Kelsey says, “In church and devotionals, the message that kind of kept coming up is that God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. So I feel like that’s been a comfort to me, just trusting that I do feel like God has brought me here. Trusting that I’m going to do the work that He wants me to do. And that’s kind of a prayer that I pray just about every day: Let me serve my clients the way that He wants them to be served.”

The last straw came when Leslie’s husband graduated from hitting her to hitting their children. One day, she came home from work to discover that he had beaten their three-year-old daughter, Samantha*. This small child looked up at Leslie and told her that she was scared of her father. Leslie knew the situation was untenable. And so, a few days later, while her husband was out of the house, Leslie made her move. She packed up some belongings and she and her three children fled to the Julian Center.

Becoming friends with the parents of her children’s friends emphasized the blessings afforded her simply by being born in this country. “There but for the grace of God go I,” she says. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I just happened to be born in a family that happened to be here [in America].”

Such upsetting cases can be difficult to see everyday, so Patti and the rest of the VJP staff try to remember the higher purpose behind their work. Patti says, “This population is what I would consider the most vulnerable, especially the immigrants and human trafficking victims. So just knowing that we’re called to help the vulnerable, I would say that really, when it’s hard, you just reflect on that. These are the people who need help the most.”

Every day at the Clinic, we encounter new clients who are seeking refuge in our country. Though their reasons for leaving their homeland may vary, they are often in need of legal services. As a legal services agency, we are committed to assisting these individuals, but oftentimes the need is greater than the resources that are available. That is why we're asking other attorneys to equip themselves with vital information regarding Immigration Law and to consider taking on a volunteer case with the Legal Clinic.

We all long for home. But, this side of paradise, we all are homeless, restless. St. Augustine famously wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Augustine hit on something profoundly human here. Whether we are homeless or have lived in the same house for forty-seven years, there is a restless striving that is baked into life.

This final month of spring, we considered our role in the community and the role of community in our lives. We learned about various problems such as vacant housing and veteran homelessness that are affecting Indianapolis, as well as the programs and organizations that are trying to combat such issues. To introduce the Legal Clinic more fully to the city, we hosted our first monthly community prayer meeting and the second annual Jazz for Justice event.

At our 2nd annual Jazz For Justice event, we sit down with Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic ED Chris Purnell to learn more about the Clinic's passion for Indianapolis and its most vulnerable populations. When did you first become engaged with the Clinic and why? Tell us your story in the comments below or find us on Instagram & Twitter @NCLegalClinic and be sure to use #MyClinicStory #StoriesOfJustice

Latosha was then faced with the dilemma of needing to find another job, but with something on her criminal record from much earlier, she was worried about her chances of getting hired elsewhere. Over the years, she’d never even tried. She explains, “I’ve kind of been stuck at the same job for like 16 years, but I always stayed there because of my background. I didn’t think I could go nowhere else.”

The collapse of the economy, especially hard-hitting in Midwestern cities, ushered in the foreclosure crisis, which in turn caused the vacant housing problem we now face. Those who received foreclosure papers sometimes abandoned their home. If the bank failed to take the title, the house eventually went to tax sale, and if no one purchased it, the house ended up on the city’s surplus list. And this happened again and again, thousands of times over, until whole neighborhoods became ghost towns. Matt says, “There were some blocks I would go on where there was maybe only one house that somebody was living in. It was like a war zone.”

Debra says, “Our motto, so to speak, is we serve our veterans, they served us. But on that same note, our veterans feel so grateful for what they receive here … that they then want to give back to the community and they are very active in doing so.”

They are seeking the most expeditious and least costly way to put past mistakes behind them, not justify them. They want to pick up and move on for the sake of not only themselves, but for the sake of those who depend on them. In my experience at the Help Desk, those who need expungement are not all the same: men, women, young, old, rich, poor, white, black, Hispanic, educated, uneducated, people of faith, people without a faith connection. They are all different. But what they do have in common is a desire to build a future for themselves that is reflective of who they are today, rather than of their choices yesterday.

We can all be Connectors by translating who and what we know to assist our communities. At the Legal Clinic, that might mean helping clients collect their documents, bridging the gap between the pro bono housing counselor and the client who is facing foreclosure. Or it might mean helping someone who was recently laid off apply for food stamps. As a Connector, you can ensure that those in our community are able to find and utilize the many resources that may be available, but impossible for them to reach without your helping hand.

Community is true when it is gritty and glorious; sacrificial and satisfying; when it is a fellowship of “differents” gathered around a shared vision of justice, a shared Savior. But we must come expecting to be poured out, to sacrifice. If I seek fulfillment in community, I will leave empty. If I seek to be emptied for the community, I will find fulfillment.

This rainy month of April we spent time ruminating on how our faith compels us to acts of compassion. In lock-step with this theme, the Clinic's semiannual Refugee Adjustment Day* took place on April 25th. On that day, 24 volunteers from College Park Church (as part of their annual SERVE day), plus 9 additional volunteer attorneys, worked with our staff to help 62 immigrants apply for Legal Permanent Residence. All in one day!

It is easy to understand how and why other people hurt—at least when they’re in your office, crumpled tissues in hand, the empathy flows. But sympathy and empathy alone can leave you in the realm of pitying people. And we have not been called to pity people. Our call is to "(a)dminister true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another” (Zechariah 7:9).

Have you been trying to decide how to get more involved with your community, but don’t know where to start? Want a fun night out with a humanitarian twist? Join us for our 2nd annual Jazz for Justice event, a night full of jazzy tunes and scrumptious food (we’re talking Cajun BBQ meatballs, roasted veggie platter, spinach-artichoke dip, and chocolate-covered strawberries!).

The beauty and effectiveness of this relationship is perhaps most keenly evinced by our collaboration on Refugee Adjustment Day, when the Clinic and College Park come together at the end of April to assist dozens of refugees in obtaining their green cards. These kinds of works are a natural consequence of the Body of Christ partnering with one another. Dale explains, “You do life together under the umbrella of the Gospel and really good things happen.”

“Compassion is loving others … I’ve learned one of the most important things is to just hear someone’s story. To stop, put your pencil down, because life is so busy and hard and complicated that people don’t give each other time.”

On April 30, 2015 at 1:30 PM, bankruptcy attorney Matthew Gaudin will host a training for attorneys with little or no bankruptcy experience in the specifics of helping someone to file. According to Matt, this training offers a unique opportunity for attorneys who want to expand their practice area. But this is not the only perk.