A light in the darkness

Sheesh I have been facing many difficult situations lately. The latest one is in my housing co-op.

I am a part of an organization that provides home ownership to families with low incomes. The government puts a 30% down payment on houses in the inner city and they expect you to be a part of a co-op for five years, then will forgive the 30% down payment and the title of the property is turned over to the existing family. It is a wonderful opportunity for families who otherwise could not own thier own home.

I have been the president of our co-op for the past two years. As part of that position it is my responsibility to manage the affairs that happen within the co-op.

Recently our co-op had to make an unfortunate decision to ask one of our members to leave thier home. For confidential reasons I cannot explain why. I went by the house today to get the door locks re keyed and I had the opportunity to walk through the house. I was an utter mess. Garbage strewn all over the house. Walls damaged (not vandalized but needing repair), sewage in the washroom. Eavstroughs ripped off the house. It was very discouraging to see the estate of the house. It will cost our co-op up to $1000 to repair it. $1000 that we do not have. Anyway, as I walked through the house, it felt yucky inside. You know when you walk into a situation where your spirit is on red alert? Well that is the feeling that I had when I walked through this house. There is a very bad spiritual presence there. In fact this is the second family that has left that house. I am going to discern whether or not I should get some Godly men in there to pray through it with me and clean it up.

Being a president in a secular organization has been very good for me. I have been forced to act on policy and bylaw more that my heart would like. To date our co-op has asked 3 families to leave. All 3 times I could have acted on my hearts desire to see them stay, and probably could have encouraged the rest of the board to let them stay. But in hindsight I realize that a decision like that would have brought down the co-op finacially. I have been learning to manage on a much larger scale. I am beginning to see that following the policies of our co-op is God honoring. It protects the families that are truly trying to get thier homes. Plus it gives direction when things do go wrong.

For three years I have been asking God how I can be a light to my co-op. I realized a few months ago that there are 25 people that I am or that I have the opportunity to influence for the Kingdom of God. Hopefully I am already being a light as I walk with them in our co-op.

I won't lie though it is very tough being a light in the darkness. There is such a strong poverty mentality in our co-op. people that have rented all of thier lives, and not realizing that they are now owners in training. You see our co-op does not do repair work in peoples homes. Once a family moves in, it is thier responsibility to work on their homes and fix whatever problems arise. Anyway I am getting long wided here. I have one month left and then I am resigning as president, but I wouldn't trade what I have learned in that process. And hopefully I can influence some of those 25 people to the point of salvation. Now that would be cool.