Statistically speaking, the percentages of people in Seattle who not only attend church but even affiliate with a faith at all nearly constitutes an unreached people group. Seattle doesn't even pretend to be Christian. Politically speaking, Seattle is, erm... Well, let's put it this way: I'm a fairly moderate conservative, and I felt exotic in Seattle's political ecosystem. They have a socialist political party--literally, you can register democrat, republican, or socialist if you want. They have legalized marijuana. Their minimum wage is $15 an hour. And they have nude espresso bars. Literally. One of our girls walked up to an espresso bar to order a coffee to find the barista wearing nothing but a thong and two little stars. We were just glad it was one of our girls who made this discovery.
Seattle is also the best place in the country to be homeless. We heard this both from the organizations as well as the homeless people themselves. People literally travel to Seattle from all over the country to be homeless. We did an urban plunge on Monday in which we had a checklist of things to find ("If a homeless person were in this situation, what resources would be available to them?" "Where would a homeless person go to find this?" etc) and had nothing but our IDs on us. My group ate lunch in a ministry called Bread of Life, and we had crab legs. For free.
Over lunch, my group also met B, a young woman my age to whom I'd served breakfast that morning at Union Gospel Mission. We ultimately adopted her, and she helped us with many things on our list, and then tagged along wanting to know the answers to a few other things on the list. When all of our groups reunited at the end of the day, a few people good naturedly teased us for cheating (sure, maybe it was cheating a little bit), but becoming friends with B was a highlight of my week.
We were able to say hi to B while we were volunteering at Union Gospel again the next day, but Monday was really the only time we had with her to learn her story and love on her as much as possible. When we left her on the sidewalk in front of the mission to pile into our van at the end of the day, I couldn't shake the feeling that it hadn't been enough. There should have been more I could do, something else I could have said, something more I could have done for her, spiritually or otherwise.
But we loaded into our van to go feast on walking tacos, take some rooftop pictures of the Space Needle (and then run back inside because it was getting cold), and then return to our host families for desperately needed showers and a soft bed. I hadn't brushed my hair since before church Sunday morning, we'd helped with Search and Rescue (bringing food and blankets out to the homeless in the streets) in the rain on Sunday night and only gotten a few hours of sleep on the floor in a shelter that night before our urban plunge. I wanted to put on clean socks and wash and brush my hair. I had college homework to do. Hashtag: first world problems. B sleeps among the laundry in her boyfriend's car that doesn't run well enough to get far from the curb where it's parked, and by some homeless standards, that's pretty lucky.
I've always assumed that mission trips teach you to trust God to get you there. Mission trips are expensive, and they take time. Time and money are sometimes tough to spare. When it came to pass that I had both to go on this trip, I was so excited that God had come through, and now I would get to do Kingdom Work like I've never been able to before. But on Monday, I realized that getting there isn't even half of the trust mission trips require. I also had to trust God to give me the words to say. I also had to trust God to give me the strength to be surrounded by so many people that I didn't know All. Week. Long. (At our host family's home, I roomed in the basement with one of my CCF friends, and we loved coming home to our "introvert cave" every night!)
I also had to trust God to love B even more than I have come to.
B's story doesn't shock God like it did me, because God has always known B's story, and God is powerful enough to do infinitely more in B's life than I can. I did the very best I could in a day: I loved on B, and I think I made it clear that I loved her because God loves me. It doesn't feel like enough, but for me it has to be, because anything else B needs in her life is in God's hands now.
No comments:
Post a Comment