Urban Onramps

Today we are saving a teenager’s ear. A ENT doctor told him that he would lose the hearing in one ear if he did not have surgery by summer. A bevy of circumstances almost caused him to miss his scheduled surgery today. But he made it. As I write they are prepping him for surgery. I talked to him on the phone a few minutes ago. I told him I’ve been scared for weeks that he would lose an ear; I can’t imagine that. He said he had been scared, too, but “thank God” that he was about to get surgery. Harambee did a bunch of stuff behind the scenes to help make his surgery possible. This young man has had long-standing ear trouble, going back to when he was a child. However, we just learned that when he got jumped into a gang, he was beaten badly and he wonders if the beating has contributed to his ear problems. He’s trying to stay away from the gang life, and we are thinking about him for years to come, not just in his present circumstances. We can see him when he’s 30, as the man God created him to be. We just hope he can learn to see himself that way and then live that vision out.