Camden

Broken buildings, shambled

A thousand faces, labelled

What used to stand was beauty

Now empty, waste is reality

Open your eyes to the wreck

To buildings, rust and bricks

But beyond you see, the shine

Of Philly standing tall and fine

The difference is shocking

The facts terrifying

How one child is born here

While is born there

Camden feels like a third world country, it stands across the bridge from Philly and is a city bankrupt, booming in drug dealing and is a city that literally looks like it is crumbling.

I went to visit Camden for the past 6 days as a mission team with some students from Tyndale Collage, University and Seminary. We went to help and learn from the Urban Promise Ministries located in east Camden. This is Urban Promise Toronto’s sister Ministry and so it was inspiring to meet the people there and experience how the same ministry functions and looks like in a different city.

It was a shocking eye opening week, the poverty and communities that the individuals and kids live in are unreal. If all of this existed without God, it would be a place without hope like so many other places in this world.

During these 6 days I got to experience after school programs, visit their boat works project of over the course of a year building canoes or kayaks with the youth, served two lunches to homeless, 26 on Sunday and 54 on Thursday and help to facilitate their yearly Math Dare event and of course any of the maintenance and cleaning.

Seeing the work that God is doing in the city through the different churches and ministries in the city was reassuring of the hope and promises that our God offers. To experience and to see/feel afresh the areas of inspiration, passion and desire to do something was encouraging and refreshing and yet hard and challenging not to just accept things for how they are but to search out God’s heart for each person and situation.

Please pray for the city of Camden, for God to continue to transform the hearts and lives and for His holiness to continue to influence deeply the lives of those who are working as His hands and feet.