Dear Friends,

The jobs that pay my bills – speaking and managing EAPE – often carry me far from the jobs that don’t, writing and loving my neighbors here in Walnut Hills. Just a few weeks ago I found myself in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where my old friends David Diggs, John Engle, and Kent Annan introduced me to the most dignified, courageous poor people I’ve ever met, who were cooperatively transforming their communities in ways I can hardly imagine happening in this neighborhood. Now I am wondering what will become of all that good work, and what has become of all those good people.

Having seen the desperation of Port-au-Prince just before this terrible earthquake, I know it must be the most terrible place on earth right now. My neighbors here in Walnut Hills are desperately poor in spirit, but our government consistently provides most of their basic physical needs. In Haiti, many people I met had literally nothing but faith, and yet they were organizing schools, learning to read, and rescuing children from grinding servitude, working with my friends’ sister organizations, Beyond Borders and Haiti Partners, to transform their own lives.

Now they need even more help, from families like ours, who know how to give.

Through EAPE, I have established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund (https://dlq4.donatelinq.net/qv10/Donation.aspx?MerchantID=EAPE) to collect donations from both our Walnut Hills Fellowship extended family and my father’s network, which we will turn over to our friends at Beyond Borders and Haiti Partners, who we trust most of all. Don’t worry about our little fellowship right now; we’re all giving to Haiti ourselves. Instead, pray for God’s people there, and give what you can to help.

Hoping against hope,

Bart

Dear Friends,

Knowing that you are presently being deluged by holiday greetings (and end-of-year solicitations), I have decided to keep this letter mercifully brief. You hear from me every month, after all.

Mainly, I just want to thank you for caring about our motley little fellowship. Knowing that so many of you actually read these letters, and often reflect on and respond to them as well, is a genuine encouragement to me and a reassuring reminder that we are part of something bigger and better than all we see here in Walnut Hills. I often think I am the most well-supported man on earth.

If you wonder about my wife and children, they are very fine and (in my not-so-humble opinion) quite dandy. Marty continues to grow more confident, both as an artist and as a human being, and that assurance translates into beautiful paintings and all kinds of blessings for those of us fortunate enough to be in her way. Miranda spent an amazing summer doing inner-city ministry with Urban Promise in Camden, NJ before beginning her sophomore year at our beloved Eastern University. When she is on her game, I know no better people-lover. Roman drives, plays varsity football, acts in plays, works part-time at the local Kroger supermarket, and socializes on a grand scale, but none of those activities really define him. A junior at Walnut Hills High School, he has more charisma than the rest of us put together, but what he will do with it remains to be seen. Me you already know about.

I’ll get back to telling stories next month, but these are enough words from me for now.

Much love,

Bart

Dear Friends,

Stanley is a dirty old man, and by that I don’t just mean he talks about younger women in inappropriate ways. He smells bad, too. Really bad. On the other hand, Stanley is about as gentle a fellow as you are likely to meet here in Walnut Hills, which is why the rest of us put up with his stink, even at the dinner table. He’s our friend, after all.

After dinner the other night, we held our annual show-and-tell talent show, which is kind of a homey cross between American Idol and The Jerry Springer Show. Just after one of our teenagers proudly modeled her pregnant belly (her talents, unfortunately, do not include good judgment), I was getting ready for “Cincinnati’s loudest burp” when Karen tapped me on the shoulder. “Della says Stanley has bedbugs all over his jacket,” she whispered urgently. “What do we do now?”

I quietly moved next to Della, who sadly shook her head. Sure enough, Stanley ’s back was literally crawling with bedbugs. How did I know they were bedbugs, you ask? Around here we learn to spot our bedbugs the way an endangered horror movie hero learns to spot her zombies. Della knew too. “You gotta get him out of here, or my family’s leaving,” she told me. “I love y’all, Bart, but we can’t be getting no bedbugs.” And just that quickly, everything changed between Stanley and the rest of us.

I called him outside, but there was no way to avoid embarrassing him. He didn’t argue or minimize the problem. He just shook his head and told me he didn’t know what to do. I shook my head too. Three weeks later, I still don’t know what to do.

If all this seems overly dramatic, then you must be unaware that bedbugs, which were largely wiped out in this country by DDT in the 1950s, are in the midst of a major resurgence, most especially among the poor people in inner-city neighborhoods who are least equipped to fight them. It only takes one hitching a ride on your clothes to infest your house, and after that they are incredibly difficult to get rid of, even with the help of an exterminator, and even if you can afford to throw away your bed and most of your furniture. They feed on your blood every three nights, but you can’t just leave and starve them out, because they can survive without feeding for more than a year.

Spiritually speaking, bedbugs are a kind of modern day leprosy. Della and her family aren’t the only ones afraid to touch Stanley these days; all of us keep our distance. Until we can find a way to shower and dress him in clean clothes each week, we don’t even let him come to dinner anymore. He’s a gentle old crackhead who needs our love, but we shun him.

We’re still not safe, of course. Every day we hug people who might be carriers, or invite their kids into our homes, or go to visit theirs. A few months ago, when Marty and I had a false alarm in our house, our whole ministry here flashed before our eyes. Bullets in the backyard we can handle, I think. Bedbugs…I don’t know. How can you love anybody if you can’t sleep anymore?

Then again, how well can you sleep when you know your old friend Stanley is just a few blocks away, filthy and bug-bitten and alone? Not so well, it turns out, when you think about it.

I used to judge all those Bible people who shunned the lepers to protect themselves and their families. I thought I was different because I was willing to spend my life in a ghetto. Now I know better…and wish I had some DDT.

Sincerely,

Bart

If you are interested it is possible to give online at www.thewalnuthillsfellowship.org.