Redeem, Reconcile, Restore

During the break, I've been working on a house project in the midtown area of Kansas City, MO.  I thought this picture of the basement went well with today's post at king.typepad.com.  He posted something written by Kurt Rietema about the restoration happening in the Argentine district of Kansas city, Kansas.  Kurt is a friend and fellow Youthfront employee who is also a gifted writer and thinker about community development.

Let’s exchange these locked doors for newly, mopped floors

Abandoned places for sacred spaces

Let’s trade silence for singing 

Languishing for laughing

Let’s turn cracked concrete into green grass

Bored teenagers and boarded up windows into wide-eyed wonderers with wide-open futures

Let’s exchange negligence for neighborliness

Hostility for hope

Graffiti for gratitude

Let’s turn ‘unfit for human habitation’ into the beginning of our own emancipation

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