A group of young people came to New York City to see first hand urban ministries and to refine their own sense of call. They saw the effects of redevelopment and the close proximity of enormous wealth and extreme poverty and the challenges this poses to the churches that minister in the city.
The New York Times reports:
Angie Hummel craned her neck and beheld a glass-sheathed Upper West Side tower where luxurious studios sell for more than a million dollars. She shifted her gaze ever so slightly downward to the brick building where Mexican immigrant families cram four people into a single room barely big enough for a bed.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Nothing like a stark comparison.”
It was that kind of day. Even where she stood — in front of a century-old brick church that was among the few structures not being demolished for new housing on West 100th Street — was a reminder of the price of progress in urban America. Smack dab in the middle of plenty, if not excess, people scrape by anonymously. For a religious person like Ms. Hummel, faith is found while navigating gently between those extremes.
“I have my own struggle of what I am called to do in this world,” she said. “What’s the point if there is still going to be devastation and brokenness, even despite good works? Is God really there?”
The New York Times: Finding, and Refining a Spiritual Call.