Grace and Gunfire

My daughter Gabby is returning home from a mission trip to Detroit, sponsored by YWAM Pittsburgh. They are returning a few days early due to a harrowing and dangerous situation in which, by the grace of God, no one was hurt. She spent the first week at 'missions boot camp' at the YWAM center, working on skits, songs, and street evangelism training. Monday, 3 groups of 50 kids and 24 staff piled into vans and cars and made the trip to Detroit, where they would be doing street evangelism. It has been an eye opening and life changing experience for Gabby, for which we are very thankful. However, it was potentially very dangerous on Tuesday, as one of the groups (thankfully, not Gabby's) was witnessing to what they later found out was a street gang. A rival gang drove up in a van and started shooting at the gang that the YWAM kids were witnessing to. By the grace of God, no one was hurt, but the gang in the van then held everyone up at gunpoint and robbed them of all of their cash, not to mention their sense of safety and well-being. After that experience YWAM pulled out of the Detroit area and returned to Pittsburgh to continue their mission work there. I am so relieved that no one was hurt (this time), but at the same time, my heart breaks for the people who can't simply pack up and pull out of Detroit, or New York City, or even certain areas of Pittsburgh. People live with the reality that bullets could fly through their neighborhoods at random. How sad that even when the light of Christ tries to penetrate into a darkened area, Satan's strongholds can dim the light. Hopefully Christ, through YWAM, was able to make a lasting difference in the short time they were there. Remember in prayer those who live each day in unsafe areas, and those who try to bring hope to the dark places in our world.