August

July has been a crazy but exciting month for me. I got engaged!! Amanda and I got engaged on July 16th after dating for about nine months. We are really excited about our future life together and being involved in the ministry of Youthfront. Also this month I finished my time as the interim youth director at Community Covenant Church and moved into the Youthfront school of Formation (YSF) house on Aug 1. I have been excited to start this position since I committed to this back in April. It is almost surreal that it is

actually now happening.

Getting this house was an adventure in itself. We have been looking for a good house to have YSF in since May and found this house only about two weeks ago. We have been trusting God to provide a place that would be right for this ministry and for housing the students. This house is exactly that. It is a five bedroom meaning that myself and Jessica (the other director of community life) can each have our own bedroom and then have three still for students. The other priority for the house was that it is in the Argentine neighborhood where we have chosen to place this community. This house is right in the heart of the neighborhood, just a couple blocks from the community center. We are so excited and thankful to be in such a great house.

In the few days now that I have been living here in the Argentine there is one thing that I have noticed specifically is the hospitality of the people here. As I was moving in Amanda and I saw a garage sale sign in the neighborhood and went to check it out. Amanda and I were in separate cars and she arrived first. I went to YSF to drop off a few things and then go to the garage sale. While Amanda was waiting in the heat for me to show up the family gave her a cold bottle of water and began talking to her. Once I arrived we realized that we did not have cash and the lady offered to not sell the stuff that we wanted while she waited for us to return with money.

Also everyone in this neighborhood sits on their front porch, or for those houses that don’t have a front porch they sit on a chairs in the front yard. Then as you come and go everyone greets each other. The kind of hospitality and community that is evident in this neighborhood is foreign to many of us that live in the suburbs. We sit on our back porches and rarely speak to those in our neighborhood. Although we often think of low- income neighborhoods lacking in life, needing to be restored, I believe that it is here that life is really happening. It is here where there is community amongst the neighbors. I am coming to realize that i have just as much to learn from my new neighbors as I could ever hope to teach them.

Nate Howard