Winter Shelter News
From Not Enough to Enough
A couple of weeks ago, the shelter calendar seemed like it had MANY open spots, especially for Overnight Volunteers, and we were only 3.5 weeks from the date we wanted to open. There were also an unusually large number of meals not yet signed up for, which puzzled us. Were we anxious and trying to make things happen in our own power, like the Israelites did when they tried to gather more manna than they needed? (That extra manna they tried to keep spoiled, by the way.) I'll leave the answer to that question out for now.
As of today, we have 14 overnight spots open which need volunteers and all the holidays are covered. A lot more meals are in the pipeline. Thanks, God!
Fears
How many times have I, have you, have our friends or our children balked because of fear, and by balking, stolen from ourselves hope and victory, and even fun? Or stolen it from others?
Life is hard, a lot of the time. Here in the States, it’s generally not as hard as other places, I think. The duress of life is often what makes us hesitate, because we fear failure, pain or worse. Especially if we have tried and failed in the same task, fear rears up its ugly head as soon as we think of “getting back on the horse.”
Today a woman in my church was talking with me about a role she was considering as a part-time job. Evidently she really wanted to do it and had thought about a great deal. I knew this because what she needed to speak were her fears about taking on the position. I told her what I knew, assured her she was not reinventing the wheel and would be very much a part of a team if she came on board. In the same conversation, I had to tell her honestly that there could be a measure of stress, a part of the job that no one could guarantee freedom from.
I was really glad she brought up her fears to me. Wrestling with it on her own was no longer helping her. I didn’t take the opportunity to say, “Don’t be afraid; the Lord is with us.” But I should have. Jesus’ often told people not to be afraid.” Wrestling with fears by bringing them to the Lord is often very effective, because He is powerful and effective in all situations. But sometimes even as believers we remain tied up in emotional knots because we can’t believe that He hears our prayers, or will answer.
And this brought me to think of our shelter guests. How many more times than I have they tried and failed? How much pain have they seen that is the backdrop to every new effort? Have they had anyone tell them of the hope in Christ that is real? Of the power and effectiveness of God, that helps His people out of his love for them?
As hard as it can be, we need to model hoping, praying, and pressing forward to these guests, and likewise to others who have less experience in success or support than we do. May He give us all the grace we need, even to believe.
The Rummage Sale
So, last weekend, we had the second and last week of the 2010 Shelter Rummage Sale. This year’s sale was really different than previous years, and even with the changes, it worked out great! We were really thankful!
We do our sale every year for two purposes: to try to raise about 10% of the funding for the Shelter for the upcoming season, and to get lots of people involved in and aware of the Shelter and its work. As far as fundraising, we didn’t quite meet our goal, but we got close. Income from the sale was about $4,000. Our budget for this year is about $48,700, so we did pretty well on fundraising. Not bad at all, considering that we had to change from six weeks of collecting goods to only two weeks! (Our building’s construction meant collection space wasn’t really available most of the summer.) We liked some of the changes so much that we may keep them in future years!
God did a lot in terms of letting people know about the shelter and building relationships among the workers. While working in the sale, I had the chance to talk many times with a new attender at our church and pray with her about a very big struggle she is going through. Several of us remarked about the design skills of a young woman in our church who was helping with displays. Two other new attenders got acquainted with more people in the church and more plugged in. Three Chinese students furnished most of their apartments with shelter rummage, and one person bought an antique door. A volunteer gave me the name of a good plumber. Finally, another woman I spoke with at length asked me many questions about opening a shelter. Many of the shoppers hadn’t known about the church or shelter before. We will see what God does with all these contacts!
It is good for us as a team and as a church to work together on the Rummage Sale and other tasks that need to be done before we open each year. It deepens our understanding of the rest of the team members’ perspective, and it strengthens our vision of our work together as we share that vision with others.
On God's Kind of Hospitality
To the people of Israel, the image of God's house was central to their worldview, a house reaching from the heavens to the places on earth where God caused his name to be remembered. God's house was seen in experiences like Jacob's, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it" (Genesis 28:16). It was experienced in the tabernacle that once moved among them as pilgrims, and later in their pilgrimages to the temple. Ever-expanding their vision of God's house, altars were built over the places where God had appeared to them. Though sometimes as prodigals, their longing for home was a part of their identity as children of the house of God: "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple" (Psalm 27:4). The house of God as it reached from heaven to earth was occupied by the King. As his people, they had been invited inside, where they longed to remain.
As with any group with a clear vision of inside and outside, belonging and not belonging, the Israelite's understanding of the house of God could have easily been rationale for excluding foreigners, neighbors, and outsiders. Yet not long after God had called the people of Israel his own, God instructed them very specifically on the treatment of such people: "Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). "The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God" (Leviticus 19:33-34). The house of God was to be a house of hospitality, for such a spirit reflected the God within it: "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:17-19). Called to ever-remember their status as foreigners, the people who were invited into the care of God's house were to become a sign of that care themselves.
For followers of Christ, it is the same: "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering" (Hebrews 13:2-3). Similarly the apostles command: "Practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13). "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms" (1 Peter 4:9-10).
For all who see the ever-expanding rooms of God's house, hospitality is a posture we are simply called to embrace. Along with the one who has welcomed us inside, we are to go out "into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame." The master of the house has prepared a feast and calls for the tables to be filled: "Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full" (cf. Luke 14:15-23).
While images appear daily of people displaced from their homes and livelihoods, disconnected and abandoned, there are at the same time those who open their homes, churches who respond with food and shelter, hospitality that is given in places where distress and exclusion offer no rest. In these unlikely places, images of the house of God appear, startling us and other observers once again with its dimensions. Where lives are being touched by the "eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands" the body of Christ is living its identity, offering a sign and a foretaste of the kingdom of God. The writer of Hebrews bids us to see and fulfill this vital role, "Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast" (Hebrews 3:5-7).
Startling the world with its reach and calling us to hospitality, the house of God is occupied by one who prepares a place for the foreigners and outsiders and neighbors all around us. Whether prodigals or pilgrims, in this house we discover the God who longs to welcome the multitudes home.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) 2 Corinthians 5:1-2.
A Place and Some Things of Her Own!
And, this year, a group of ladies in a church that partners with us every year made some wonderful throws of acrylic fleece, which we decided to use for the same purpose since most guests have no blankets when they move. Now I found out that a chruch member has extra pots and pans, another thing that G., the guest who just got her own place, really needs. A beautiful picture of many people working together to care for one another in Jesus' name.
Loving and Waiting
I have been thinking about this in light of God and the Shelter.
The Shelter guests wait each night, in the dark, in the winter cold, for a welcoming person to come and open the door, for a hot shower for their turn at laundry to come up, for a hearty, wrm meal. Even while the guests wait, the Shelter workers wait, too. We wait on the Lord to bring, essentially, the laborers for the harvest: volunteers and coordinators, meal providers, people to staff and clean and pray and donate, and even shop for the things we need. We wait in hope for many different reasons. We hope that our deepest reasons are for love of our Lord, wanting him to reach the Shelter guests, and carry out his will in us and them. We are waiting in hope that we ourselves, and our guests, might see more and more of God's love manifest all about.
When the Shelter closes for the season, as it has now, we wait for the guests to come and get their things, their clothes and accessories and bags of belongings that they couldn't carry with them or had no place to go with the. We wait and pray, for God must open the doors. We wait for them because of our love for our guests and desire to care for them in Jesus' name.
And God is waiting. Through it all, he is waiting for us to seek his face, not just, as one Shelter guest said, his hand. He always calls us to himself, gladly giving what we need, wiating for us to acknowledge his gifts with thankfulness and honor and praise. He delights in us, but still wants us to trust him, not just the gifts he gives us.
It is true that in our guests' waiting, the gifts we give them even the love and the laundry privileges, can testify to our Lord's love for them. It is true that when donors send in money just in the nick of time, we, the ministry team, see God's love for us and for our guests--and we see our continued calling to this Shelter ministry that he has kept and sustained for nearly 25 years. WOW!
With all this in our history, may we continue to wait in faith--and faith even greater that that which we have had before!
Praying
Sunday I saw a man who'd recently been ill for a number of weeks with a life-threatening sickness. Many of us have been praying for him, and it was a delight to see him in person, beside me in the Communion line. Right away he asked how my dad is doing. The last blog I posted here was completed at my home minutes before my dad called me to say my Mom had died. Those three words are much too small for what they mean and how searing and awful the loss is, "Mom died."
It was and is shocking and sad despite the knowledge that she is with Jesus.
But as he asked how my Dad is and I answered, ending with, "Please don't stop praying," I started thinking about how he and his family have been praying for us and how deeply we have and do need it, and how much my husband and I and many others have been praying for him, and how they have also needed it.
And that's only two of us. I know hundreds of people with hundreds of situations. I pray for the Shelter Staff and guests, and the guests and Staff have also been praying for me in my grief. Because of praying for each other, we are not "even," we are instead lifting each other up to God. We are all part of the way that He wants to take care of his people and things here on earth. Yesterday a lot of us got together to pray for the Shelter guests, and we barely touched on all that God is doing in and with us and them. I could go on and on, but you get the gist. Prayer is amazing, mysterious, huge, powerful in the workings of our amazing, huge, powerful, loving God. Amazing. Amen.
Fearfully and Wonderfully
"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be. " Psalm 139:14-16
Last night I had the privilege and joy of spending a little time with the shelter guests. It was really a blessing! For those of you who don't know, since I manage many things for the shelter and half of my work time is dedicated to other programs, I don't always get to spend as much time in the shelter as I'd like. For the past few days, it has been on my heart to go to the guests and tell them, according to God's Word, each of them is fearfully and wonderfully made, and God knows all about them--but he does not push them away or look away from them. He does not define them, as he does not define any of us, by our "worst thing," He does not say of them, "You are a homeless woman, primarily." "You are a _________ (fill in whatever is the worst sin or sin pattern that she can think of), primarily." He knows our sins, and He calls us to repentance, and to beleive on Christ Jesus' death and resurraction for salvation, but He doesn't define us by our worst thing. This is big news! All of us need to keep on being reminded of it. I know I do. I hope I encouraged some people last night.
"Life" in the Tunnel
Yesterday I learned that there is a tunnel here in St. Louis under one of the old buildings near downtown. It no longer has any planned use, as far as I understand, but 24 people LIVE in it--because they are homeless! My colleagues who visited the tunnel-dwellers said when it is very cold (11 degrees that day) they do come in for warming or meals. I have been in the shanty towns near the railroad tracks in Nashville, and seen the people who warm themselves by fires built in oil-barrels near Chicago's North Pier, but had no idea such a place existed here in St. Louis. Lord, have mercy! May they all get thick covers, full stomachs, hot showers and roofs over their heads!
Equipping and Calling to Service in the Shelter
This past Sunday those of us who could make it from the Core Team had a lovely, simple lunch together to get to know one another better before the Shelter season starts. It was a great blessing to me, and I hope also to everyone else. Two months ago we did not have a Meal Coordinator. Sunday she reported there are 18 meals left to sign up, for evenings, plus lots of breakasts. One month ago we did not know whoo would step in for our outgoing Volunteer Coordinator; now she has been hard at work for 2+ weeks and many have signed up to serve. Yesterday marked 3 weeks until the shelter opens, so we have been praying and working hard to get all the overnight, evening, Sunday, and meal volunteers set up. Friday night we had a fabulous Trivia Night fundraising event, carried out by some dear brothers and sisters in a local church! It is so encouraging to be blessed and supported by this kind of group-who get an idea and run with it, completed beuatifully and bathed in prayer. And fun! It is so clear that God is at work!Besides continued prayer and diligence, our greatest need now is for need 5-6 extra female volunteers who can work overnight one or more times per month. November 10 is the designated opening night! Please pray with us and for us.
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