A love note to the 330:

I miss you, Akron.

I miss you and your big city attempts yet small city reality.

I miss your empty sidewalks with the occasional straggler who nods in greeting.

I miss your community that I desire to ravish with love.

I miss your people waiting (desiring?) to be mobilized.

I miss your children with potential far beyond the resources and opportunities they have been given due to systematic injustices.

I miss your missionaries, ready to tell Akron’s story and to work towards Restoration.

I miss your one-way streets, your college, your corner stores, your neighbors.

I left you to “get educated”

(Whatever that means)

And I have learned a lot, I’ll admit.

I’ve learned that I know nothing,

And I think that is one of the best things I could learn.

And I’m trying my hardest to finish this degree

(Seven months left, woo!)

But every day I’m finding that I really just…miss…

You.

Even as I busy myself learning about social stratification and poverty and race relations and socially conscious business models and community organizing and the South Bronx and all of these incredible, applicable knowledge bases ---

(you are still always on my mind.)

So I’m thinking, 330.

I think I want to live with you (for a while, maybe forever?)

Yes, Akron, I know it will be incredibly hard (the summer taught me that).

I know that I am young—that I am naïve and idealistic.

I know I don’t understand much about city life (or anything at all).

But you have the beauty of a sunrise on the countryside and I want to be a part of that story.

(I want to be a part of your story, if you would let me.)

And I know I’ve got a lot to learn,

    but I’ve been in school for sixteen years now and

    I’m ready for 50 more if it means that I get the

    privilege of being your student.

Of learning from you, Akron.

Of fighting alongside you, Akron.

Of dreaming and failing and moving forward and crying and celebrating with you, Akron.

Pray for me please, Akron.

Pray that I would know that this deep yearning in my heart is not mine,

But His.