Dear Friends,
Well here we are. Pushing almost two months since coming back from Portland, Oregon. I would like to think I have fully processed the trip,but there are still some areas of the trip I can not place into words or categories. However, I can elaborate on two words. Community and brokenness.
Portland taught me so much about community. I spoke with our contacts in the city and learned a very simple/complex necessity for life. As Christ followers we should rely on those around us to support,encourage and hold us accountable. We do this by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable with people we trust. The vulnerability give us the opportunity to lay all of our dirty laundry and mess out in the open. This is terrifying for most everyone,but by doing so the strongholds your laundry has over you begin to weaken and you are able to walk deeper in your relationship with Christ.
Portland is such a broken city. The brokenness can be related to many things, but one thing slaps you in the face everywhere you go in the city, sex. As uncomfortable as it may be to talk about Portland has the most strip clubs per capita than any other United States city. Everywhere you look, especially in downtown, one can see multiple theaters, stores and clubs. I had never been to a place where sex was so accessible. The fact is temptation was the last thing on my mind because I was so taken back and heart broken over it. We hear about Portland like "sex cities" overseas, but we ignore those in our backyards. There are broken people, broken lives and broken cities everywhere. The question is; when are we going to stop ignoring the fact that its everywhere and start loving those who are broken?
There is so much more to Portland than this post,but these are the two golden nuggets I have taken from the trip.
