Waiting in Allentown
I’ll never forget what that kid said to me.
It happened at our Street 2 Street basketball tourney this August in Allentown, PA. It wasn’t long ago, to be honest, when all I knew about Allentown was contained in the old Billy Joel tune. “We’re waiting here in Allentown—for the Pennsylvania we never found…” If you remember the words, you know there’s a lot of despair wrapped up in the lyrics.
It’s been a long time since that song hit the airwaves, but some places in Allentown today the sense of hopelessness is stronger than ever. High unemployment, violent crime, and street gangs—some with ties to the big New York City gangs. It’s all there.
So here we were hosting our first ever tournament in Allentown, and I was excited. But I have to tell you, these things are always accompanied by no small amount of stress. When you assemble 60 teenage boys—some with gang affiliations, most from rough neighborhoods, and every last one of them brimming with testosterone—you could be sitting on a powder keg.
But by the grace of God the tournament went off without a hitch. Johnny Lopez, one of our original Street 2 Street leaders, gave a crisp presentation of the gospel. Johnny has a unique way of capturing attention and commanding the respect of young men. And on this day he was firing on all cylinders and delivered a spirit-filled message that made a big impact.
At the end of his talk, Johnny asked every young man to look him in the eye, and then he challenged them. “If you’ve made a decision for Christ today,” he said, “I want you to stand up now.” Out of 60 players, unbelievably, 56 stood up. And there’s something else you should know—the 4 who remained seated did so only because they had already given their lives to Christ at an earlier S2S tournament.
I wish my faith was greater than it is but, really, I was just blown away by the response. God proved to all of us at that tournament, once again, that He is still working miracles.
When the event came to an end, I was making the rounds as I always do, thanking the volunteers, the staff and the players. “Hey, kid!” I called out to Anthony, one of the players, as he walked off the court. “Thanks for playing in the Street 2 Street tournament!” Anthony paused and turned my way. “No, sir …thank you!” he said. “This is the best day of my life! There’s nothing like this in Allentown. I can’t wait until next year!” I was thinking about how to describe the impact of Street 2 Street, but Anthony’s comments say it better than I can. Because of the prayers and financial support of our supporters, Anthony and many of his neighbors have found a new life that will lift them above the hopelessness of the inner city. And we can thank God, those boys are no longer waiting in Allentown.
TweetTags: featured
This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Street Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
