Today I went and hung out at the downtown Baptist Beach-Head where Agent S's wife Leslie runs the kitchen operations. I think she had invited my wife to come and help as she was short handed (this may be a continual need?). But Agent Wife had 2 toddlers to watch all day, so I went.
I guess I've been more or less invited to serve at various places around town for the last three years (when the izzy group ministry became homeless itself). When you're fairly well known for being the director of such a place that no longer exists, you get these invitations a LOT. I've avoided joining in particularly because so many of the poor knew me as "THE guy" at izzy and I didn't want there to be expectations on me by anyone. I now think it's been 3 years and, therefore, enough time has passed for me to slowly emerge back on the scene. Thus...becoming less of an undercover agent, I guess.
I really enjoyed it. In some ways, it was like old home week. I recognized about 10-15% of the people. Two of them had mistaken me for Agent S (which was just fine with me), but that's kind of funny since I don't think we look alike at all.
I spent the first hour and a half down in the basement playing dominoes with a few folks. Momo was there. I saw him arrive...chip on his shoulder and all. Then he recognized me which threw him for a loop since this is not a place I usually hang out. I think he dropped the chip from that point on, which I credit to the fact that we know each other fairly well. Later, I went upstairs to the dining room to help prepare for the lunch crowd.
I really enjoyed today. I think three years has been the perfect amount of time to fade away from the social ministry-operation scene, reflect on those years, ponder what the CEO would have us secret agents do within the poverty community world wide, then fade back in.
The people (or The Family as we called them at izzy) are what made the day worth while. It's always good seeing old friends again and making new ones in the process.
2 comments:
Did you get any sense of if they could use you more of the time up there? Is that something you would want to do to start building relationships again with the people like you have with Momo?
Glad you are dippping your feet in again...
Ministry operations are ALWAYS in need of people to help. And this one is no exception. So yes, they could use more of my time (or anyones) up there. I'm looking at possibly donating a minimum of one full day a week up there.
I'm very cautious about commiting my time because...it's hard to avoid making observations and therefore, judgements about the way *they* do things compared to the way izzy did. That's a sin of mine and I confess that here. I guess what I'm saying is...I'm afraid to get too involved because I'll have the temptation to want to change things. And believe me...no organization needs an over zealous volunteer.
So I'll just gladly do whatever menial tasks that need to be done. But yes, my openly subvertive plot is to create relations with the homeless and poor who've emerged on the scene in my 3 year absence.
Thanks for your encouragement Deana.
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