Sundoulos Blog #1 July 4, 2009, Atrium Village near Cabrini-Green, Chicago IL

Sonny1 searched the Illinois Department of Corrections inmate database on my laptop with his homie Jonny1, after our Sat. afternoon Bible study. Searching the inmate database is a common past-time for many of our youth from the neighborhood. Many of the men they grew up with, and sadly some of their peers, are incarcerated. Sonny found four inmates with his last name: his father, his uncle, and two cousins. In fact, all the males in Sonny’s immediate family, which could serve as a role model, are presently incarcerated. Woah.

This is Sundoulos writing this blog. Bor D asked me to begin writing a regular blog for Gangstyle. Some of you may remember my posts and articles for Gangstyle back in 2003 and 2004 when I did gang outreach from behind a computer monitor and keyboard, living in western Upper Michigan. This evening, I’m writing this blog from my crib at Atrium Village, just a 10 min. walk from Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects (or what’s left of them). I retired from my day job in Feb. 2008 and later, on May 30, I moved to Chicago to share Jesus Christ with street gang members and disciple them, and become more like Jesus in the process. I currently volunteer with three Christian street gang outreaches and two Christian at-risk youth ministries. I finally feel like I’m doing what God has called me to do to serve Him. But, urban Chicago is a universe away from Upper Michigan’s northwoods. lol

Now, I can take a five minute walk from my crib to a beautiful city park—Seward Park—and see gang graffiti on the benches there: “Norman a.k.a. Nemo G.” Nemo probably is (or was…) a Gangster Disciple. The GD’s are still one of Chicago’s largest street gangs, and Cabrini-Green was once GD “headquarters” when one of the founders Larry Hoover was still in the Illinois correctional system. While much of Cabrini has been torn down, and is nowhere as crazy as it was ten years ago, it’s still amazing how much craziness there still is. Just last week, one of the teens in one of our youth ministries was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the leg. He was with the wrong crew, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, probably doing the wrong thing—a scenario all to common for some of our neighborhood youth.

Just a ten minute walk from Seward Park, going north across Division St, up Sedgwick St. one can peep more gang graffiti in the concrete: “CVL”—Conservative Vice Lords and “MC Nation”—Mickey Cobras. According to some of our Cabrini kids, the Mickey Cobras roll especially deep in that neighborhood. This means our kids don’t cross Division Street going north–unless they absolutely have to.

To get back to the topic I started with, most of the male teens that we reach out to are fatherless—either they don’t know their father, or if they do, he’s not in the picture. Earlier this year, one of our older teens shared that he saw is father on the street and was shocked to see him. He hadn’t seen his dad in so long, he thought he was dead! The disasterous consequences of fatherlessness among urban youth are well documented, so I don’t need go into detail here. But, having to regularly deal with the effects of fatherlessness in our kids, consumes considerable quantities of love, patience, time and prayer.

Speaking of that, I’m going to close this blog now, because tomorrow is a full day. I have prayer at 9 AM at my church—Living Faith Community Church in the Lower North Center in Cabrini-Green, followed by ushering at the worship service at 10 AM. After church, three of our teens and I are rolling over to Chipotle’s on north State Street to get our grub on and talk about Pastor Will’s2 sermon. Later, at 4 PM, those teens–and three more–are coming over to the crib for Bible study, to watch the Gangland episode “Gangster City” (about Cabrini-Green in the GD heyday) and then watch something a bit more positive, “The Fellowship of the Ring.” That’s a different sort of Sunday than ones I used to have living in Michigan’s northwoods.

Peace and God madd bless until next blog.

~1~

sundoulos
John 3:30

1.Names are changed to protect the innocent. Lol
2.“Pastor Will” is Pastor William Gates. He is the Will Gates profiled as a teen basketball sensation in the landmark 1994 documentary “Hoop Dreams.”

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