Wild Life in Phoenix: reaching out - Phoenix, Arizona - Column

Christian Century, March 1, 1995 by Amy L. Sherman

THE PINK-RIBBONED Phoenix sky is still light as I board a battered green and white bus belonging to Neighborhood Ministries, the outreach arm of the nondenominational Open Door Fellowship. Each Monday night this bus winds its way through the back alleys of the Sunshine City, picking up Latino children ages five to 18 and talking them to Wild Life, the church's youth program.

Most of us don't associate poverty and filth with Phoenix. We think of it as warm and beautiful--the place for the young and successful. But this bus visits the underside of Phoenix, lumbering along littered streets, down the main prostitution strip, and past cottages with newspapers for window blinds. One of the first kids to climb on board is Estrella, a chunky third grader. She plops down beside me in the front seat, holding tight to her Spanish Bible and her quarter (for dues at the youth club). I am especially glad to have Estrella as a seatmate. She is well-scrubbed and neatly dressed, and doesn't give off the scent that many of the kids who join us later do. Estrella likes to sit up front near the driver, a middle-aged businessman from a suburban church that supports Neighborhood Ministries. She knows that he will let her pull the shiny lever that operates the bus's side door.

Estrella opens and shuts the doors gleefully every few hundred yards. As breathless children race on board, the temperature and the noise level rise. I struggle unsuccessfully to lower my window. When two more children join us in the front seat, I begin to feel trapped.

The compression I feel for a few moments characterizes these kids' lives. Their worlds are truncated by neglect and poverty. They slowly stifle without the fresh air of hope and imagination. The church volunteers tell me of the uncivilized conditions in which the kids exist. In this sense, "wild life" describes the way many of the children are treated at home. Church volunteers share stories about roach-infested kitchens, overflowing toilets and garbage-strewn bedrooms. The church's tutoring director describes how the kids forage for food at home or at convenience stores. Youth leaders point out the kids beaten by drunk fathers or thrown out on the streets by exasperated mothers. I learn that many poor Latino teens plan for their funerals rather than their weddings.

The bus continues to chug down narrow streets. In the approaching darkness, it seems as if children are running toward us from some netherworld. They appear suddenly from behind Shorty's bar. One little girl picks her way through a cluster of drunk men loitering in her front yard. Several come racing from behind a motel billboard announcing "original adult movies." I see their flushed and smiling faces as they climb onto the bus. Are they simply anticipating a fun night of games, stories, snacks and hugs--or are they aware that they are escaping the ghetto's clutches for a few short hours?

Of the 70-some kids on board, only 12-year-old Tony walks onto the bus. We weren't sure he was coming until Tony's young friend jumped off the bus and ran up to Tony's door. "Yeah, he's comin'," the boy reports, and Tony follows at a slow pace. Later we learn he'd been reluctant to come because he's been fingered for attack by a gang.

Gangsters do come to the Monday night youth program--their hair slicked back, their oversized pants drooping. By age ten, some carry guns and know how to handle knives. Several weeks ago, some kids in the church's courtyard were almost victims of a drive-by shooting.

Director Kit Danley is delighted to have these kids, however, and she marvels that they attend. "I think they're just loved so unconditionally here. . . . We have an enormous amount of God-given love for these kids." Danley's own unassuming house a few blocks from church has been a safe haven for many unwanted, unloved and hardened youths.

The behavior and culture of the Latino kids has frightened and confused some of the white parents in the church. Children of the white suburban members used to attend the same youth night as the Latino kids, but four years ago the church had to create a separate program for the older, more difficult youth. The memory is painful for Danley, who hoped to keep the two groups together.

Toward the end of the trip the bus passes the King's Altar Chapel, a small white temple with a sign proclaiming "Holiness Unto the Lord." A woman in a long white sari walks gracefully away from the building while a man robed in white stands in sartorial elegance by the front door. The couple seems unspotted by the stain of the city, as if they've chosen to distance themselves from the grime of sin.

The children who ride the bus to Wild Life cannot say the same. Some of the little girls have been tainted by others' sins: by fathers and uncles who sexually abused them. Other girls are single and pregnant at 14 or 15. Young men without fathers steal cars and beer; little boys from chaotic homes sniff paint fumes. All the kids need to hear of a God unafraid to come close to them.