This coming year, we’re going to dig a little deeper and share several perspectives on the meaning of our tagline … Desire Street Ministries: the intersection of lives, leaders and neighborhoods. If you follow along, it may feel like you’re going on a journey, visiting faraway places that may actually be located only a short drive away.
You see, at Desire Street, in striving toward revitalized neighborhoods, we have a vision that includes both the present and the future. The here and the hereafter. We see that both spiritual and community development are needed in order to start a transformation in under-resourced neighborhoods.
But it doesn’t come easily or happen overnight. It requires a fabric of different people and resources, woven together in prayer! In God’s great plan, we each can do a little, and He turns it into a lot.
You can see this in the article by Ben Sciacca (our Director of Leadership Development), which was published in Good Grit Magazine in January. Ben gives you a streetside view of our ministry partner Benjamin Wills, founder of Peace Preparatory Academy in the English Avenue neighborhood of Atlanta. Here’s an excerpt. I invite you, no urge you, to click the link and walk with Ben and Benjamin on an insider’s view of a journey that is intersecting lives, leaders and neighborhoods.
When you pull up to Peace Preparatory Academy (a private school grades K4 – 3rd) on English Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, it doesn’t take long for its founder, Benjamin Wills, to take you on a walk. He is always excited to take guests through the hallways of his amazing school and show you his students. But he’s equally passionate to walk you down the streets of his community.
If you have never been to English Avenue, or neighborhoods like it, it can feel a bit daunting. Sagging and burned-out houses adorn the streets. Trash clings to the curbs. As you pass by, drug dealers nod or wave. English Avenue is one of the largest heroine-dealing neighborhoods in the country. But you are safe as you walk with Benjamin. He is respected in the community because he loves their children and his school is making a difference.
Click to read Ben Sciacca’s article published in Good Grit Magazine.
