“This week has been an experience like never before. Hauling trash, cement, tree limbs and more left me exhausted at the end of the day. However it was a great feeling.
The best thing I want to say is the week was made more amazing every time I met a child who lived in the area. One girl at the last site asked for me the next day by name and introduced us to her friends.”
–Adrienne Gurski
This summer a group of over 40 teens from Lake Orion’s Christ the Redeemer Youth Group lived out the message of their summer mission — Justice…just to it!
Returning to the northwest side of Detroit, where the group has worked the past four summers, teens were able to bring some hope and life back into this depressed area of the city.
In an area where it’s common for children to live and play among abandoned and fire-destroyed homes, it was a strange site to see a group of teens working hour-after-hour, day-after-day to remove the blight.
Children gathered from each neighborhood to see what was going on. They were amazed and wanted to help too!
The group worked together with the Motor City Blight Busters as it has in years past. The Blight Busters organization is a non-profit group that secures vacant house, cleans up debris, mows lawns, renovates housing, builds housing and promotes neighborhood pride.
It’s a grass roots, hands-on community of volunteers determined to stop the blight that threatens the city. It’s a belief of the organization that by stabilizing the community, it preserves the investment of long term residents while providing affordable housing and encouraging new growth in Detroit’s forgotten neighborhoods.
Teens reflected on the meaning of justice each day through journaling and sharing, but it was the hands on experience that taught them the most.
“This has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and to tell you the truth, at first I didn’t want to come. But I came and worked and to see the faces of the kids in the neighborhood and the children of a single mother as we fixed up her house, I will remember for a lifetime.”
–Lauren Fosmoen
A journal reflection directed the teens to what their mission was: “Justice is the establishment of loving relationships among human beings, God and creation, so that life can flourish in the way God intends.”
Teens were then asked to describe how they accomplished justice through their work of removing the “negative energy.” Maggie Pratt’s reflection on her work week demonstrated how she put justice into action.
“Out of all the projects I’ve done, this by far has been the most meaningful to me…helping people who don’t just need it, but they desperately need it!! Working with Tanya was so personal because we formed a great relationship with her and her kids.”
–Maggie Pratt