Good morning…
The morning after my husband and I returned as Julie’s Dream chaperones from a week-long trip to Maine with kids and staff from PAWkids, a friend sent me the follow text: “I hope you saw this. So wonderful!!!!”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article about the uplifting work of LaTonya Gates, community leader and founding director of PAWkids. As I have gotten to know LaTonya well over the past several months, I have been inspired by the call of God upon her uniquely vibrant life. Though I have been fascinated by her life story personally, it is fun to see LaTonya publicly celebrated for her healing work in our community.
Born in a prison, an infant addicted to heroine, LaTonya was brought home to be cared for by Claudia Kemp, the generous woman LaTonya calls her grandmother. “My grandmother only had a second grade education, she was a sharecropper and worked the fields,” recalls LaTonya. “She couldn’t give us much, but she loved us well and taught us to serve our neighborhood.”
LaTonya has learned Claudia’s lessons well, serving her Grove Park neighborhood with passion and persistence. Through my friendship with LaTonya, God is expanding my personal sense of “neighborhood,” drawing me to creatively collaborate with women and their families in our Atlanta community, from affluent Buckhead through impoverished Bankhead.
LaTonya’s personal calling helps to clarify the call of God upon our own ordinary lives. Live a cheerful life, without complaining or division among yourselves. For then you will be seen as innocent, faultless, and pure children of God, even though you live in the midst of a brutal and perverse culture. For you will appear among them as shining lights in the universe, holding out the words of eternal life (Philippians 2:14-16, TPT).
This very day, how might God be calling you personally to shine as a vibrant light in this universe, living out the words of eternal life?
…Sue…
