We recently spotlighted the creative expression of a church community located in the Aurora strip (which you can read here.) Aurora Ave. is notorious for heavy prostitution and drug dealing but the neighborhood also houses many of the fringe and outcast people in our city. Lisa, a resident of Aurora and second-year MDiv student, has been looking for humanity and hope for her neighborhood. Through community dinners and support of local business, Lisa and her community have come to see beauty where many have already given up hope. She shares her story below:

Aurora is less of a neighborhood and more of an old highway – a busy street, replete with run-down motels, automotive businesses, and fast food joints. Yet a neighborhood is emerging here.  We feel a particular call to helping make this happen.

Before you have a neighborhood and before you can know how to love your neighbor, you have to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Awake is learning that our neighbors live in motel rooms on Aurora and nice homes in Licton Springs and Greenwood. They attend AA and NA meetings at local cafes and get their groceries at the upscale PCC. They ride the 358 bus and jog around Green Lake. All of these different people are our neighbors!

Recently, a front-page article in the Seattle Times argued what many others have already said: Aurora is a problem and needs to be fixed. Lisa replied to the article in order to help us see what is actually happening in her neighborhood.

There are beautiful stories of transformation on Aurora. People loving one another exquisitely. There are prostitutes crying from exhaustion and loneliness – caught in the evil dual-diagnostic cycle of poverty that keeps them there. And the police will not allow us to help them because of the laws that are in place. May we talk about that please? There are barbeque’s that bring together 50 people from the Fremont Fellowship, homeless vets that live in their vans on our street and us, their neighbors – and laughter happens there. There is dignity already present. There is hope. There are people who believe in one another – who believe in the addicted – that they will be free. There is a community garden.

You can read Lisa’s full response here. Below are images from the community that has begun to sprout from the desire to answer a simple question: who is my neighbor.

Lisa is a 2nd year MDiv student and a member of the Awake Church community.