It Doesn't Matter

Hello everyone. It has been a crazy end of November/beginning of December! I hope the holidays have been going well for all of you!

Today I wanted to write not so much about anything I've been doing in the city, but more about some of the things I've been learning and processing while doing ministry. As most of you know, at CSM we work to educate mission trip groups on the issues facing the inner-city, as well as God's heart for the poor. In doing this, we strive to break down stereotypes and (in a certain sense) shock the students into seeing the homeless as people who are just like them.

When society thinks of the homeless, a lot of expressions like "get a job" or "drug addict" are commonly associated with the epidemic. Part of my job as a host is to get students to see beyond those stereotypes and see the failings of a broken system, or an overpriced world. Many times it feels like I am trying to convey the message that it's not the homeless fault that their homeless- they're victims, they're good people, and Jesus has a special place in his Kingdom for the poor. I mean, so many of them will say "God bless" when we give them a meal at a soup kitchen- they must be good, albeit misunderstood, people!

What I've been realizing is that while the obviously negative stereotypes we sometimes hold against the homeless are untrue, those positive, almost saintlike visions are also incorrect.

The truth is, as I've been working with the poor in Chicago, I have realized that they are quite similar to me- they're rude, deceptive, short-tempered, they lie, and they have a capacity to try on the last nerve of this particular urban missionary. Just two days ago, one of the women at the cafe blatantly lied to me about when she had visitation hours- attempting to manipulate me into giving her a visitation so she could receive money from her nephew. The women in the program are not allowed to have visitors except on Saturdays and they are not allowed to keep any money on their person. Being new, I was unaware of these rules, and was exceptionally irritated when I learned that she had lied to me.

I've met a few homeless individuals who are definitely perpetuating stereotypes. They show up to the shelters drunk, or they spend their last few dollars on cigarettes. It's pathetic and it's irritating and it's an obvious example of a destructive habit that landed these men and women in a terrible life situation.

In fact, most of the people I have been working with during my time in Chicago have not been the helpless homeless victims that we in urban ministry would love to show off. It's easy to love a single mother who was fleeing from an abusive marriage and ended up on the streets out of desperation. Compassion comes easily because these people have done nothing wrong- they deserve our love and help.

The funny thing is, the more I get to know the homeless and the poor, and the more I hear people debate whether homelessness and poverty are caused by a system or by individual failings, the more I've come to realize that it does not matter. It doesn't matter WHY someone is in that line at the soup kitchen and it doesn't matter what circumstances caused that guy to walk up and down the intersection with his cardboard sign. I've yet to find a passage in scripture that dictates that we love people who have been screwed over and scorn those that have done it to themselves. If you find it, let me know.

Instead, I find a graceful God that demands compassion for ALL PEOPLE. The truth is, if I'm going to be genuine in my faith and call myself a Christian, I need to be ready to glorify God in all situations. This means that when the people I'm working with disappoint me, I don't get the option of giving up on them and moving on to a more deserving project. These are people, and they are just like us- they are sinful, messed up people who feel the exact same emotions, internal conflicts, and loneliness that we have all felt at one time. They share the same kind of joys, the same kind of pain. Why/how they ended up where we find them is just one unique aspect of their story. And while we need to strive to understand that part of their lives, it should never shape our response to them. Love becomes the only response. And not cheesy, greeting card love- no, this is compassionate, deep, invested love. This is love that keeps reaching out even when walls go up, or people disappoint.

The ins and outs, the hows and whys- they don't matter. What does matter is our response. What's yours?

When Statistics Become Reality

At CSM Chicago, we take our groups on prayer tours of either the West or South side of the city on the night that they arrive. Here is some information from the West side tour:


The Cook County jail has almost 100,000 detainees pass through its doors every year

Since it's a jail, that means no one being detained has been convicted of the charges they are being held for. In Illinois, one is held in jail until bailed out or taken to trial. The system is very backed up, so some people sit in jail for months upon months, no matter if they are innocent or guilty.

Once convicted of a crime, a person loses the right to vote and to receive federal loans for further education.


Today I met a woman at the cafe who was completing community service hours for her probation. She told me that she spent five and a half months locked up at 26 & California (a familiar term for the jail) before she was ever put on trial. She then told me that she is trying to better herself, but there is no possible way for her to go back to school because she is inelegible for loans. Furthermore, her efforts to find employment are futile- as she said, "Once you check the 'yes' box that you have been convicted, no one wants to hire you." She told me that she is doing everything in her power to live up to the terms of her probation and that she desperately wants to find a job and move on. It was with great frustration that she confided to me her crime- a DUI.

Now, I will be the first to speak against drunk driving- few things frustrate me more than this irresponsible decision. But as I talked to this woman, I found myself incensed that this conviction had the power to completely ruin a woman's life, while so many face only temporary (if any) consequences for the same crime. Surely this is an example of injustice.

So many like to cling to and declare the fact that we live in a country founded on Christian principles. If this is true, where do we see redemptive grace in this story? Where is this woman's second (and third and fourth and thousandth) chance to get it right? I'm not saying there should not be prisons and consequences for serious crimes. Obviously this is a necessary infrastructure for our society to function. What I am wondering is where is the church in this legal system mess? Are we doing all we can to step up for these men and women once they are released from incarceration? How are we helping them move on from their mistakes and into a life of productivity? Are we compelled to make their burden our own?

Yes, they have broken the law. But then I think of how I break God's laws constantly in my permanently sinful and broken state and compassion for these people is no longer optional. It becomes an obligatory, necessary response to love my fellow broken neighbor.

What would happen if the church responded to this population the same way that God mercifully responds to us? How could this world look if grace was our response?

We Did Not Come Here to Be Inn-Keepers

I am currently reading the biography of Gladys Aylward, missionary to China. If you are looking for a good read and would like to learn more about an extraordinary woman, I would highly recommend it.

Near the beginning of her time in China, it is suggested to Gladys that she and her ministry partner open an inn in order to better connect with the locals. Distraught, Gladys replies, "But we did not come here to be inn-keepers!" To this, her ministry partner asks, "But how else will we reach them?"

This exchange closely mirrors the conversation that I have been having with God over the past few days. It will come as no surprise that I did not come to Chicago to work in a cafe. When people would ask me what I was moving to do, I would normally tell them urban youth ministry. That was the goal- possibly the whole point of moving here. I could see how I did with at-risk youth and then make a career decision based on my experiences. In theory, by the end of these seven months I would be able to discern if suburban or urban ministry was my calling.

In my head, this plan sounded excellent- easy and direct. Of course, as I write it down, I can easily recognize some flaws. While there are several, the most glaringly obvious is the fact that this plan deals exclusively with the Mindie Fields agenda. In this plan there is no room for flexibility or even much learning. Suffice it to say, my goals for my time in Chicago were not contingent on God's goals- and going into ministry, that can pose a pretty hefty problem.

Per usual, God took it upon himself to humble me and make me do things his way. The funny thing is that even though I know life works better when I'm not stubborn and hard-headed, I always seem to forget that until I'm reminded by having everything in my life turned upside down.

So I did not come here to work in a cafe. I was especially convinced of this when I spent my whole first day chopping an entire 50 lb bag of onions. As I sobbed my way through the bag, I couldn't help but wonder how many of the tears were from the onions and how many were shed from the idea that this was not what I had in mind when I moved 3 1/2 hours from everyone I know. As I chopped those onions, I conveniently forgot that ministry is not for self-glorification. That Bible Study I led, on missions glorifying God- all the wisdom found in that study went out the window as my head was filled with negative thought after negative thought.

I did not come here to work in a cafe- but God brought me here to work in a cafe. Those are two very different things, and I am always thankful that God has so much greater wisdom than I do. For the first time in my life, I am not walking into a ministry as the white girl who is helping the poor ethnic people. I'm not passing out food on trays expecting a word of gratitude, I'm not helping an impoverished child and telling her that she can go to college too and be just like me. No, at the cafe, I am equals with the women I am working with. Some of them are members of a drug-treatment facility, but does that put us on different levels? Not at all. We all have to clean, chop, create, and get worn out together. We laugh together, we share our stories, and we poke fun at each other. If anything, I am relying on these women to help me figure out what in the world I'm doing working in food service for the first time in my life.

No, I did not come to Chicago to work in a cafe, but working there has brought me into a whole new level of ministry. It's the kind of ministry where people take care of each other and transparency is possible. It's relational ministry at it's finest, where we can be coworkers, sisters in Christ, friends. It's the kind of ministry where I have become the learner instead of the teacher. And seeing what I've learned in only three days, I can't wait to see what I'm taught over the next six months!

Barista for Jesus?

We have a God who possesses a great sense of humor. Let me tell you about the jokes he told me today :)

I went to meet with Pastor Trish of the Chicago Dream Center. Dream Center is the ministry that the Rose of Sharon program is based in. My meeting with Trish was to get plugged in as a volunteer. For my apprenticeship, I get to volunteer with a church ministry about twenty hours a week.

Those of you that know me well know that I am quite the planner and quite idealistic as well. Sometimes these qualities serve me well- and sometimes, like today, the expectations that they create get totally dashed by the real world.

I went into this meeting wanting to work in the residential teen program. Of course, in the real world of at-risk youth, even a girl as positive and upbeat as me can't just plug into a ministry like that. These things take time, and the girls deserve to have the volunteers that work with them be carefully screened and monitored. Because of that, just waltzing into the teen center was not an option.

Luckily, Trish is a wise woman and knows where to use even starry-eyed optimists like me. She explained to me that the cafe that New Life/the Dream Center runs needs someone to come in and help out and just provide good customer service. She told me that the girls from the center hang out there a lot, as well as random people from the community. Furthermore, it will help free up the woman that works with the girls so that she doesn't have to try and be in two places at once. Obviously this was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to do youth ministry. And yet the possibilities that working in the cafe presents me are so exciting. Meeting all sorts of people from Humboldt Park, not just the church, learning how to make all my favorite coffee drinks, combining ministry with simple customer service- there are so many neat opportunities that can come out of this partnership.

The biggest "joke" in this whole thing is that I spent so much time bemoaning my life at Bath and Body Works. Not that I didn't enjoy it- truthfully, I think of all the retail establishments I could have worked at, it was definitely the best. But I was always very adamant that BBW was simply a time filler, nothing more. I was going into the "real world" to do "real ministry." How ironic then, that the very ministry God decides to place me in is an offshoot of my time in retail. How amazing that I spent a year selling bath soaps, and yet I was being trained to do something bigger, but using the same skills. How fortunate that I had to learn to exercise some degree of patience with suburban housewives who were rude to me. It almost gives me chills to think that the whole time I was dreaming of doing my life's work, God had a plan for me that would draw off of the very experiences that I was labeling insignificant.

I always figured BBW was that job I would do and never look back on. I assumed that it would have no impact on my future ministry.

I guess that joke is on me... :)

Rose of Sharon

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to go out with a ministry called Rose of Sharon. This ministry is associated with the church I went to last Sunday called New Life Covenant.

To be honest, the night did not have the smoothest start. When I arrived at the meeting spot, the door was locked and no one answered when I rang the doorbell. I stood around for a few minutes, wondering what to do and had pretty much come to the conclusion that I should just go back home. I'm not a big fan of loitering in the dark in this particular neighborhood, but luckily, as I turned to leave, two other women came up the walkway and said that they were also participating in the night's outreach. Unfortunately, they had never done it either! Armed with our curiosity, we started exploring in an attempt to find someone who could point us in the right direction.

We came upon another building owned by the church. One of the women I was with recognized the meeting as the ministry called My Sister's Keeper. It turns out that she was once in the Dream Center treatment program herself and had been apart of the same support group. As we entered the room (I know, interrupting a support group is probably a faux pas, but I was just along for the ride!), there was an abundance of joy from these women towards us. Everyone got a hug- even me, a total stranger! It was so apparent that God was in that room with those women as they battled drug addiction and other harmful behaviors.

Eventually, we found our way to the Rose of Saron ministry. We met in the prayer chapel and prayed/did a devotion for a little more than an hour. The four other permanent members of this ministry explained that we would be going to some struggling neighborhoods to take roses to women we saw on the streets. We would tell them that Jesus loves them, and that if they knew any woman struggling with prostitution, drugs, alcohol, etc, to give them the card with rehabilitation information that was attached to the rose. We would then ask them if we could pray with them and what kinds of things were going on in their lives.

We headed out to the area near Chicago and Pulaski streets. Once in that neighborhood, we found a liquor store that seemed to be a hub of activity. There were people everywhere- on the streets, the sidewalk, in doorways, pouring out of the liquor store, pulling up in cars, EVERYWHERE. It was basically the last place a girl raised in the suburbs should find herself on a Friday night. Or ever.

As we got out of the van, I felt like there was truly a war going on inside of me. My ubringing cried out, "Get back in the van! What are you doing? You're going to die!" as the servant in me said, "This is where God wants to use you this evening." I felt like every nerve was standing at alert and the adrenaline was certainly pumping.

I saw things last night that I have only read about or seen on TV. I'd never seen that many strung out people in one place before. I'd never met a junkie with marks even on the palms of her hands. I'd never seen a man who was high on God knows what take a container of baby powder and draw a rectangle around a car (??). I'd never walked up to a group of girls as they were buying drugs. I'd never been offered drugs- none of this, until last night. All of the things that I thought were real before were completely altered last night as I stood on that street corner. I've been afraid to walk to my apartment in the dark. I've been so fastidious about locking my doors whenever I drive in a "bad neighborhood." I've been so cautious about the most everyday things, and yet last night I found myself milling about with drug dealers and addicts. It was uncomfortable, and it was scary, but at the same time, God was there. The whole time. Never once did I feel like I was at the mercy of the people on the street. God did not leave us alone in front of that liquor store. No, God was walking beside us, keeping us safe, and planting seeds of hope in these women.

While we met many women, I wanted to share one story that made a significant impact on me. I mentioned that we walked up to a group of girls as they were buying drugs. We started talking to them, and they realized that New Life holds church at their high school. When we asked them if they knew anyone who needed help and recovery, they immediately told us that their mom was a junkie and needed so much help. These girls were seriously worried about their mom. They were well-spoken, polite girls. They were also buying drugs. As they told us that their mom was an addict, they were purchasing drugs for themselves. The contradictions in this situation infuriated me and broke my heart all at the same time. How could they not see that they are headed in the same direction as their mom?! Why are children raised by druggie parents who can't teach them all the cliches of PSAs and DARE programs? And how am I so privileged that the first time I was truly exposed to drugs was at 22 years old as an urban missionary on a ministry project?

My heart is heavy with this injustice. Even though I know God is working, I also have to think how his heart must be heavy too.

Back in the Saddle

I've been in Chicago for two weeks now. In some ways it feels like it's been forever, and in some ways I'm surprised it's been that long. Either way, home feels like a long way from here, and I'm definitely still in the adjusting phase of this new life.

Since I've been here, I haven't had much opportunity to be out doing service- the whole reason I came here. The monotony of doing office work and waiting to find a good ministry to plug into has been difficult for me. Waiting is something I've never been good at; patience is something I've been lectured about since I was a child. While I've made strides toward the patient direction, It's still a discipline I need to work on!

Luckily, today my boss Tim and I went to a soup kitchen called 2 Lil' Fishes in Uptown. Initially, I was pretty nervous because I knew that this particular sight required a lot of interaction. There would be no service line to hide behind, no dish washing in the back. Instead, I would be forced out of my comfort zone and into another person's world. While today was not the first time I have done something like this, it was the first time in a long time, which brought a degree of apprehension with it.

As always, God came through. We were able to connect with Ray and Beth over a game of Rummy. I was terrible, and everyone had a nice laugh at my expense, but that was fine- it was great to reawaken my desire to serve. It was beautiful to again be reminded that we are all people, with the same human conditions- I just happen to have a home. It's interesting how we let that one fact create barriers between people, when instead there could be relationships.

The thing that continually amazes me about service is the way it not only helps those at a shelter, but how the act of serving nourishes my soul. We are going to try to go to 2 Lil Fishes on Thursdays while I'm here. I'm very hopeful about the things that God is going to show me through this ministry!