Hannah.

Hannah and I met a VERY long time ago. She's the friend that I've known the longest. One thing that amazes me at Hannah is how consistent she's been since we met. She's never let her family, friends, or titles define her. She's grown into an independent, free-thinking person. Hannah is super convicting, but not because she pushes her convictions onto people, but because she feels so passionately about things that you can't help but feel the same way about them. I LOVE her heart for people and can't even imagine what she'll do as the Lord continues to increase that love. Step into Hannah's life, but prepare to get rocked.

Hello! My name is Hannah, I am 20 years old and from Ohio! I met Alyssa when she lived here, and we were in a group called Keepers of the Home. If you know Alyssa personally, please ask her about this embarrassing season of our lives.  

It depends who you’re talking to..but my life is kind of far from typical. I used to sum it up like this: I am a pastors/missionaries’ kid, vegetarian, and home schooled. How bad can it get? :] (Thankfully, I am no longer the latter two).

“Community” is a buzz word in the church these days. We have community groups, community projects, community parties. Sadly..that community is usually referring to the group of people on the inside of the church, and not so much the outside..or our actual neighborhoods and places where we spend the majority of our weeks.

When I was 4 years old, my parents decided to move my family of 6 out of our nice home in the ‘burbs into the second-highest crime rated neighborhood in all of Akron (Akron is the 5^th largest city in Ohio, with population around 200,000).  AKA, the ghetto. My dad quit his full-time job as a firefighter and from then forward committed his life to full time “ministry”. (side note- I hate when people use ministry in sentences like that. Haha, because we should ALL be committing our lives to full time ministry..no matter what our career choice is, ministry is a requirement for any believer. But for the purpose of explanation, yes..my dad quit his typical salary paying career job to do strictly gospel work. I am sorry, does that make sense?) We were the only Caucasian family in a neighborhood full of African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. And in case you have never heard of such a thing..America needs missionaries too. My parents’ hearts became so burdened for the inner-city they knew that Jesus was calling them to not just preach at or minister to the poor once a week, but to follow His example and actually live among the poor day in and day out. My dad willingly gave up his entire salary and did not write 1 support letter for nearly 5 years. I was young so it is hard to remember the details, but how could you not recognize there was a God when He was so evident in our lives, and providing SO tangibly for our family? Dinner was served each night by a miracle, because my parents were living completely by faith.

It is shameful that most Americans don’t believe in God because we don’t allow room for God to move, live, and breath. People always talk about how nice it must have been in Jesus’ time to see His miracles; we don’t see them because we don’t need them. We live our lives distant from the intimacy of God and lack opportunities to trust Him, and to allow for Him to show up. What makes my family sad is when people praise us for the choices we have to made. God calls all his people to be living in such intentional ways in their neighborhoods and communities.

Moving into South Akron was a huge step for my family. Because of my parents’ choices my life has been seriously impacted. Thankfully, I never had to go through a negative rebelling season like some PK’s (it often makes sense why that is a stereotype) Before I paint you the wrong picture however- it has been VERY difficult also. Any time your parent is in a leadership role and it feels like the world is watching, there is some unspoken pressure. Not only were we pastors’ kids, but also lived radically different just by our lifestyle. There is no distinction between home and ministry- South Street Ministries is based out of our house (we have grown and now own a building). We have all had to learn to create healthy boundaries and involvement in things outside of the ministry. I’ve never been able to leave my yard without a male with me. I never rode my bike around my neighborhood, and often my friends were not allowed to come over because of where we lived. We left my house for extended periods of time (a couple days and about a month) because my dad and our lives were being threatened.  In context of the big picture, these are very small sacrifices when many people all over the world struggle to survive each day.

I could tell you about a million different stories about how my parents felt “the call”, the prostitutes and drug dealers I know by name because they're my neighbors, the hundreds of families to be evicted, and the absolute worst- going to funerals of children much too young to ever have died. If you would like to know more sometime..if inner city ministry really intrigues you, email me at hecrabbs1@malone.edu. However, those aren’t really my stories to tell. Those are stories you need to experience yourself. There is nothing pretty and glamorous or glorified about them. We often feel the need to try and make sense of ministry, to put numbers and dollar signs on it. There are no easy formulas, But it is through the ashes we find the beauty of Christ to continue on. Obedience to the Lord isn’t always a big pillow fight at a slumber party.  

One of the biggest things I pray you learn from my story is that ministry is wherever you are located. “There is plenty you can do to change the world from your own 50 square miles of beaten path” It doesn’t take the perfect person, let me remind you..God used unlikely people in unlikely places for his Kingdom (Moses, Rahab, Job, just to name a few). I don’t know how old you are, but we 20-somethings get real caught up in trying to figure out what were going to do with our lives, and just what the perfect path is. I think we become so overwhelmed with the intensity of sin and brokenness in the world that we end up settling for simply re-posting the latest social justice issues on our twitter and facebook pages and call it a wrap (Kony 2012 campaign did great things..just be careful as to what you are actually calling service or ministry in your life. We must be willing to sacrifice much more than 4 minutes. ) We begin to learn just how big the world is, and how complicated the problems are that we neglect looking outside our back door, or even worse, we fail to look inwards first and deal with our own crap.

A quote I heard a while back and is constantly driving me is this: “If you don’t need the gospel more than the one you are sharing it with, you ought to not be sharing it”

Let that motivate you to fall in love with Jesus again- to search scripture and know why you love the Lord. The natural overflow from this love should be what grounds you in ministry. Not that new book you read, or inspirational speaker you heard at a conference. Following and serving Christ is about the day in, and day out. We get bored, or tired of conflict and move on. But that is not how Christ called us. Be rooted in community

And don’t you worry. Every word I wrote of this was a starch reminder to myself of how much more I need to grow in Christ.

Couple of plugs..

Check out South Street Ministries on FaceBook or the site: http://www.southstreetministries.org/

Second plug..

Currently my high school youth pastor and wife are adopting their second child from Russia. Adoption is VERY near and dear to my heart- and more importantly, weighs on Gods heart more than you could ever imagine. There are about a zillion scripture verses about it. Anyways, it is very pricey, and they need help from community to make it happen! I started this 1$ campaign..check it out. www.indiegogo.com/HelpAdd1  the idea is for everyone to donate just 1$ (we all have one buck to spare, no matter how poor you are---especially us college students..we spend our money on the dumbest things sometimes) So far there has been an AWESOME response!! I would love to see our goal met, and exceeded before the deadline. Please give, and spread the word. THANK YOU!! J

Walk in the Light friends,

Hannah