At CLDI, we are not telling our own story. We love to tell stories, but we understand that they are not our own, and they are not of our doing. We are telling the stories of people and their encounters with the creator God, the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, and did not leave his creation to fend for itself. Instead, God has taken an intimate role in restoring what was broken in Genesis 3. God rewrote the story. Coming to earth in the form of a man named Jesus, the son of God rewrote the story that has plagued us since Genesis 3. Through his work on the cross, he restored the path of human history when we became separated from God because of our actions and restored us to union with him. That restoration did not leave us in our brokenness but made us new creations. Much like the new creations CLDI is known for: taking older, forgotten, broken-down buildings and making them new. This is why I say that in all we do, we are telling God’s story.
The Outward Signs of God’s Work
Throughout the community, we are most known for some of the buildings we have restored. Our main office, once the labor temple and later abandoned, now stands fully restored with life in our offices and 16 apartments above. Across the street, the coffee shop, once a thriving gas station on busy First Avenue South, sat empty for years until we brought it back to life. Now people gather, connect, and drink great coffee and soda. The senior living apartments, once two abandoned and half-burnt homes that had been squatted in for years, now create a beautiful community where seniors can age well in fully ADA-accessible homes with neighbors who look after them. These buildings are outward representations of what God does in our hearts when we look to him as the ruler of our lives, and the Holy Spirit creates new life in us.
The Stories Within the Walls
Yet these buildings are merely vessels for the real transformation, the stories of people whose lives God has rewritten. These are the stories that give the empty, hollow buildings meaning.
Stories like Jess, who went from addiction to now running our sober living home, Hannah House.
Like Calvin, who emerged from addiction and homelessness, he once slept on the front steps of our office when it was still an abandoned building. Now he helps God rewrite others’ stories through counseling.
Like Raquel, who was separated from her family in middle school due to circumstances beyond her control and aged out of foster care with only a 3% statistical chance of graduating from college. She overcame those odds, became a college graduate, and will soon graduate from the academy to become a prison guard.
We love telling these stories of God, where CLDI has been used as a vehicle to see people’s stories rewritten. God continues to restore the lives of individuals on the South Side through the work of CLDI.
