Questions......

I had an interesting discussion with a few people the other day about the city where FS is located and it's impact on people.  It doesn't seem to leave people unchanged.  It's such a crazy, dirty, vibrant, sad, poverty stricken, enthusiastic, heart rendering, historic, hard, wealthy, colorful place of fragile beauty and 'in your face' pain.  There's just no where else quite like it!

The city and especially the area where FS is makes people ask hard questions, too.  It seems to make people either reach deeper for answers or, sadly, we know of those who have walked away from their fai-th because the questions were too much.

Questions like:

"Where is G0d in the night sky?
Where is G0d in the city light?
Where is G0d in the earthquake?
Where is G0d in the genocide?

Where are you in my broken heart?
Everything seems to fall apart
Everything feels rusted over
Tell me that you're there"
                   -by Jon Foreman  ('Vice Verses'-Switchfoot)

Or maybe phrased a bit more like this for our city:

Where is G0d in the stolen women?
Where is G0d in the homeless children?
Where is G0d in the poverty?
Where is G0d in inhumanity?

Where are you for their broken hearts?
Everything has already fallen apart
Everything feels hopeless forever
How can you be there?

These are valid questions and ones that we have had to face daily.  And there are no easy answers----except to struggle with it. And not to stop.

As our Rachel said at the end of the conversation I mentioned, (about those who have stopped asking and have walked away) "Let's not let that be us!"

P.S. Today is FS's 11th birthday of offering Freedom!