We last left off with the city wall in ruins and everyone must get involved in the restoration. Nehemiah awoken the leaders to remind them that it wasn’t someone else’s city that they looked at every day, but theirs. It was that wake up call that help them realize that they needed to be apart of the solution. Chapter four of this great book illuminated to me that if you call a place home you must be involved in the restoration. No excuses.

My other thought (see previous entry for previous thought) I got from this list of names and obscure places was that every place alone the wall mattered (even the Dung Gate). Could you imagine being Malkijah son of Recab? He was leader of the Beth-hakkerem district, a little area south between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Of the eleven possible gates a person could work on (Valley gate, Fountain Gate, etc) Malkijah gets the one to the valley where rubbish and refuse were dumped on a daily basis.

That is because in Jerusalem every gate, every wall, every tower matter.

There is an apartment on Casino Road called Shiloh. It is the last complex on the left right before you get to the Boeing hanger. This area is the pictorial of the haves and have not. Just a stones throw away from Shiloh are the brand new airplanes (I would not suggest you actually throw a stone at one) worth millions of dollars. At the apartment complex are hundreds of family that couldn’t afford to even fly in a plane.

Shiloh is an ancient word that means a place of rest and this place no such place. No offense to those that lives there (I don’t know anyone), but I would consider this place (not the people) to be our local Dung Gate. Shutters falling, doors not painted, cars that don’t run, the grass brown, and just a generally not appealing place.

But it, like the Dung Gate of old, need not be neglected. For the city to be rebuilt the whole wall needs to be fixed. If you have a whole in your roof and you just fix 90% of the hole, well you still have a hole. When it comes to rebuilding a city, neighborhood or a business everything must be worked over. This can only happen if everyone gets involved. No matter what your status or background you are needed.

The cool thing about the end of this story is that you would think the Valley Gate or the wall around the Temple would be where the people celebrated the most. But when the day of celebration came the choir was instructed to head on down to, you guessed it, the Dung Gate. Because just like today is it not fun to celebrate when something that you thought was beyond saving is repaired, renewed, and then restored back to the community.

This is why everyone is needed and why every part of the city matters.