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56: Imagine the Possibilities of Neighboring Well with Jennifer Prophete
199 Plays2 years ago
What would it be like if people pursued the common good with their neighbors right where they lived? Jill Devine and Laura Fleetwood found out the answer to that question in Episode 56. Joining the ladies this week, Jennifer Prophete. Jennifer is the Program Director for The Hopeful Neighborhood Project. She has spent 20 years working in the field of urban education and cross-cultural ministry, learning how community engagement is vital for effective ministry. She has a bachelor’s degree from Concordia University-Nebraska in elementary education with certificates in English-as-an-Other-Language, special education, and early childhood education. She received an MBA from the University of Saint Mary. Jennifer lives in a suburb of St. Louis, MO with her husband, three kids, and amazing neighbors.
As referenced in the episode by Jennifer:
The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37, NIV)
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members-only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way. I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The Normal Goes Along Way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation.
00:00:43
Speaker
Okay, we are going to get into this week's conversation about storytelling again.
Guest Introduction and Impact
00:00:49
Speaker
And this week's guest, I'll first introduce Laura Fleetwood is here with me as most times you are. And this week's guest is Jennifer Prophet. And Jennifer Prophet was actually one of the first people in the congregation of the church that I attend that I met.
00:01:08
Speaker
because of my job and because of what I do with community groups at my church, we got connected and oh my gosh, Jennifer, I am wanting to become a better neighbor because of you and I'm learning so much and you're normal and that's what this podcast is about. So I am so excited to talk to you. Welcome to Normal Goes a Long Way.
Hopeful Neighborhood Project Overview
00:01:35
Speaker
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I'm a listener, so.
00:01:40
Speaker
It's fun to be on here. I thought that maybe we could start with what you do for a living, where you live, and then we'll go from there. Sure. So I work for an organization that's called Lutheran Hour Ministries, which is a Christian mass media company, basically.
00:02:01
Speaker
But we're working on this, and I do a number of things with them, but we're working on this specific project called the Hopeful Neighborhood Project. And that project is actually meant to be for all neighbors. So obviously, Christians are neighbors, but lots of people are neighbors.
00:02:20
Speaker
And so the project itself is really just about helping an everyday person pursue the common good with the people that live around them. So inspiring and equipping people to just create a hopeful neighborhood right where they live.
Misconceptions of Christian Neighboring
00:02:37
Speaker
When I first heard that, I didn't quite understand until we started talking more.
00:02:45
Speaker
I think it's very easy when you think about being a good Christian neighbor. This is my opinion. Like you are going to your neighbors and you're saying, let's go to church or here's a Bible or here's a pamphlet because that still happens. People will come to your door and they'll have pamphlets and they'll have this. And it can be very off putting to some people. And that's what I would love to change. Like,
00:03:13
Speaker
It doesn't have to be that, it can be, but I don't think people realize how many different things they can do to be a good Christian neighbor. Yeah, for sure. I mean, when I think about what Jesus said, he said, love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't say,
00:03:31
Speaker
try to convert them to Christianity or just love them. Know them and love them. So yeah, we're excited to hear more about that. And also just more about your life because you've lived a fascinating life. I've been in lots of neighborhoods, let's
Community and Upbringing
00:03:47
Speaker
say that. Yes, that's a perfect way to say it.
00:03:51
Speaker
kind of just give us the 30,000 foot overview of your life's journey and how you got to where you are today at Lutheran Art Ministries. Sure. So I grew up in, we'll start at the beginning, beginning, because it's a very unique,
00:04:09
Speaker
upbringing. I grew up on a ranch 20 miles from the nearest town. So it could be said that I didn't have much of a neighborhood, but actually I had a really robust neighborhood. A rural setting, especially further away from a town, really takes care of each other. So there's really that element of
00:04:31
Speaker
The nearest emergency services of any type can't get to you for 20 minutes. So the person who lives a mile from you is the person you rely on and you need anything. You can't get to the store. If there's a blizzard, if your power goes out, all of those things you rely on your neighbors and your neighborhood. And so it was really a beautiful upbringing.
00:04:53
Speaker
I've been playing with this story over time and one of the things that I realized in playing with that story is I grew up in a hopeful neighborhood because there's nothing that I thought my neighbors couldn't accomplish together.
Urban vs. Rural Neighborhoods
00:05:06
Speaker
We fought, like we fought prairie fires. We literally fought fires together. Like that's just what, how I grew up. So then,
00:05:15
Speaker
I moved to urban Chicago, which does seem like a big shift, right? That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. But once I got there and kind of got over the visual differences, I realized that there was a lot in an urban neighborhood.
00:05:31
Speaker
that was really similar to my rural upbringing. There's a lot of we have to rely on each other because we don't know who else will come to our rescue. We don't know who else we can trust. And the particular neighborhood I was in, there was a lot of distrust of the police, particularly around issues of immigration and that kind of thing. And so there wasn't this same kind of like, just call 911 and they'll fix your problems. It was call your neighbor to help them, to help you.
00:06:01
Speaker
What I recognized there in terms of Christian witness was that I was working for a school that was on the street corner. It had been there almost 100 years, and yet the neighborhood didn't know about it. They walked by it every day and didn't know what it did or anything, which was crazy to me and still is somewhat crazy to me.
00:06:23
Speaker
because I was young and single and didn't have anything better to do, I decided to start going to this community development meeting, this group, and I don't even know how I found them, to be honest. I just started living into just being in the neighborhood and understanding the neighbors and what that meant, and that led to my first community development project, actually. Our school had been looking for how we could get a playground for our kids, because we didn't have any money and we just had this, like,
00:06:51
Speaker
slab of concrete for the kids to play on and Just randomly you could say a man from one of from the community development group walked up to me at a meeting and said, you know We've got this kaboom playground grant And we're just looking for some space to put a playground and we noticed that your school has space next to it Wonder if you want to partner together
00:07:14
Speaker
And so it's a beautiful example of how in our hopeful neighborhood project, we talk a lot about gifting and how you just kind of use your gifts that are willing to share your gifts. And it's a great example of how just putting a bunch of different organizations and people's gifts together, you can really do something for your neighborhood. So our school had land. Our school also had Christian churches that had a lot of volunteers. Our school had parents and children who could speak into part of the kaboom playground build process.
00:07:44
Speaker
is that you have to get neighborhood involvement. So the kids get to pick what aspects they wanted on their playground, and the parents get to see what hours that should be open, and those kinds of things. And then everyone came for a big build day. The Chicago Bears were there.
Cross-Cultural Engagement
00:08:00
Speaker
It was this really big deal that would have only been possible had we all been working organizationally and personally as neighbors. And so that really kind of what my appetite for this kind of
00:08:12
Speaker
of work together. And then as God does, He took me out of that environment completely in an unexpected way. I began working internationally, so I learned a lot about how neighborhoods work in different places. I moved to St. Louis, lived in a neighborhood where if I took a walk, I could
00:08:32
Speaker
I could meet someone from every continent on a 10 minute walk in my neighborhood. It was amazing. And then I came to Lutheran Hour and started working with the Hopeful Neighborhood Project. In the meantime, I got married and my husband is Haitian, grew up in Haiti. And so as we were building a life together, we just
00:08:53
Speaker
bought a house and did what we both grew up in as we just started taking walks every night to meet our neighbors. We didn't realize until later, not everyone does that. So we've always had really great relationships in our neighborhood and known a lot of neighbors because we didn't, we just didn't realize that's not what people do today. But our life has been really enriched from it. And now it's much more intentional for me as I've learned more about just this concept of neighboring.
Suburban Privacy vs. Community
00:09:21
Speaker
So
00:09:22
Speaker
There's the 30,000 foot view plus the littles. That was great because I love how you have experienced this concept of being a neighbor in so many different environments. And I think that some of us use an excuse almost if we live in suburbia, like
00:09:48
Speaker
well, everybody just wants their privacy. And it's weird because in suburbia we are in such close proximity physically, like our houses are literally almost on top of each other. And yet we're not in close proximity relationally. And so I wonder if you can just speak to that dichotomy
00:10:14
Speaker
If living in rural America and right in the middle of the city America, there's this sense of community and helping your neighbors, why do you think it's so different here in the suburbs? Yeah, well, there's probably lots of reasons why. And there's lots of books and research about this type of thing. Some quick anecdotes is in the 50s, there was a study that
00:10:41
Speaker
They ask people, what makes a good neighbor? And it was things like, I can call on them in crisis. They watch my kids. That kind of thing, the way that I grew up. When the same question is asked now, the answer is things like, good neighbors are quiet. Good neighbors leave you alone. Good neighbors give you your privacy.
00:11:04
Speaker
so people who are just trying to be good neighbors are doing the opposite of what good neighbors used to do or do what did when i was growing up so i think in some ways it's it's uh it's coming from a good intentioned place how we're trying to be good neighbors is is well intentioned but maybe doesn't have the outcomes that actually
00:11:24
Speaker
get us to a place where we want to be as a society, which is just living more peacefully and with less division, with more love and understanding. And some of that really starts by just being open to knowing your neighbors. So we've started to use the term a more engaged neighbor rather than good neighbor.
00:11:44
Speaker
So that it's really just living in presence, living with the margin in your life. So I'll confess to our listeners that I was 10 minutes late today because I was having a bus stop conversation with one of my neighbors. It's just kind of living, trying to live with some margin in your life and just intentionally engaging with the people.
00:12:04
Speaker
that you live around. And so I don't really know why we made the shift of it's just good neighbors. Some people say it's air conditioning. Some people say it's social media. Some people say it's the garage doors or it's the structure of our backyards. None of those things are going to change. So I don't spend a lot of time thinking about why.
Building Relationships in Everyday Moments
00:12:22
Speaker
I think I spend more time thinking about, well, how can I live in a way that just makes it better? It's interesting to me, too.
00:12:30
Speaker
To think this for me personally is we are in a suburb and I have often dreamt about going to a more rural area and having some acreage, but at the same time,
00:12:46
Speaker
When I think about that and I think, oh, my next door neighbor might be a mile away, that bothers me. However, it's not like I am in my subdivision hanging out with my neighbors all the time. So it's a really weird concept to me on that as well. It is very interesting because at the same time that we think, oh, being a good neighbor means giving them their privacy and being respectful by not intruding and things like that.
00:13:17
Speaker
Americans are more lonely than ever. And so it's like we feel isolated relationally and yet we're surrounded by people. And so I just wonder why. Well, because I think we somehow think someone wants to be left alone, but we don't want to be left alone. So, you know, if someone like knocks on my door and gives me cookies,
00:13:42
Speaker
I'm not gonna be mad about it, right? But if I think to myself, let me go knock on this person's door and give them cookies, I'm like, I don't know, that might be interrupting. I mean, I don't feel like it would be interrupting me, so I don't know why I think it feels like it would be interrupting them. But I'm guessing I'm not alone in that, that we just don't wanna, we're not translating our own feelings into what other people must be feeling. Yeah, I mean, I don't want somebody
00:14:10
Speaker
as soon as my garage door opens to come right on in. But I would like to have a little bit more community and I guess it's...
00:14:23
Speaker
I'm like, it's on my terms. And you know, but. Well, let me, let me draw back to the name of the podcast. Normal goes the long way. So yeah, nobody wants like anyone prancing in their garage door or first thing when they're home. That's not normal. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird. Right. Okay. Yeah. That's not like reading social cues. The woman has grocery bags in her hand, right? Let her go put them down. I guess that's what I'm afraid of are those who don't read social cues. Right. And there are some out there and you know,
00:14:54
Speaker
God loves them too. And they've got gifts. We've got gifts and they have gifts to share in your neighborhood because you can use those gifts. But I think if you're thinking about how do I be a good and engaged neighbor, right? It's number one, trying to read those social cues. Number two, being available. Figuring out what are some ways I can hang out outside doing things that I like to do. I like to walk. So I walk, I don't drive to a park to walk, I walk in my neighborhood.
00:15:21
Speaker
Because
Overcoming Social Hesitations
00:15:22
Speaker
then I'm really familiar with everyone and everything that's going on. So it's, it's just kind of being intentional about being present in your neighborhood. Gosh, that's the word intentional. And that word is coming up in so many areas in my life right now. It's all about just doing the thing. And you when you said that I had this image in my mind, I live on the corner of our street. So all of the
00:15:50
Speaker
parents gather right in front of our house for the kids when it's time to get on and off the bus. Now, we've never had kids who ride the bus, so I've never been part of that group. But when you say that, I'm like,
00:16:04
Speaker
I could literally just like when they're all gathered there walk out and say like hey, here's some donuts, you know You're always here in front of my house, and I've never met you So I just wanted you to know we're we're available if you need anything, but I never thought of that until just now It's so weird. I think that's a really it's a really good point is intentionality It's also one thing that we
00:16:28
Speaker
that we talk about in our training. Because sometimes if people have lived in a place for a long time and they haven't done it, they're like, well, now I don't want to start. That's going to seem weird, right? So you just name the elephant. Like, I've seen you on here for a long time and I love how you're talking and I just wanted to encourage that. So I brought you some water or I brought you this candy or donuts or whatever. So just naming it can really diffuse the situation and then make it feel normal.
00:16:56
Speaker
And you can really gain some good friends, some people that you can call on if you need something. And I think in a world where we're really, we're divided by so many things. We're divided by interest, we're divided sometimes by ethnicity, we're divided into, and we tend to, we have so many options we tend to go to groups we're comfortable in.
Lessons from the Good Samaritan
00:17:18
Speaker
neighboring is one of the best places that I've found where I can meet people that are different than me, have different beliefs, different whatever in a really natural setting. I don't have to manufacture it. We both live on the same street. We share the same address by fate or whatever you want to ascribe that to. There's a book called Placed for a Purpose where a couple really began to realize that
00:17:48
Speaker
They likely didn't just live at 1718 Elm Street on accident, that God placed them there for a purpose and that they wanted to live intentionally in that. So that's kind of how I think about
00:18:05
Speaker
that the benefits I'm going to get from neighboring is that I'll meet people that have had different experiences meet, that have different contacts than me, that have different viewpoints than me. And that's a real growth experience for me. It's also a real opportunity for them to meet someone different as well. So I mentioned my husband's Haitian. Our family is a biracial family on the street. People ask us and are able to talk with us about a lot of different
00:18:31
Speaker
different things because they don't know a lot of families like ours. And so just the fact that we're open, we learn from them, but then they can learn from us as well. That's probably a great transition into another thing that we want to talk to you about is that biracial relationship.
Challenges in Diverse Community Development
00:18:48
Speaker
Well, first of all, I was listening
00:18:52
Speaker
to what you were saying about being single and you're going to Chicago into this diverse area and you're going into these community outreach programs and you can tell me if I'm wrong, I'm assuming, are you one of many white women that are going in there or very few?
00:19:15
Speaker
Very few. Although in an urban environment, you will find a lot of social worker, community developer type young white women. So there was a few of us, which has its benefits and its drawbacks, because then you're definitely in a group. So I definitely was coming in with people having certain assumptions about me. Okay, so that
00:19:39
Speaker
That would scare me, I guess. That's very brave of you to do that in the first place. And that blows my mind right there. Well, I will say this about myself and anyone who might be like this. I am afraid of everything. I always have been.
00:19:54
Speaker
And so when you're afraid of everything, you get so good at overcoming your fears. Sometimes you do really, really brave things and you don't know they're brave. But also going to the store is brave for me. So I don't always recognize something that...
00:20:09
Speaker
is really brave because I've just learned how to overcome fear. So for anyone else who's like that, you can do some pretty amazing things because you're really good at just getting out of bed and going to the store. It is one of those things where I try to put myself in your shoes and I can't.
00:20:32
Speaker
You're saying you would never move to a city as a single woman all by yourself. No, not at all. Not at all. And like, I want to change the world. I mean, that's a big statement. I want to do good. I want to help others. I want to be that uplifting person for people and show them all these different things, which I guess this is what this podcast is. But
00:21:01
Speaker
To go outside of my comfort zone, I just want to explore and learn more about the city that I grew up in, that born and raised. I mean, I know I'm in the suburbs, but I've also worked in the city and I don't feel that I have completely embraced that.
00:21:19
Speaker
There's so many good thoughts running through my mind now. Number one is one of the things that we talk a lot about in our program and through Lutheran Hour Ministries is giftings and knowing your gifts. And we say, discover the gifts, then grow your gifts, and then be generous with your gifts. And so I think one of the first things
00:21:40
Speaker
before you're like, I want to go out and do like these things for other people is actually getting comfortable with what your gifts are, right? Be comfortable with yourself, be authentic and then be generous with them. And so that doesn't mean, so one of my gifts is actually,
00:21:56
Speaker
cross-cultural, I just really love different kinds of people. And I could use that kind of gift, for example, in Chicago. But I didn't build a playground that's still there 15 years later that kids play on. The neighborhood did. I didn't do it. It wasn't me because I'm a girl from Nebraska or because I have white skin or because I was single and had time. I just have this gift of sort of
00:22:23
Speaker
not being afraid to show up in places that are different than me. And that unleashed the gifts of all these other people. So when you know your gift and you're just generous with it, it'll often be a catalyst that opens up other people's gifts, whether it's in your neighborhood or just in your life. But that's the great thing about being in a neighborhood, too, is you don't actually have to go anywhere. You just have to be brave enough to stand in your front yard and be willing to be generous with your gifts, which one of your gifts is asking great questions and listening to people.
Impactful Neighborhood Activities
00:22:53
Speaker
That can be used in your neighborhood. That can be used anywhere. But it can really unleash other people's gifts in world changing ways. Ask any world changer, they will tell you they're not a world changer. They're just doing what felt natural to them, right? That's what world changers do. Well, that also ties into something that you and I have talked about outside of this podcast on a number of occasions is
00:23:19
Speaker
Helping in your neighborhood that it's very easy and Laura you and I experienced this at a conference we went to It was about helping the community and I had already known this because Jennifer you and I talked about it But it's very easy for individuals when they say we want to help we want to help our community So we're gonna go to the inner city. It's just a popular phrase and and you had said to me that
00:23:48
Speaker
So many people will think that, but what's happening in your neighborhood is what you should focus on. Like you do not understand if you go to your local fire department and police department, you will find out that your neighborhood needs the help and you need to start there. And that's exactly what they also said at this conference. And it's things like putting a library, I know we see them, but like a little free, take a book, bring a book.
00:24:18
Speaker
or planting a garden, or even raking your neighbor's leaves, or I know people at our church, they just baked cookies for people and just delivered them. And that's just as impactful if not, I don't wanna say more, but we can't fix things.
Proximity and Community Focus
00:24:41
Speaker
And I think that's what the mindset is of a lot of people.
00:24:44
Speaker
as Christians, we have this term, love your neighbor. And we know it. We preach it. We teach it. But somehow, if you ask, if you go to the story of the Good Samaritan and people say, well, who is, you know, the Pharisee ask Jesus, who is your neighbor? And he gave the story of the Good Samaritan. And somehow, we've come up with out of that, which is a true statement that everyone's your neighbor.
00:25:13
Speaker
Jennifer, for those listeners who aren't familiar with that story, do you mind giving us a quick recap? Yes, yes, thank you for that. So the story Jesus told, the parable or the story that he told to teach a lesson was a man was robbed on the side of the road and left on the side of the road. And he was beaten and he was in really bad shape. He was from Israel, a nation in the Old Testament.
00:25:41
Speaker
And two men walked by him and didn't do anything. They didn't help him. They just went on the other side of the road. And they were men of faith who just didn't.
00:25:53
Speaker
for whatever religious reasons or personal reasons, didn't do anything to help. A third man came and helped him, bandaged him, took him to an inn, paid for him, and he was a Samaritan. So he was from actually an enemy of Israel. And so the lesson that some people will take out of that story is that everyone is your neighbor. It doesn't matter where they're from or what their belief system might be. Everyone's your neighbor, and they deserve your love and respect.
00:26:23
Speaker
absolute true statement. But sometimes then what we've not recognized about that story is that proximity matters. So it's been easy to say, okay, so I'll love the person over there and not the person close to me. But remember those teachers of the law, those men of faith walked on the other side of the road. They weren't willing to be close to the pain. They didn't want that proximity. But the Samaritan,
00:26:52
Speaker
just went to the side of the road, bandaged him, took him. And so I think there's a real lesson in that story that proximity matters. And it doesn't mean you can't do good in other places. I've spent time in cross-culturally, but I think it does mean, it does teach us that
00:27:10
Speaker
proximity really does matter in loving our
Balancing Life and Neighboring
00:27:13
Speaker
neighbor. Your actual neighbor is a part of that command, not just the people that feel the safest or the most convenient to you. And sometimes that's because they're over there, and so it doesn't deal with my life here. It's harder to see pain that's close to you. The widow next door to me that's probably going to talk for three hours if I stop by is harder to love than taking three hours and going
00:27:36
Speaker
somewhere else and just spending that three hours, but then I never have to see them again. So I never have to worry about that conversation again. So we've often picked going somewhere else is a convenient way because it doesn't impact our life beyond our control. That makes me think again about what you said earlier in terms of building margin in our lives, right? Because I felt this kind of overwhelm start to rise in me as you were just talking because I'm like,
00:28:05
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I'm already so stressed out. And now I have to care for my widow neighbor. And I can barely care for myself and my kids and my husband. And then I go, wait a minute. That's my problem. It's another indicator to me that
00:28:26
Speaker
Right now I'm over scheduled. I am committed to too many things and maybe I'm focusing more on tasks rather than relationships in my life. So that was kind of a convicting moment for me right there. Yeah, we're meant to have margin so that when we see pain or we see needs, we have the capacity to respond. And if we're already filled to the top of our heads emotionally,
00:28:56
Speaker
and physically, then we don't have that capacity and that's something I'm learning as well. So I'm just speaking for any of you out there who are feeling the same way and going, how do I add neighboring to my list? I think we can start really, really small and still make a big impact.
00:29:18
Speaker
That happens to me all the time.
Grace in Neighboring Efforts
00:29:21
Speaker
I get 20 minutes to walk on a regular day, on a good day. On a good day, I get 20 minutes to walk, right? So someone stops and talks to me for that 20 minutes, there goes my exercise for the day. And that's hard. And I think that's just the reality of most people, but I wouldn't
00:29:41
Speaker
What I try not to do is let that discourage me from what I know will make my life better. And so trying to step back and say, either maybe I just brushed that neighbor off and took the walk that day. Well, maybe that's OK. There's always tomorrow.
00:29:57
Speaker
or the day that I stopped to say, you know, I was exercising a different part of my life. I was exercising some relationship muscles instead of, you know, the body muscles that I thought that I was exercising. So give yourself a lot of grace in it. That's also the beautiful thing about neighboring, right? Is tomorrow when you wake up, those people are still going to be in reverse. You get another chance. Whereas if you go someplace else and do something and it doesn't go the way you want, you don't always get those chances. So neighboring,
00:30:24
Speaker
One of the beautiful things about it is that you have time. You can have grace for yourself. You can have a busy season and then show up in the spring with some more margin and some more intentionality and find some joy in neighboring. It doesn't have to be. It's not a today or never
Raising a Mixed-Race Family
00:30:45
Speaker
kind of thing. You're going to have neighbors. I'm telling you for the very rest of your life. Unless you put yourself on an island and that's not fun.
00:30:55
Speaker
Well, you've given me permission to speak the elephant in the room, which I'm going to do to the people who moved in across the street from us literally like eight months ago. And I kept saying to Justin, I need to go introduce myself. I need to go bring them something and welcome to the neighborhood. And here I am eight months later. They live directly across the street. I've maybe waved at the wife.
00:31:18
Speaker
a handful of times and now I was like, oh, it's too late, you know, I missed that boat. But now it's, I can go over there and just say, hey, I've been meaning to do this for the last eight months. I'm so sorry. Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm glad that you're here.
00:31:35
Speaker
And she'll be like, has it been eight months already? I can't believe it, because she's been busy. So I think that's the other thing. Whether you're talking about cross-cultural or neighboring or whatever, sometimes we get really caught up in other people are going to think this about us. And let me just tell you, not very many people are spending very much time thinking about you.
00:31:53
Speaker
They're thinking about all their stuff. So give yourself permission to be like, you know what? They're not worried about me. They're just going to be happy. I'm worried about me. They're not. They're just going to be happy that I'm here. They're going to be happy to hear this nice word or be the recipient of whatever gift it is that I have to give, whether that's a gift of a question, a gift of a compliment, a gift of a thing. They're not spending a lot of time worried about judging.
00:32:22
Speaker
They're just not. They're busy. The rest of the world is busy. Do you mind sharing what it's like to be part of a community that is largely
00:32:35
Speaker
Caucasian and then to have your beautiful family who is a little bit of both. I'm just wondering what that experience has been like for you. It has been brutal as they say so there's a lot of beauty in it and there's some real hardships in being different.
Cultural Diversity and Integration
00:33:02
Speaker
And that's just a reality. Every family has hardships. And so that's a reality for all of us, I would say, but we have some unique opportunities and we have some unique challenges because of being a mixed family. I think one thing is that we're not just a mixed family, but we're an international family.
00:33:26
Speaker
Um, which is different and, but you can't necessarily tell that just by looking at our faces. So my husband's not African-American he's Haitian.
00:33:35
Speaker
So his upbringing is different than if he grew up in America, as a black man in America. So he has different experiences, different opinions, different ways that he grew up. And yet we are living the existence of, he's living the existence now of a black man in America. And my kids are growing up then as biracial kids with more of,
00:34:01
Speaker
needing an understanding of what it means to grow up as black or brown in America. And neither my husband or I did. So we're trying to raise kids to live into a culture that we didn't grow up in. So that's a unique challenge that we're trying to help them navigate. But some of the pain, some of the hurts, some of the history, some of the information we just don't have. We have to go out and look for it, which is where some of our neighbors have been really helpful.
00:34:29
Speaker
What I challenge you to no matter where you live is one of the indicators of neighborhood health is actually in our system we have 12 indicators of a healthy neighborhood and one of them is does every culture feel comfortable in your neighborhood. And it wasn't until recently actually
00:34:49
Speaker
the pandemic where everyone stayed home that I realized actually how diverse my subdivision is. It's much more diverse than I recognized when we moved in, but because it's because different cultures behave differently in a neighborhood. So there's not a lot of African-American families or even Asian-American families that live in our neighborhood who walk all the time. It's not just not a part of their
00:35:13
Speaker
the cultural, what they do, or potentially even a way that they feel safe in my neighborhood. But the pandemic kind of brought us all out. And I was like, oh, there's more diversity here than I recognized. And so I try to be really intentional about not only building those relationships, but then asking those families, what is your experience in the school system that I might be missing, that my kids are experiencing that I might not see? So that's kind of our experience. My husband's really intentional to be seen with us a lot.
00:35:42
Speaker
So that people view him in a positive way in my neighborhood. And that's something I learned later. I just, I didn't, I didn't realize until some of the, you know, the news stories that came out in the past couple of years, he sort of confessed, well, yeah, that's why, why I stay with you as a
00:36:03
Speaker
family so that people know I'm a family person and I belong in this neighborhood, that sort of thing. So it's another reason why we're really intentional about knowing our neighbors. So if they see him in the middle of the night, they know he belongs there and they feel safe and he's not in danger in that way.
00:36:20
Speaker
OK, that makes me so sad. It breaks my heart. And it makes me think of a post on our neighborhood Facebook page about a year ago.
Emotional Reactions and Risk Assessment
00:36:31
Speaker
There was an African-American family that moved in and the mom posted a picture of her teenage son and said, hey, I just want you guys to know this is my son. He loves to run outside and he wears
00:36:46
Speaker
a hoodie. And I want you to know he is a wonderful kid. He's just running to get exercise. And I was like, as a mom, I think that was maybe the first time that I, and I can't get it because it's not my experience, but that I related to that fear
00:37:06
Speaker
that because of my white privilege, I've never had to worry about my kids in that way. And it makes me sad, but it also, I see why she felt the need to post that.
00:37:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the important things of living in a neighborhood is to recognize other people's experience, to feel the emotion of that, and to hold on to that. But I think one thing that happens sometimes is we get stuck in that emotion. And then that emotion can drive further action that we don't necessarily want. So either it drives pity in a way that keeps relationship from developing,
00:37:46
Speaker
or it drives some extra guilt and pushback. Well, I would have never called, why did they do that? And so to feel the emotion that you feel about recognizing that someone's lived experience is different than yours in America,
00:38:04
Speaker
But then to move past that emotion, to recognize it, to market, to know it, but then to go beyond it.
Conclusion and Resources
00:38:13
Speaker
Because not only is he a boy that loves to run, and that makes him, you know, safe in your neighborhood and whatever, he's a boy who has a math test tomorrow. He's a boy that has all the complexities that your boy has, or that your child has. So he's gonna have good days and bad days, and he's gonna be awesome, and he's gonna
00:38:30
Speaker
mouth off sometimes, you know, so to move beyond the emotion and just to then recognize that as a, as a person who's going to have all the same things in personhood that you do. I don't know if that's helpful, but it's been helpful to me. It's also, I went to this training and it was, I had this experience that you would think I wouldn't have, right? So I'm up at seven o'clock in the morning one day and I look across the backyard and there's a very,
00:38:55
Speaker
There's a large black man standing in the backyard behind mine and I had this moment of panic like this moment of fear and panic and That seems like that should I shouldn't right? But I did you can't help what those emotions are but what I what I learned in some
00:39:13
Speaker
Some training is, it's not the first thought, it's the second thought. So I had that moment of fear and panic because of what the media has said to me, because intuitively, although I don't know the neighbors that live in that house, honestly, I've never seen them outside. I was pretty sure he didn't live there. And so I had that moment of panic for a real reason and for a made up reason.
00:39:34
Speaker
But here's what the recommendation was, is to think twice. So then assess a risk of the situation. Okay, so there's some risks there, right? He's a person that doesn't belong in my neighborhood in the backyard at seven o'clock in the morning. What's the next thing? How's he dressed? Oh, he's dressed in work clothes. What's the next thing? Oh, the grass is long. What's the next thing?
00:39:57
Speaker
Oh, he's mowing their lawn, right? And now I don't have any panic anymore. So recognize the emotion and then move past it because a lot of the phone calls, a lot of the dangerous things that happen in our country are because people reacted to that first emotion and not went through and assessed the rest of the risk. So if someone saw my husband in the backyard at seven in the morning, first of all, they'd probably be like, oh,
00:40:21
Speaker
that's that man belongs there he lives in the neighborhood but if they didn't know that then they could be like oh he's wearing slippers you know probably he lives there or oh he's fixing the the lights or oh he's he's setting the sprinkler it's those next thoughts that actually then can tell you if it's a risky situation or not because let's let's be honest it could be risky
00:40:42
Speaker
no matter what color the person is, it could be risky. But it's not to just go with your first impression, but go to the next one. That's great advice. I love that. I just continue to learn so much from you, Jennifer. And it's like, thank you, God, for putting you in my life and being one of the first people that I
00:41:07
Speaker
could talk to you and I was like, I don't even know how I got a church job. And I'm supposed to talk to you about things with community groups and I don't have a clue. And in just our short time of knowing each other, I have learned so many things. And I have said this to you before and to others like,
00:41:30
Speaker
I have had Jennifer, we will be talking and I'm like, can you email me what you just said? I need to refer back to it. And it's so, so, so true. And like, I just wish, I'm sure there are multiple Jennifer's out there.
00:41:47
Speaker
people need a Jennifer profit in their life. Yes, I totally agree. So as we wrap things up, tell our listeners where they can find more information about the hopeful neighborhood project. And I think that
00:42:03
Speaker
There might be a lot of people who want to dig a little bit deeper. Yeah. Well, I will, uh, so hopeful neighborhood.org, um, just spelled out hopeful neighborhood.org. And we have information on that site. We have stories. Uh, if you resonate with stories of how people are living into, into neighboring, we also have a lot of like quick little tips. We have workshops to help you create something that you can take to your neighbors. If you're like,
00:42:29
Speaker
Oh, that person moved in eight months ago, and I want to take them. This is how I am. I'm like, I want to take them something, but I am no Martha Stewart, right? But don't worry, someone on my team is. I know, Laura. You're set. You're set. So like tonight, for example, we're doing a workshop where people will join us virtually. We send a packet ahead of time. They make a little thing.
00:42:50
Speaker
then they'll go and take it to their neighbors and so we do those kinds of things quarterly and then we have some deeper materials where you could really like dig into what are what's neighborhood well-being and what gifts do I have and how could I share them so we have something for all levels of people who are interested in neighboring so if you've been a neighbor for a long time you're like I got this down I know everybody they're on speed dial and
00:43:13
Speaker
I can save the eight doors around my house, then we have some materials to help you harness the gifts and do something really good together to pursue the common good. If you're like, I've never talked to anybody, we've got some things for you too. I love that. And I've checked some of those resources out. There's some great ideas to do with your kids, too, as a family. And moms and dads, we are
00:43:37
Speaker
the examples for our kids. So I think it's important that we make this a family effort as well. Yeah, well, and your kids are a great icebreaker, actually. And some of my closest neighbor relationships are because of our kids. And because our kids play together, they go to school together, or whatever, kids are just a great icebreaker. And my neighbors, there's something about me that people would just like to give me things.
00:44:02
Speaker
So forever, anytime I'm walking, people just come out of their houses and give us stuff, literally. I want that gift. I don't know. I'm always like, do I have something I want? I'm going to start walking with Jennifer. Maybe helpless, please help me, something like that. We've gotten heelys, stuffed animals, plants, roses. I mean, you name it, we've gotten it all. But I actually think it's...
00:44:25
Speaker
my kids actually that people want to connect with them and they want to connect with our family and so they do it through like an easy icebreaker of like can I give your kid this this thing and I think that's that's a beautiful thing so if you have kids yes get them engaged but also get them living that way but just live into how other people respond to children because that's a good way to form relationships
00:44:49
Speaker
So we will have all of this information on our show notes page and also at normalgosalongway.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at normalgosalongway. Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time and being such a great neighbor. Yeah, well, don't ask my actual neighbors. They'll tell you about my messy backyard, my long grass. But this has been a pleasure. Thank you. I always love talking to you guys. Thank you.