A few people may be interested to know that I've been contacted by an outreach worker from the limberlost community for a meeting to try and bring some positive art into a community that is in disrepair. I was amazed to see how bad it was, there was piles of garbage and it wasn't even garbage day, the garbage guys just don't take it away. The place was full of Graffiti and garbage, broken stuff all over the place I thought I was back in the slums of New York again I couldn't believe this was my city. I talked with the london housing people and they just didn't see anything wrong. There was a guy in charge of maintenence walking around while there was garbage all over the place! I couldn't believe it, the place isn't that big and here were 3 people paid to make the place better and we're standing in front of piles of garbage not doing anything. It was crazy to me. I've herd bad things about london housing over the years of being a social worker but this was in my eyes, pathetic. The person who I met with was not from london housing but was governed by London Housing. She genuinely wanted to make a difference, but it seemed like every initive that was made had to be passed through LH and no one liked to sign off on anything. They had a center that they worked out of that they wanted the interior painted but LH would not send a contractor so they volunteered to do it themselves, they said no. I came up with a battle plan for the proposals and some wording and a few ideas for positive murals then left it for the lady to write the proposals and get approval from London Housing, now I wait and hope that they see that thier neighborhood needs to be cleaned up and there are people who want to do it for free.
I woke up with these two ideas of what I can do with my art that God had blessed me with in my sleep. It was the last day of day camp I had Fall write the test and he passed. We handed out tshirts. The theme this week was "he got love for you" everyday Ray and others had been sharing about how much God loves you, that he loves you so much that even when we were far away from God, sinning doing our own thing that God came down to earth lowered himself to our level and gave up his up in heaven for a life of pain, so he could be with us humans for his time on earth instead of living like the king he was he served and didn't ask for stuff for himself but tried to help us out. So much so that he took the rap for us, the punishment for all the bad stuff we've ever done and died for us in our place. He did all that and all he asks is that we accept that. All he asks is for us to accept that we screwed up and to accept his sacrifice. Love the poet and Ray spoke and asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as thier saviour. 23 kids accepted his love and asked God into thier lives. The evening went well and we continued painting the back drop.
I taught the kids 3D, fluff and bits. I gave my star student a name, we opened up the bible and he put his finger down on the word "Fall" he drew a nice fall piece. The big back drop started to arrive and I started painting the backdrop in the evening while the show was going on. They got a cypher started and people started rapping and Ray asked me to spit something I've never rapped for an audience before (just in the shower or for my wife). It was amazing the energy from the crowd, their reaction at the end of a well delivered line, the oohhs and everything was intoxicating I remember just being in a different place like I was outside my body, after I finished people kept coming up to me with compliments. I can understand why people love it so much. Usually at the end of the night the team cleans up and gets dinner together and unwind from the day. I decided to skip out on dinner and go back to the citylife centre and paint instead.