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The Ministry: Part 1
I have not had the opportunity to share my views on here
lately but now I am going to share something quite different. This summer I am
an intern at an inner city church and a ministry for the impoverished. The
latter of the two is commonly referred to as a homeless shelter, but that could
not be further from the truth, which I will address later. I want to share my
experiences here and attempt to recreate the shock and enlightenment I have
received in these short two weeks.
I would like to start with explaining why I carefully chose
my words and wrote ministry for the impoverished. Someone came up to me one day
last week and asked me how the homeless shelter was going. The first emotion
that raced through my veins was anger. But, as I stopped and thought about it,
I remembered that I thought the same thing before I started working there. See,
the clients (the term used for the people at the ministry) are not all
homeless. Are there some clients here that are homeless? Absolutely. However, there
are people here who have their own place, who have a job, but have just run
into some absolutely terrible luck and turned to this ministry.
Every week I want to share an uplifting story that shows how
God moves in this ministry that I either see or experience myself. Every day
before lunch is served there is a devotional, and if you attend you have first
dibs at the line. Yesterday I was supposed to lead the devotional (A short
10-15 minute) sermon, and to be honest I completely forgot. When I got to the
ministry I immediately began writing trying to fill time and get through it
without too much embarrassment. I was about 3 seconds away from getting up and
telling the director of the ministry that I was not prepared to give my sermon,
but before I could get up a man walked in to the office I was in and asked me
if I could listen. He did not ask for a conversation, he asked me to listen. He
sat down on the chair across from me in the 15 square foot office and shut the
door. My mind and heart were racing because my immediate supervisor was on
vacation and this was the first time I had one-on-one interaction. The man then
began to proceed to tell me everything that he thought was going wrong in his
life. His girlfriend was being argumentative so he turned to alcohol. His
alcohol abuse turned him to cocaine. His cocaine turned him to pornography. By
the time his benders were over he cursed himself and told himself he was the
scum of the earth. He had an incredible knowledge of the Bible and as he was explaining
what was going on he would stop and quote the verse where he knew it said what
he was doing was wrong. He kept emphasizing that he had judged himself to
harshly and that he could not forgive himself for what he had done.
I sat there and listened completely and utterly astounded.
The exact thing that he was talking about struggling with was the same thing I
was addressing in my sermon that I almost backed out of. We talked until the
devotional had to start and when I went up to the makeshift podium, there was a
sense of incredible calm in me. Not 20 minutes earlier, my knees were shaking
and here I was smiling and joking like I had done this a million times. The
devo started with the most beautiful singing I had ever heard. There were
people missing notes left and right, and there were people not even singing at
all, but the situation we were in made those few songs absolutely beautiful. I
gave my sermon and it was received beautifully. I kept looking at the man who
talked with me earlier and he just kept smiling and nodding his head.
Afterwards he told me he wanted to fix what he had done. He wanted to end the
cycle that he thought never ended. This morning I helped set him up with a
local cocaine anonymous group, something I never thought I would say as long as
I lived. But God has always had a sense of turning what you know and what you
want upside down. This internship has already been one of the greatest physical
and spiritual experiences of my life. The even better news: I still have seven
more weeks.
Luke 9:2 “He sent
them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal”
In Him,
Jake Russenberger
Posted on June 16 by jrussenberger at thenarcolepticpenguin.wordpress.com
Thank God we have young people like Mieka, Jake, Tori, and
Sara who are willing to dedicate their summers to this work because of a clear
understanding of who Christ is and what he expects of us. Please pray for God
to bless these wonderful interns and send us more people with beautiful hearts
like theirs.
*Picture used by permission and does not show the man described in the story.
*Picture used by permission and does not show the man described in the story.
