God's Matchless Protection

In the history of ministering in East St. Louis, there were often things that happened that I never shared on the blog or in newsletters. Usually these were very intense things that didn't seem right to share at the time in order to protect those involved. Recently, one of these stories has been stirring in my heart to share.   

After moving out of my apartment in the John DeShields Neighborhood in East St. Louis, we were left without a place to serve lunch to the young men in the neighborhood. For three years, we had been grilling hamburgers on my back porch and serving them hot off the grill. After I moved, we needed a place that was still close by, within walking distance.   

The only option that we found was a shade tree at the end of the apartment building I had recently moved out of. We staked out the grassy shade area as our own and continued with the weekly lunch outreach. Even though it was only about 70 feet from my old apartment, there was a completely different feel. This was the shade tree that all of the men hung out under, a place where you had a good view of the corner store where the illegal activity was going on. It was definitely a more "hoppin' " spot than my apartment's back porch!   

Because this was a more active spot, we needed to be a little more aware of our surroundings since we didn't have a place to go inside for protection if activity began to pick up. Before I moved, if things began to get intense in the neighborhood (gun fire, fights, police activity, etc.) we could simply go into my apartment for safety. Now that we were under this little shade tree, the only place we had to go for cover was my car.  

One day, before our regular Wednesday Lunch Outreach, I felt drawn to read this specific magazine during my lunch break. In it, I stumbled upon an article about God’s protection. It was about believing and speaking out promises about His protection, reminding us that we have angels surrounding us. After reading this article, Janell and I specifically prayed together and spoke protection verses over ourselves.

The next day was our Wednesday Lunch Outreach under the little shade tree. On this particular day, our regular third volunteer wasn’t there, so it was just Janell and me. We were in the middle of setting up all of our equipment, getting the grill ready, etc. At that moment, Janell very calmly said, “Rachel, look at those two men.” 

We looked and saw two men dressed in black head to toe. One man had a bandanna masked around his mouth and a gun in his hand. They were quickly walking in the direction of the corner store and the main street where all of the illegal activity went down.

We didn’t have a place to go, so we jumped in my car and tilted the seats all the way back in order to avoid any possible gun fire that could have come through the windows. I regularly experienced this practice of ducking in my apartment when there was gun fire, but never in my car which was much more out in the open. 

As we heard the repeated gun fire, we sat there trembling and praying in tongues. We heard the gun fire, but couldn’t see what was going on. We could tell it was intense and from the looks of the two men we saw with the gun, it was evil too. We didn’t recognize the men as people from the neighborhood, but they were definitely after someone.

We continued praying and speaking peace over the situation. Once we sensed that things calmed down a bit, I opened my door a crack and looked out. We were parked close to an apartment of one of our young men that we had been serving lunch to for years. As I looked through the crack of my car door, he had his door cracked as well, our eyes locked and he motioned for me to come inside for protection. Janell and I moved quickly inside his apartment where we waited for the coast to completely clear. We were there waiting for a few minutes and graciously thanked him for looking out for us.

We looked out the screen door of his apartment to see if it was ok to pack up our things and leave. We saw another one of our young men and he gave us the clear that it was ok to come outside. He then helped us pack up our things and made sure we were safe.

We were definitely shaken up after this incident, but felt tenderly taken care of by God. He gave us the warning and encouragement the day before through the article about believing for His protection. We also felt very protected by our guys who we had been building trust with for years!

After experiencing other incidents like this, we knew the neighborhood would be tense and there could be possible retaliations. We decided to not go into the John DeShields Neighborhood for a few weeks to let things settle down. Later we found out that there was retaliation and tension stirred for a couple of weeks. Thankfully, the shooting was an injury to someone's leg and not something worse. We didn’t know the man who was shot or his perpetrators.

After this happened we knew we needed a safer place to serve lunch to our guys. We have a friend who has been serving in East St. Louis for twenty five years named Sister Dianne. She works with the Catholic Urban Charities. She has always been a warm smile and encouraging presence in the community and towards us as she can relate to the struggles we face. We asked her if it would be possible for us to use her space which is inside the neighborhood community center in the middle of the John DeShields Neighborhood. She immediately opened her doors to us free of charge! We served lunch to the men there for almost two years.

We had been pursuing to use this space several times in the past five years, by going through the East St. Louis Housing Authority. Their answer was always a stern “No.” But in our time of need, through someone completely different, God opened the door for us to use a space we had been desiring to use for a long time.

After we moved the lunch program indoors, our time with the young men became more meaningful and deeper. They began to open up more and share about their lives as we did the same with them. Our volunteer team also increased from three people to ten people! We began serving a family style, home-cooked meal each week instead of the grilled burgers we had been serving for three years. The young men began to tell us things like this…

• “This is a safe place for us, a place we can get away from all the craziness that’s out there.”
• “This is our ‘gentleman’s club’ where we can come and get things off our chest.”
• “You guys have become mentors to us and you encourage us about things we’re going through in our lives.”
• Thank you for the food. We feel loved and cared for knowing that someone takes the time to prepare this for us.  
• At Christmas time when donors adopted them for Christmas, one of our super tough guys said, "I've never been adopted. Thank you so much for this gift, I really needed it." 

Remembering this story has encouraged me in several areas… It reminds me how God provides what we need when we need it. It reminds me of His watchfulness and matchless protection. It reminds me of all the favor God has given us with the people in East St. Louis, from men who "do life on the streets" to a sweet nun from the Catholic Urban Charities. We're excited to continue seeing God's faithfulness towards us and people of East St. Louis! (RB)