Love Without Agenda » Social Justice

No. Your daughter cannot play with my son…

Jimmy Spencer Jr. — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:24:30 +0000

My friend Brad, who works here in the LWA offices, told me a saying that goes “1/3 of all things our parents believed when they were growing up…we will eventually find very silly”

Put this in that category.

Today marked the passing of the judge, Sylvia Pressler, who forced Little League to allow girls the opportunity to play baseball with boys. Apparently in 1973, little girls were not seen fit to play baseball, with or without little boys.

I’m reminded that this seemingly common sense thing—that we assume has always been—had to be fought hard for…and it (like all changes) was seen as both radical and deeply subversive at the time. I love the quote from the Little League on the court’s ruling (yes…Little league fought this tooth and nail…even appealing the ruling)

The ruling was decried by Little League as “conceived in vindictive and prejudicial fashion of the worst kind”

Amazing.

The story really puts change in perfect perspective. Change is never easy—even for something Read more...

LWA & Haiti

Jimmy Spencer Jr. — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:33:00 +0000

As the tragedy in Haiti fades into the background of the news media the real rebuilding and restoration begins. Gone are the constant headlines and outpouring of kindness from around the world, replaced with the business of helping restore a country which even before the earthquake had multiple challenges facing it’s leaders and people. As casual viewers from a far, it’s easy to let apathy or even the overwhelming nature of the situation lead us to look past the needs of the Haitian people, but this we can combat that urge with small, tangible—yet life saving steps of kindness and generosity.

Like we’ve said above, Love Without Agenda friends “Haiti Partners,” have ran an orphanage in Haiti and been a consistent partner in Port au Prince for over 15 years and are on the frontline of helping to rebuild and care for the people of Haiti. If you are able to, please consider supporting them on an ongoing basis financially and check out the projects they have been working on during this rebuilding process. Organizations like this are the life Read more...

LWA History

Jimmy Spencer Jr. — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:47:48 +0000

Since many of you don’t totally know me, I thought I would take one post and put a little history of me and what I do… so here we go.

In 2003 I started working at a small church in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. To be brutally honest it was dead. Why I was working there is a story for another blog, and another time… but for now we will just say that I felt like my efforts were best placed in this small, conservative, white church in Chicago. My plan simple. I was going to open the church to the local kids, become friends with them and love them.

I had no idea what was about to happen.

In the next 2 and a half years I was going to be flooded with hundreds [300 to 400 or so] of students–and their parents. Students from broken homes, immigrant homes, alcoholic and drug using homes, physical and sexual abuse situations…the list goes on and on.

Caucasians
African Americans
Mexicans
Puerto Ricans
Polish
Russians
Koreans

I had 6 languages in this group, English, Spanish, Polish, Read more...