reality bites

Ok, so only if the neighbor's dog was named Reality, which it isn't. The name is Rex. And Rex bites. Rex bites hard.

Rex is a wee little doggie, guarding the neighbor's yard with his equally wee buddy, Maya. The mutts only come up to about my ankle. Yet two of the three roommates have now recieved brutal bruises and teethmarks, sustained through jeans nonetheless. Leah is sole the hold-out, and she is realizing that she is wise just to shout over the gate rather than enter Rex's turf. Because seriously, Rex bites HARD.

But for some of our neighbors, reality does bite. Kids whose fathers are in prison or have been deported. Women who are raising children alone. Teens who are attempting to become adults with no one offering them guidance. Entire families living in less-than-sanitary conditions, unable to stand up to the landlord because they don't have anyplace to go.

It is this last group that is particularly on our minds this week. Most of you will remember that we moved across the street a couple months ago, leaving behind a dilapidated trailer with a mold issue that had left us coughing for months on end. The place is a health hazard. Yet is has come to our attention in the last week that the landlord had no intentions of doing any work on it before placing another family in there. He simply gave the outside a fresh coat of white paint, while the inside remains as unhealthy as when we left it. Never before has the concept of a "whitewashed tomb" been so real to me, friends. He is shining up the outside, while leaving the inside full of death.

We need wisdom in this situation. We cannot, in good conscience, watch a child be moved into that place. Yet speaking up could be incredibly harmful to our own relationship with our landlord. Even if calls made to groups like Code Enforcement are anonymous, there will be no mistaking who initiated them. Pray for us. The Bible calls us so clearly to speak up on behalf of those who can't speak up for themselves (Prov. 31). Pray that we can do this wisely and well.

And while you're at it, pray that none of us gets rabies. Because while God has made our own reality beautiful (even when difficult), Rex just plain bites.