The Lighter Side of Darkness {A Post by Tony}

“How was your weekend?”

It’s a question we ask each other and the normative response is generally, 

“Great.”

Follow up. 

“What did you do?” 

And you find yourself going down a list of things you did that weekend.

People ask me this question and I’m always ready with a response based off who they are and what I really think they are asking.

There are people just asking in general how it’s going but they really don’t want to know.  

Let’s use this weekend as an example. 

So on the follow up question, “What did you do?”, to that person, I would say, 

"On Friday night we hung out with our kids, played games and watched movies.  Saturday we cleaned the house, and went shopping at Costco.  That evening, Kimberley took our three girls, along with Gane, to the Davis High school production of Beauty and the Beast and I stayed home with my son and watched Monster Trucks, a movie about a family of Friendly Octopus Sharks, or whatever they were, that help kids overcome the evil environment ruining oil company by becoming the engine in their trucks.  It was your basic E.T. rip off and my son was none the wiser and loved the whole thing.  We went to church, took three Madison House kids with us, took everyone to Starbucks afterwards and then that afternoon had a family of Madison House volunteers over to the house for dinner, just so they knew how thankful we are and how much their help and more importantly friendship means to us."  

That’s so happy! 

Here’s what I left out of that story. 

Friday night there was a prevailing feeling of spiritual darkness over the area.  

At 10pm someone stood in front of our house and unloaded a .45 revolver into the house next door.  

Six police cruisers, all with their lights off, pulled up within a matter of minutes. There was no ambulance so we had to assume no one was hit.  With no shell casings, no witnesses and no bodies, the police left within the half hour. 

Saturday morning one of the kids that lives in that house, a Madison House regular, came out on the porch to let me know that even though the bullets went through 3 of his walls, he was alright!

Great.  

Sunday afternoon the family of volunteers we had over decided they wanted to end the evening playing on the Madison House playground.  We headed over but in a matter of minutes we had to leave because an MH kid warned us that, “There’s a guy driving around with guns in his car and my brother said you guys should all get off the street and into your homes.”

As the family got into their car and left I walked back to the house and Kimberley and I could hear gunfire break out from the next street over.

Both those stories are true, I simply tailor them for who happens to be asking and what state of mind I’m in when asked.

Yesterday, Tuesday morning, our daughter Lyla was awakened by a crack addict screaming profanity and pounding on the dumpster in the alley behind our house as he came down off his high.  Someone called the police and a cruiser came down and slowly escorted him out of the neighborhood. 

Kimberley made mention later that she was feeling anxious that day and I began to pray.

That evening it was nice out and my family, along with Gane' and a couple of the MH kids that live next door all sat out on the front porch drinking Starbucks and talking while we watched Lyla practice with her soccer team across the street.  During practice I walked over to the house next door.  Gang members were all over the porch as though they were expecting a war and I greeted the ones I know by name and made sure the ones that didn’t know my name now did.  I reiterated to them as I have many times that should anything go wrong they can come over to my house and we’ll help them out.  

Jesus did not come to heal those who are not sick. 

10 minutes later Lyla came home from soccer practice and 5 minutes later a silver Honda pulled up in front of our house and shot eight times into the house next door (there’s one house between my house and their house, who is my neighbor?), hit the gas and disappeared. 

My wife, Gane, our kids and the MH kids all did as we’ve instructed and practiced many times, they hit the ground or piled into the house. 

Police showed up and cordoned off the area, tagging shells and taking witness statements.  Again, no one was hit and some of the gang members across the street lamented their disappointment that, “They didn’t have a chance to fire back.”  

I silently thanked God they didn’t because it would have meant they were firing in my direction.

I spent the next half hour walking home scared kids that lived close enough and driving home the ones that didn’t. 

We have so much to be thankful for and this is where my mind always settles.

   

My wife and children, though a little shell shocked are fine.  

This will mark our fourth summer living living on Fourth Street and it’s becoming old hat.  That’s not callous, it’s simply true. You live a certain way long enough and what may have seemed crazy or difficult at one time, now seems normal.

Lyla, didn’t seem overly concerned and when I asked her how she was doing she said, “I’m fine. It’s like you always say dad, Jesus is going to take care of us; whether it’s keeping us safe on earth or taking us to be with him in heaven, either way he has our back.”  

No Madison House kids or gang members were killed. Praise Jesus. We still have an opportunity to reach them before they stand before God.

I had an opportunity to talk more about Jesus to the kids I was walking or driving home.

If you would like to pray for us, please pray not only for us but that "Jesus' love would continue to be acted out through our lives, and the kids will see our good works and glorify God, accepting him as their Lord and Savior.”

Pray that no one who doesn’t have Christ is killed. 

Pray that the community will start to see and act - Nothing changes when you do nothing. 

Thank you for all your prayers, volunteering and financial support, but most importantly, your  prayers.

For When it isn't Enough {A post by Tony}

People often ask me what the worst part of this job is.  

Contrary to popular belief it's not gunfire at all hours of the day and night, physical violence, constant lies, all our things that have gone missing, lice, broken promises, mice or a myriad of other things to choose from.

Jesus said (Mathew 10:22) that we would be hated for His namesake; that sending us out would be no easy task.  

Great, I know all that, I know what I signed on for.  I told the committee during my interview four years ago that I would never work in an office again.  

I did that job; where I answered to only the president of the college and had 12 departments under me.  

Boring. 

 60k a year, nice car, top level corner office, cheap college housing and good health care, boring, boring, and boring.  

I'm never going back.

So what is the worst part of this job? What did I miss when I signed up? 



She's only ten years old, maybe 11.  She's dragging her family behind her.  A brother,6 and a sister, 4 - about the age of my three oldest children.  They heard about the Madison House at school and came to check it out.  After a couple of weeks they decide they like it and stay.  

She's a nice girl, really shy but she's tough too, and funny.  Being the oldest she is responsible for little brother and sister and she does a good job.  

She loves to play pool and every day she asks me to play a game with her.  We talk and I learn that she doesn't have a mother, there's a father but he seems in and out of the picture.  

"He's gone," she says.

 We are playing pool and I look up from my shot, "Who's gone?" 

"My dad." 

"Where did he go?" I ask.  

"I don't know. He said he was going to the store and he never came back." 

"Ok...how long has he been gone?"

"He left on Friday."  It's Tuesday. 

"Well who's taking care of you?" 

"Grandma." 

"Oh, ok,"

I ask more questions about gangs or drugs, trying to find out details but she adroitly dodges all my questions from that point on. She's said all she's going to.  

A week goes by, we are playing pool again. 

"He came back." 

"Oh good, when?"

She shrugs, "a couple of days ago."

"Great," I say, "right?"

"I guess so." 

"Did he tell you were he went?"

"No." 

Weeks go by and Christmas approaches; we've been doing all we can as a staff to help her family in particular.

No mother, no father most of the time.  We give them extra food after dinner to take home, rides to church and tell them how much we care and are praying for them. 

It's a week before Christmas and there's a third day in a row of snowfall.  All the kids badly need gloves and I've given out all I have.  

"Tony, do you have any gloves?"

"No," I say "I'm all out." 

We gave them all away, 100 pairs, maybe more. 

"Ok," she says, clearly sad and looking at her red chapped hands.  

She starts to walk away and I feel a pang of guilt. 

"Wait," I say calling her back, "take my gloves, they might be a little big but you can have them,  I can always get more gloves."  

She yanks them on,  runs off down the hall.  

That is the last time I see her, a smile on her face, headed outside with floppy, oversized gloves. 

She never shows up for the Madison House party, or the Chistmas Party. 
 
None of the kids she attends school with have any idea where she is or where she went, they just keep telling us, "one day she just didn't come to school." 

We've driven her home enough times that I know where she lives so finally 2 weeks into January I drop by the house and knock  on the door. 

A lady, mid twenties, answers the door.  I've never seen her before and she's never seen me.  She says she's a cousin but she has no idea where the three kids have gone and clearly and understandably doesn't trust me, a perfect stranger. 

"Oregon maybe?" She finally offers in an effort to get me off the porch. 

I climb back into my car and head to Madison House filled more with sorrow than frustration. Wherever she is at least she has warm gloves. 

It's late February and my 8 year old daughter is holding something dirty, heading toward me. 

"Hey dad," she yells as she gets closer, "isn't this your glove?" 

"We found it under the last snow pile outside, do you want it?"

"No, just throw it in the garbage." 

This daughter is most like me and she immediately senses something is wrong and asks, "Are you proud of me for finding your glove dad?"

"Oh yes," I put my hand on her shoulder realizing my tone and body language have given her the wrong impression.  "You did a great job bringing it to me, but I bought another pair so I don't need the old ones anymore." 

She skips off happily to the garbage.  

I will see her again. 

That's what drives me crazy.  

I know kids are sold into sex slavery, I know they move from house to house, town to town. I know they are used as look outs and drug runners.  I know they are abused in every way imaginable.  We call CPS about something and they tell us, "We've already been to that house 3 times in the last year, there's nothing more we can do."  This is just one story where kids disappear and we never see them again.  It kills me more each time.
  
People will tell you that whatever I wanted to do, I could always do it:
 
Played on my state football all star team in high school, worked three jobs and paid my way through college, always made it to management level of every job in less than a year, 

Started a band in Seattle, made top seller of the year in my region for Starbucks, Director of operations at a college.

But I'm down here, living across the street from Madison House and I feel completely helpless.  I open up the field and building on weekends, I give away my own money and things constantly.  I have endless conversations about fundraising and volunteer work.  

There's nothing more I can do. 

 It isn't enough.  

I have perfect peace that God is in control but it doesn't take away the loss and pain.  It hurts and sometimes it overwhelms me to the point that all I can do is weep.  

For When You Come Home... {A Post by Tony}

Yakima, Washington.  

From time out of mind, it never mattered.  It was just another town I had to reduce my speed for on the way from Seattle to Sun Valley, Idaho.


I came here once, by accident, in 2005.  I ventured as far off the freeway as the Olive Garden where my wife and I stopped for lunch.  I remember us telling each other as we left, "It seems like a nice town".


In 2011, when Starbucks transferred me out to Yakima to open a new store, I wasn't too worried; I had no connection to Yakima and people telling me I would be killed or shot, or worse, seemed like the normal panic I assign to those who are overly concerned about a life and death they can't control anyway. 

      "Don't worry about it', I told my wife, '"There are bad parts of Seattle too and we avoided those once we were aware of their locations."

 So this week, early on a Monday morning I found myself in the Terrace Heights Cemetery stumbling and slipping in the wet grass and mud during a rare downpour, trying to find a body, or at least what was left of it.

  In 1858, Leonard Andrew Foster was born in Ohio.  In 1899 his wife died giving birth to his last child and he decided he'd had enough.  He didn't want to live with the memories her life and death brought by the very familiarity of his surroundings so Leonard packed up and moved to a place with no memories:  

Yakima, Washington.

He remarried a woman named Alvira who was from Kansas, lived in a quaint little house behind Target and worked as a night watchman until his death in 1942 at the age of 84. 


When Leonard moved west he brought his son Claud with him.  Claud settled down and had a son of his own named Ken and Ken had a daughter named Karolyn.


Karolyn lost a brother in Vietnam and swore that her sons would never play with guns. But, boys being boys, and fathers having the last word, the first time I was ever shot at was at the age of 13 while my father and I took cover in some rocks, bullets whining past our heads.  The hunters below us had buck fever and couldn't see past the deer they were shooting at so we hid in the rocks while they spent all their bullets, missing everything.


 The week of Thanksgiving, 2015, I was at my house, across the street from Madison House when 5 of the older kids dropped by needing gloves and scarfs.  I told them I would meet them at their house, and headed to Target.  


Their house is further up and further in to the area known as "The Hole". (As you can see, I've wisely taken my own advice and stayed out of the dangerous parts of town.)


 Before I can knock, shots ring out just down the street, another volunteer is with me and we stop and listen thankful for the concrete walls of the basement entrance.  More shots fire into the cold night air, 12 shots have been fired in total, two revolvers. A couple seconds later one of the kids I am bringing gloves to flees down the alley behind the house and looking back I see 3 more MH kids running along the front of the street. 


I head back out to the street knowing this is the moment when I could be killed, but I also know that fear is a weakness I have always resented when I sense it in myself.


Jesus did not call us to weakness but to acts faith and great kindness.  Besides, once the shooting starts, I am fully aware that it is over quickly and the instigators take flight almost immediately.  As I reach the street in front of the house I see residents coming out of the their homes armed with bats and other weapons in case further fighting breaks out.  I take a head count of the kids I was bringing clothing too, all are present.  An unmarked police car pulls up and I take point, explaining who I am, what I am doing down on 7th.  The police let us leave without further incident and I hug each of the kids and tell them to stay safe; I know they won't.  I head home to my wife and kids, thankful to be serving God in this capacity of His work - it is truly a blessing to be used by Him.

I never had a connection to Yakima until my sister was digging through some of my grandmothers old papers last week.


 I stare down at the small brick that has been depressed into the earth by time.  It is covered in mud and I had to kneel down on the soaked earth of Terrace Heights Cemetery and remove the leaves and filth just to read the name stamped into it: Leonard Foster. 

If I could speak to him I would tell him that his wife's death, was not in vain.  That even then, God, knowing everything, was planning to use his great great grandson's life to reach kids in Yakima, but that Leonard would have to lose someone he cared about for that purpose to come to fruition. 

 God gave us His son, someone He loves, because He loves us. For the same reason, I am not afraid to die, so that others may know Christ.

For When Everything Changes

It keeps spinning, regardless of our circumstances. I know the truth of this. But there is a small part of me that wonders at times if there is a slight stuttering in the moments that matter, that form and change us...those moments that move us from one direction to another.

I guess the world would stop turning all together with all our many moments that bear the weight of change and notice, so I know it must keep orbit, held in the hand of the One who formed it. The weight of these moments instead lay deep in the heart, where He alone sees us most clearly.

It flashes in time with the blue and red lights filling the street just down from our house in the middle days of July, in the aftermath of bullets that fly from that rolled down window and enter the house just across the street from our front door. As officers tape off the road to block traffic and my phone rings with the number of a visiting dear friend. While she wraps her arms around me and calls out to Jesus for help as tears run down my face from not knowing if it was the house of one of our kids...from not knowing if someone we loved was hit.

In this circle of prayer, as we call out to the One who is Peace Himself, I find my footing in the anchor of His Name.

He hears us in the middle of chaos.


We leave for the unhurried craziness of camp in the hot heat of July. We leave the confines of wifi and cell service for the freedom of play and we find rest there, even as physical exhaustion sets in.

The second week that finds us in the height of trees and the cool of mountains, while the full moon was rising high and the field was full of the night game and teens, I slipped out of the lodge to walk in the fresh air. I wasn't expecting to hear the guttural scream or feel the tension of the next moments before the rushing and the call for 911. I see Tony's face and I know it's bad. Arms reach out for Zeruiah and I run with him in the dark on a dirt road so that we can direct the ambulances and emergency vehicles. I reach the field as it begins to fill with swirling lights circling around one of the most dear women I have come to know. This woman who retired just one week before coming to counsel a cabin full of teen girls and point them to Jesus was now laying on the ground with a leg twisted in all the wrong ways and there are times that tears are the only answer to the moments that don't make sense.

And as everything is tilting from the weight of pain and confusion, as her broken body is lifted up in pain onto a stretcher, the rest of us lean into the presence of each other as we hold the hands of the ones beside us and lift our voices up in prayer.

In this tender place, as we call on His Name, we find Him and He sets our feet on the truth of His presence. And He is there as the moon climbs higher and the smallness of us is deeply known.


It's here on this night, this night filled with so much brokenness and confusion, that a girl who knocks on my door back home and draws maps of imaginary places for my girls, who smiles shyly when I point out her creativity...it's on this night that she hears the beauty of Jesus and how He makes the broken beautiful and she says yes and makes the decision to give her life to Him alone. She gives Jesus her yes in the hours before her counselor gets rushed to the hospital and we could see how God uses all things, good and bad, for His glory.

For whatever reason, I think of the story of the Good Samaritan and the brokenness he embraced. How Jesus used the unlikely to open our eyes to the beauty of mercy and calls us to a life that comes near to the hurting and tender places in another.

That's the key, I think. We may be afraid and uncertain, trying to feel our way through the dark and unseen, unsure of how it is all supposed to look. We can choose to stay back from what we don't understand, feel ill-equipped to handle, or even of what we are afraid of. We could, and it would be understandable. But Jesus pointed out the beauty of the most unlikely to a lawyer who looked the most likely in order to reach his heart.  The Samaritan, who was considered "Bad" by the ones who hated him most, came the closest to the wounds of  the broken in front of him. He didn't just come close, he gave of his time, his comfort, his resources - he gave of what he had and God called him "good".

Tony and I sit in the aftermath of these weeks at camp in our coffee shop chairs that still smell of caffeine and pastries and we ask the hard questions of each other that we had been praying over and seeking direction for to find that sometimes the greatest gain in our lives means the giving up of what feels safe and familiar. Realizing the small ways that I've been relying on things or "this is the way we have always done it" rather than on the faithfulness of Jesus.

I've been afraid to go smaller and simpler, afraid of what it would mean for our family and schooling and ministry. But if I look at the model of what Jesus put forward, I see a man who let go of what he had in order to add to the care and benefit of another.

The hearts of my children matter no less, the beauty of our family demands that Jesus and what He is asking come first. Letting go of the known for a season opens our hands to receive the gift of the unknown, trusting that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights. Letting go of the much allows us to give even more to the ones that He brings into our lives - we give from a place of trust and find that the stuttering moments have only just changed the orbit of our lives. Where we once focused on what was we now find our lives lined up next to the I AM and there is rest here.


Only half of the moon showed her face last night, she orbits and her face shows less then it did in the dark of a field surrounded by towering trees just one short week ago, but I'm not afraid of seeing the smaller picture anymore because I know that we are all seen by the One who spoke our days into existence and we are safe here, for we are always under the watchful eye of our good God.

  

For When I Feel Behind

We leave just before the highest point of the heat wave last week. While the chickens are panting and the dog lays lazy on his side and sweat collects at the nape of my neck.

I had thought the mountains would provide relief - that the air would be cooler, but I was wrong.

The heat was a blanket that pressed in close even there.


The baby, she runs this year.  She runs everywhere and anywhere and the sweat drips off of her little nose too.

It didn't matter though, I would lift her up and place her in the Ergo and she and I, in the shade and light of the forest trails, we would walk.


I am behind in everything it feels like - everything that I had placed before me at the start of the new year. Memory verses, books to read, lessons to plan, posts to post...they all have seemed to slow and the heavy mantle of expectation that I've placed on myself pressed in even closer than the furnace of the air around me.


So as I would walk and she would nod off in the pack on my back I opened up my little booklet that holds the words of that Mountain Sermon - dipped way back into the days of February and tried to start up again, realizing with fresh awe that the very Words of Christ were now on my tongue.

They felt familiar, as they should I guess. From the time I was her size I have heard them in some form or another and I wouldn't be surprised if they were imprinted somehow on the grey matter of my brain.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill

cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:14

But this time, the words didn't just thoughtlessly tumble out of my mouth because there was just one little word that stopped me still.

I mother four little ones, I am wife to one amazing man. I am a Canadian from wide open prairies who has fallen in love with the inner city and the people here, but there are times that I still feel adrift...as though I am missing out on the details of the plan.

Three little letters though arrested my footsteps and I stood under towering cedars and received the truth of what He was giving.

Set.

The size of this word belies the riches hidden inside of it - and the Greek unfurls the beauty of it even more.

It speaks of things that quietly cover some spot - of a city that is situated on a hill.

As a metaphor, it is to be (by God's intent) set, destined, appointed.




In the center of His will, I am found in the details of His plans for me...for us. In the middle of the mundane and the chaos with time rushing by on either side, I can easily become distracted, convinced that the movement of the moments is what I'm missing, forgetting that His Hand has set me here in place.

Time will always rush by - to be honest, I may always feel one step behind.

But really, behind who?


Phantom expectations that I have allowed myself to be led astray by,

or resting quietly, trusting by faith in the One Who has placed me here, in this time - this space.


It is in Jesus that I live and move and have my being - in Him I can't be behind or missing out on what He has planned for me. There is a security in knowing that I have been purposefully placed, that His grace anchors me to Himself when it feels as though time is swirling out of of control.

The summer heat pressed in close in those days of last week, but it only served to press me in closer to Jesus and lifting a weight that I never needed to carry.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

I want to run this race, not because I'm trying to chase some illusive plan I'm convinced Jesus is withholding from me, but because I know this right now is His will and each step is bringing me closer to that moment when my eyes will see His beautiful face.

Independence Day...A letter from Tony

On a regular basis, Tony sends out a prayer letter to those who support us in this way and we felt it sums up our first 4th of July in the inner-city quite well.

Here it is in his words...

Hello fellow prayer partners, 

Last night was interesting.  

Fireworks were basically used as a shield to fire guns.  You would hear a loud bang or screecher firework followed by the rapid snapping of .22,  .45 and 9's. 

Once the fireworks at the Sun Dome had been expended and the neighborhood was empty, gun fire broke out up and down the street, all around us with no pretense or attempt to hide any of the intent. 

In some cases it was random firing but in other instances there were clearly firefights block to block with return fire back and forth using higher caliber weapons with rapid fire exchanges including AR 15's and other weapons I couldn't place from just the sounds. 

This continued all through the night until 6:30am and I wondered at one point whether they would run out of ammunition or alcohol first (blame it on the Goose). :)

   My family and I were perfectly safe.  What did concern me was the young man that dropped by around 9:30pm, clearly strapped and needing food and water.  We weren't sure if he was there for our protection or his own. 

He is a great kid that grew up on the eastside and has generational gang roots. 

   He tried to pass it off as just being funny but his questions were veined in serious notes, making sure we were safe and that we should probably arm ourselves, even though he'd, "let his homies know we weren't to be touched, but he can't assure us that his enemies felt the same."

I assured him Jesus was taking care of us. 

Kimberley and I and the kids sat with him on the front porch, feeding him and letting him talk for awhile until it was time for him to leave around 10:30pm. I sent the kids and Kimberley inside and explained to him that Jesus loves him and had a plan for his life. Before he left he asked me to pray for  protection for himself that, "he wouldn't get messed up in anything stupid tonight". I did that but also prayed that "Jesus would show himself to [him] tonight in a way that undeniable, and that he would clearly see Jesus." 

Please pray for us to heed The Spirit's leading and that Jesus would continue to bring these opportunities to witness to our front door. 

Send this to whoever would benefit from it or is interested in praying for our ministry.

Thanks,
Tony Baker
MH director

I've never been in a situation like this before, and yet even though I was overwhelmed, I was also covered in a peace that only Christ can give.

About three weekends before, I was given the opportunity to speak at a weekend camp and the verse that my co-speaker and I focused on was 2 Timothy 1:7:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control.

These were the words that were running through my head as we listened to the chaos outside our home.


Jesus is here with us, whether the streets are calm or in turmoil.  He has placed us here with a very specific purpose - to show His glory in the middle of what we don't always understand.


If you would like to be included in our prayer letters, you can contact me at wifeoftony{at}gmail(dot)com. We would love to have you stand beside us.