Living down in the inner city has been quite an adventure so far. I am finishing up my second month here more or less and am finally beginning to become acclimated to my surroundings. As part of my Practicum for school my class I attended a seminar taught led by local police officer Jason Cooley on the subject of safety in our particular urban environment.
Moving up here I can say that I was pretty naïve and confident about safety and things of that nature. I have never been heavily exposed long term to areas with incredibly high crime rates. I am a moderately traveled suburbanite at heart. This seminar helped open my eyes to just how dangerous the place I live in is.
Much of what he had shared was not necessarily new to me. That is one of the perks of wasting hours of your life watching crime dramas. However, one of the biggest things that hit me was that the area I live in has one of the highest crime rates in our city and in our nation. Who knew? I sure didn’t. It was also good to be reminded that anything could happen to me. With what I have seen portrayed in media I felt pretty safe. I mean how often do you see a big guy jumped or abducted in a movie or TV show? But it was good to have that helpful reminder. One of his final points hit me pretty heavily too. He concluded the lecture talking about the increasing darkness and danger of the world we live in. He started talking about the increase of church shootings that even the media are not reporting. It was a good capstone to his presentation because regardless of being in the inner city or not it is important to be careful and observant with your surroundings wherever you are.
As I am getting settled in to this new life I have been thinking and praying on and off about how to be a witness where I am. One of the biggest and already established way is with our landlord and his maintenance crew who have in and out of here often. Also I see an inroad in getting to know the neighbors and just talking to them. I am also thinking the biggest way for immediate impact is getting more plugged in with Hope City because they are already solidly linked and established to the community where as I know it is easy for me to just live through the daily rigors of life and forget about being a witness.
