Below is a reflection by Angel Pittman, who serves with her husband, Jason, as CBF field personnel in Miami. The Pittmans serve at Touching Miami With Love, a ministry center in the Overtown community.
I went to the post office today to double check that our mail was being forwarded to our new address, having recently moved in the last month. We were expecting a letter and I didn’t get it at our new address yet. The clerk went to get our mail carrier to speak with me. I explained my concerns and she went to look for the letter. When she returned she stopped for a minute to chat, “Your new neighborhood sure is different from your old neighborhood.” She was referring to the fact that even though we moved just a few blocks away our old neighborhood had “historic status” and didn’t represent the demographics of the larger community of Overtown.
Our intent was always to live as close to the neighborhood where we ministered and our recent move provided just that putting us closer to the heart of Overtown. “You’re in a different place now” she went on to say. I commented back that our new home was where we wanted to be and that we used to live in inner-city Detroit to add validity to our choice of home.
Her next comments surprised me as she said that she knew that we worked at “that Touching Miami with Love place” knowing right where it was on 7th Street and what the surrounding neighborhood was like. She went on to say, “If you guys work over there, you know what you’re getting into. When I first saw you I thought, ‘they don’t know what they’re doing’ then I remembered that you guys worked at the Touching Miami with Love and I thought, ‘Yeah, they know what they’re doing.’”
We went on to chat about our afterschool programs for children and youth and how she could sign up her 1st grade daughter for our summer camp and even where to go to the development corporation about buying a home in the complex we live in. As I walked away she said, “What number are you? Next time I come by I’m going knock on your door.”
No one knows a neighborhood like a postal worker who walks the streets everyday, especially a postal worker who calls the neighborhood home as well. I can’t think of better affirmation of our move than a validation like the one she gave us today at our neighborhood post office.