Our Happy Place

Good morning…

Yesterday, spontaneously, the chorus of an old favorite song erupted in me. I unashamedly sang out loud as I drove to PAWkids for our therapeutic community group, remembering the comment made there the night before by a first time homework helper: “You can definitely feel God’s presence in this place.”

“Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place,” I sang quietly to myself. “I can feel God’s mighty power and God’s grace. I can hear the brush of angel’s wings, I see glory on each face. Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.” Repeating the chorus again and again, tears of gratitude began to flow.

When I arrived at the PAWkids campus in the Grove Park neighborhood of our city, I was so excited to see LaTonya Gates, the founder and director, and her son Anthony. The three of us talked for a while, and she showed me the drawings of the new outdoor space they are creating for the community.

This picture is taken in front of the blue house, the Gathering Place where our weekly therapeutic groups meet. From this vantage point, the building to the right is the PAW House where a group of our women from Northside Church give kids hands on help with their homework two afternoons a week and the white building to the left is Claudia’s House, where the active food pantry offers free food to those in need. The outdoor space is being constructed by a donor from Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church, one of PAWkids founding churches. All three buildings will be connected by a basketball court, a playground with a tree house, and an outdoor meeting space for the neighborhood. To the right of LaTonya, I love the tree in this photo. It feels to me like the tree of life, deeply rooted and branching wide.

Before leaving the Gathering Place, I snapped some photos of the warmth and the welcome.