The Familiar Third Ward

The Third Ward has a surprising but gritty beauty much like Haiti, which is also a place where freed African slaves for forced to inhabit by colonial powers.

The stained glass windows of a church in the Third Ward recount the emancipation of  Houston's slaves.  A union general appeared in Houston (pictured above) after the fall of the Confederacy in 1865 to proclaim release for all slaves.  Houston's African Americans were soon forced into ghettos like the Third Ward by Jim Crow and other Segregationist laws.

The future home of Square Inch ministries, a property in the neglected portion of the Third Ward.

John Eigege stands in front of a "Shotgun House"--a small house built by the Third Ward's African American population during the era of Segregation.  The "shotgun house" was so small that a shotgun could be shot through it (hence the name).  Today, the houses are museums to Houston's racial and socio-economic legacy.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of spending the day with some amazing missionaries working in Houston, Texas.  It was uplifting to see a local CRC pastor, Andy Sytsema, who by God's grace has encouraged a movement of church planting among Hispanic and African pastors working in Houston.  I spent the afternoon in Houston's historic Third Ward, where under post-Civil War Segregation and Jim Crow, the African American population was relocated by Houston's white population.  Today's Third Ward, like a certain Caribbean country where I spent twelve years living, is an example of extremes.  On the side closest to downtown Houston, the Third Ward is "gentrifying" as residences are being torn down and/or rehabilitated for upwardly mobile urbanites wanting to live closer to their downtown jobs and avoid traffic.  The other side of the Third Ward has been completely and utterly neglected and the still predominantly African-American population has almost no infrastructure including sidewalks, streetlights, and basic services.  While human suffering is easy to see in the Third Ward, so is tangible evidence of God's grace.  For example, John Eigege, a Nigerian who moved into the Third Ward as a "community chaplain" (affiliated with Resonate), has built a robust mission network.  He hopes to build a ministry house where he and others can mentor, teach and serve the youth of the Third Ward.  John is convinced that every square inch of the Third Ward belongs to Jesus Christ (hence, he has named his ministry "Square Inch").  Pray for John, Andy, and others who are working in the challenging places of Houston to concretely share the love of Jesus.