishness and sin... You get it.

It is my belief that Jesus is personally concerned with how we, His people by name, embody his teaching...embody HIM to a world so devoid of a clear understanding of him.

In fact, today we heard about the "death of religion". (the church we were at had a series on called The Death of Religion)

"Religion" is a word to describe that false community construct that destroys love and squeezes the life out of belief. This kind of "Religion" is called "Christianity" but might be better called "Americana", "Nice-ianity", or "Church-ianity".

There is, however, a true sense in which the word "Religion" can be used to describe Life in Christ. The life of belief is found in obedient action. Action that reflects a heart of worship. Action that honors the person of Jesus. James says that "faith without works is dead". He also says that "...pure religion and spotless is this: that you care for orphans and widows in their distress, and keep yourselves from being polluted by the world."

Our Ignorance--Our constant ignoring of our neighbors and brethren--while claiming to "Reach" our city, is leaving our poor, disabled, disadvantaged, imprisoned brethren in the grinder. Our neglect of the values that Jesus imparted to us has caused the world around us to scorn God as we continue to live a "form of religion" that "denies the true power" of God. Take a good look at our new, multi-milllion dollar meeting place, while we struggle to redeem a struggling brother from the poverty that has so deeply marred his life...

This is all just basic Bible.
And it's deeply personal, to Jesus.

Romans 12 commands us to "associate with the lowly". I think that we're on the edge of a movement where people awaken to the power of their extra rooms and dining rooms... The power of their lives... The power of love...

Surely the Father of Jesus hasn't "REACHED" the world. He has LOVED it. He has GIVEN to it his only son. We who claim to "reach" should read again. And we are reading again, finding great power in fearless love.

A lot of people are ready for the next step, to discover Jesus among the poor--to befriend jesus, among the poor, the lost, and their neighbors.

What did Jesus do? He came down. We are to come down, too.

So, you see, it's personal, but it's not only to you and me, or chris challis. It's ultimately about Jesus, himself. All of this is personal to Him. So let's not be afraid to offend each other. Let's be afraid to offend Jesus.

I misspoke. It is all deeply personal.

Love in Christ,

Lew Ross

Prepping to Paint

Struggling to get TAPE on the corners and start the trim work today so that our peeps can paint this weekend. Cutting a piece of wood to cover the stained glass window, to prevent tragic mishaps, too... Working on a stairwell with a 22 foot ceiling makes it tricky to get tape on all the corners... There will be some i just can't get to... big deal. They'll be rolling with a pole on those areas, so I doubt that I'd be able to hand detail it anyway, without being able to reach it with a ladder...

No biggie... just want you to know what that's like...

Getting my mac back online, the last 2 days. There's been a lot of reloading my softwares: Quicken, Quicktime pro, mail, iCal, Music, ipods... I've gotten it all reloaded and am up and going... The new hard drive is twice as fast as the old one, and 20 gigs bigger.

For a 200 dollar salvage computer, I've wound up with a powerful machine... This has worked out pretty well.

Tin Snips

Light snow this morning. It's been such a mild winter that our heating bill has been a lot lower. Frankly, every year we live here (we're in the middle of year 3) it gets less expensive.

Unless I consider that the house is, though surely not "falling apart", in need of repairs. Surely you tire of hearing about that.

Let me tell you something else... The Trues: David, Sarah, and Kadin (8), have moved in. They live in the "Guys' house". The guys all moved out a few months ago. There were about 4 guys over there, plus a visitor or person in need of ministry or shelter, until about November 15th. Now David and Sarah are trying to buy the whole place. Danielmatt, Christine and Kai (just a lil guy) live on floor 1, and have no plans to move. Danilematt is full-time at UC, full-time at Starbucks, hoping to be made a manager, and a first-time dad. For their third year of marriage, they're carrying a heavy load.

Please pray for all the young married folks, here. We've had 3 weddings here since... well let's see... Jp and prari married in April. Chris and Sheena in October... David and Sarah in January... So, we've had 3 weddings since October...
Since Dad weiss moved to VA, there isn't much of an age spread here, now. Everybody's a college grad with crushing school debt, not a lot of practical skills--like fixing cars or electrical work or plumbing or carpentry-- and service jobs. MOst of our folks work at starbucks. They offer health insurance at an affordable rate...

If I weren't mister Momming all the time, I'd get me some good shoes and be a barista, too. Contentment with a daily job is a high Christian aspiration...

Most of our folks were castoffs from church, existing at the fringe of American Church LIfe, or just plain not-at-all-Christians, just three years ago... So we're rich in the testimony of Jesus! Sitting in a meeting here is incredibly real and deep. We are blown away by God's grace, everyday.

ordinary folks
deeply loved
by Jesus...

We're not heroes, driving 4x4s around, fixing everything with cool tools... we'd cut our fingers off... In fact, as the most skilled laborer here, I've personally severed the water lines of my house with a saw, intending to open a simple hole... Love that Reciprocating Saw, though.

So pray with us in this neighborhood. pray that we see. Pray that we love. That we trust... and please Father.

Three Years of Blogging!

I just looked at that Napolean Dynamite clip and the archives on the side go back to March of 2003! Wow! I'll have been blogging Lewminator for Three years, in March! I consider this a Number One way to share life with you.

Soon, I'll have business Cards printed up with my blogs on them.

tuesday in January

This Tuesday in January, we're supposed to get snow all night tonight. I've been watching a lot of "24", lately, and my 12-yr. 0ld is driving me crazy. He's... He's... He's all the stuff in me I'm afraid to look at.

the five-year old keeps asking to go to Eli's house. Eli moved with his family to live in California, over a year ago. It's hard to explain. But I keep at it... Now he's only asking every hour or so.

Fiver and I went to a house--the house of my friend who moved to Delaware, at whose present residence Twelver (not a reference to Shia Islam) broke both his arms this summer. DelaFriend let me pillage his old stuff from his basement, since it was all left behind in their move. I got a couple of stepladders and an old drill, and a lot of screws and gas cans...

I saw gas for a dollar-eighty-nine today! Maybe I should take the four new gas cans over there (I got two more without caps) and fill them up for such a cheap price...

Hey, I heard Ethanol is the new energy push. Much lower gas mileage. Like a LOT lower mileage. Not really cheaper. And what happens to the car? How does a weak fuel impact wear? Maybe favorably.

I heard a little blip on the news the other day. Corn is getting harder to grow, of all things. Drought. They say a couple more dry seasons like we've been having and we'll experience a serious corn problem.
Does anyone remember The Vision, by David Wilkerson? I do. Something really stuck. It was about unimaginable shortages of things like corn. Could you imagine that? Wheat and Corn breaking our banks? It sticks in me. Let's watch for it...

So the new energy push is corn. Not so much cleaner to produce, either... Kind of half-arsed... Classic... well, it seems presently that we have a lot of corn, so let's go with it...

...and bury our jewelry...

Ladders and stuff...

Today I went to a house and picked up a ton of unwanted tools.
...two old ladders and a bunch of rollers and painting stuff...
...brooms and some old gas cans...

all of it was stuff we can really use.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of old circular saws and whatnot from another garage. All of this is from people moving.

Giving me your old tools enables us to get stuff done, here. Does anyone have a router? A wet saw? we have old moldings to repair, and tile to lay. I know some folks who can lend, but they're also contractors, and can't lend to US, because we're so SLOW.

You see, around here, we have to piece it in around jobs, and we don't know how to do it right, so we do it twice...

One of the biggest gifts is really your time and skill, though.

Supplies

During the course of the year we've gotten a lot of questions about what kind of help we need, here. Thanks to all who are interested in helping us establish Christian Community here in N-side.

As you may know, there are two hot commodities in our life here: Time and Money.
Some say time is money, but I find time priceless. Most of our time here is spent working at jobs to pay bills. After hours, most of our people are involved with their spouses or families. Among the Grubbykupp crew, there are NO skilled laborers, and we're almost all young marrieds, or just had a first kid, so we're overwhelmed with the goodnesses of job and family.

You can see that major projects like Roofs, Boilers, and such are almost impossible to pull together.
I personally (Lew) taught a brother how to hammer a nail, last summer! Most of our folks have never weilded tools in any direction, so any repair projects go slowly, even though I have a good bit of experience with handy-ness. In fact, it's downright unsafe to have most of our folks using saws.

One time we had a painting project done in community, and a couple of us stayed up till 2am fixing it, lest it set as it was.

My point?
We need skilled people's Time.
We need Supplies and Money. Supplies are better.

Is there anyone out there who wants to buy some roof?
... a boiler?
Electrical stuff?

Is there a roofer who's up to a 10/12 job?
...ripping off the box gutters?

Is there an electrician who wants to really do this thing?

Retired guys?
...anyone?

Bueller?

I got a friend from a half-hour north who's willing to help with our trees. Anyone got a chipper? we need a chipper. You can't do a brushpile in the city. Too many possums, raccoons and skunks'll live in it.

Food for prayer and thought.

Citizens arrest

you know what? in December, a neighbor kid had an intruder in his house, so he ran to our house and we called the police. they searched with guns drawn and didn't find anyone. they told us to go on in. I went in with another guy from our community who has asked to remain nameless. we searched, ourselves, and when we got to the top floor and peeked in a crawlspace, there was a funny "lump" under the fiberglass insulation. I lifted up a corner with a small stick from a broken chair, and there lay a GROWN MAN.
No kidding. a MAN was under it. His first words? "I was only kidding around. I wasn't really going to hurt the kid."

One thing you learn around here is that the first thing people say in a situation like that is not the truth.

So we had to wait almost another 30 minutes for the police to come back. The guy stayed for a while, but then he wanted to leave, so we had to kind of restrain him. He asked me, "What's a preacher doin' arrestin' folks?"

Well, what am I doing?

In November I called in a drive-by and they got the guy off my description of make and model. At least 14 shots fired and all i had to hide behind was a hot cup of chai i had just made...

What is the cost of being a Christian? How do we decide how we live? What is making the decisions in our lives? Where is the wind blowing?

update; monday morning

a LOT is going on. I'm sorry if i haven't returned your phonecalls (erwin) I'm getting to it...

it's like unburying myself, daily, while herding cats. and i love it.

I thank God for all of you who keep up with us.

THE BOILER: Holding. I patch it periodically with more cement, and our house is equipped with a warning for CO. I won't worry about replacing it until it stops working, or our CO detector beeps a lot...

THE ROOF:
Still a problem. The gutters have sticky-patch on most of the holes (the ones I found). I listened this morning to the drop-drop of water sitting in the gutters, finding its way into the walls over the Stairway window... There's snow up there, melting down, you know.
I haven't made any final decisions yet, but repairing Box gutters at 100 dollars a foot is challenging to my faith and mind...
Please pray...

ELECTICAL ISSUES:
A third floor socket burned up. two inches of the wire had its insulation burned off. Our electrical system needs to be replaced. I am opting for a quick spring rewire, hopefully after a roof replacement. Maybe I'll tear off the box gutters, eh?
I'd like to rewire with exposed conduit, like so many of the stores and coffee shops around us. It's not bad looking witha good paint job, and the speed at which we can do it is incredible.

Our "resale value" will be heavily impacted if we rip off the box gutters and rewire with exposed conduit, but this house isn't about real estate adn making a buck. It's about Jesus, and PEOPLE, and love.

I'm grateful for all who read this and join in prayer with us...

7am Monday...

thanks, everyone, for checking out this blog so often. Thanks as well for the encouragement to keep posting.

Things are GREAT around the house. We're stripping walls and prepping to paint. I'm getting the place ready for an appraisal. God is blessing all our efforts.

Do you remember that house across the street? How we wanted to buy it and fill it with folk to love neighbors here? Well, another group of radical christians bought it and are going to rent it cheap to our people. All the mission with no hassle. We're helping them gut it and renovate it. Its exciting.

I'll leave more of a write-up on this on the "grubbykupp" blog. come to think of it, that may take me a while...

We've had David and Kadin staying here until the wedding. The wedding was two fridays ago. David and Sarah got back from Hawaii yesterday. Who are David, Sarah and Kadin? Obviously some people in our church who live in our house now, who got married a week ago, and David has a son named Kadin (8). It's great. what was a disappointment that I had to trust God through is proving to be an open door for the growth of this community.

There is a lot of joyful mayhem here, as I Mr. Mom these kids, adn as Judy works her job for CIEE...

I had to re-place my student, last week. She and her family had a difficult chemistry, and she asked them to let her go to another family. They heroed up and farmed up all the leads to get her re-placed. I just had to manage the paperwork and whatnot (which I still haven't finished--go figger).

I miss my mom and dad. they were here for Thanksgiving. Thanks for Coming, Mom and Dad.

To Tim and Peter and Gudrun in Germany--Hello and we love you!

To Giga and anyone from the Republic of Georgia--Thanks to you all for your warm heart toward americans and especially for sending Andrew to us. He is incredible.

More soon...

David is buying the house across the street, where the guys used to live, too.