For a few months we’ve been picking up some guys from Wheeler Men’s Mission in Indianapolis and bringing them to church on Saturday nights. Everyone seems to have a good time. The guys like coming to the “big church” in Noblesville. A team of people prepares meals and eats with the Wheeler men after the first service hour. We even build time in for a smoke break (because it wouldn’t be a pleasant night if we didn’t allow this!) before we head back to Wheeler.

If you come to Wheeler, you may be surprised how good they are at dominoes and chess. Most of our time spent with the guys is on Sunday afternoons downtown.

This past weekend marked a special moment for the guys who come to church with us. Anyone who is new at Grace can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of humanity at our big church. It’s easy to feel anonymous and even lonely if you’re not connected. Everyone wants to have someone who knows them.

This Saturday night, the guys arrived early to service and were sitting with Susie and a few other Outreach groupies, when Maeven and Nick walked into the auditorium. The guys’ faces lit up when they saw their friends who hang out with them at Wheeler on Sunday nights. Unfortunately, Nick and Maeven didn’t see the Wheeler guys and sat on the opposite side of the room.

It's easy to feel anonymous when this room is full of people.

The Wheeler men would not let Maeven and Nick stay unaware of their presence at Grace. They all motioned and waved their hands for a few minutes until Maeven and Nick saw them. Not only were the guys thrilled to see someone they knew at Grace, but Nick and Maeven were equally thrilled to see their Wheeler friends! They met up afterwards and ate together. It was a great night for everyone involved.

At the end of the day, everyone wants to know and be known…that is, to have deep and authentic relationships with other people. This rule doesn’t just apply to homeless men, but to all people. Maeven and Nick’s lives are just as enriched (if not more) by their relationships with the men from Wheeler as the guys from Wheeler value their relationships with Maeven and Nick. To borrow from Greg Paul, we all need each other. It’s a basic human need.

As we talk about seeking out and nurturing authentic relationships at Grace, take stock of your relationships. I want relationships in my life like the ones our Wheeler friends have with Nick and Maeven. I think we all do.

Today’s post comes to us from Kirsten Johnson, a Grace attender and recent participant on a New York City Relief short-term trip.

Serving on the relief bus will change your life…it certainly has changed mine!

God knew just what I needed just when I needed it…About 2 years ago I had one of two life changing moments…I was a divorced, 31 year old mother of a 3 ½ year old son.  I grew up in a Christian home and knew I wanted the same for my son Brennan.  I had recently made some bad decisions and had also ended a six year marriage.  I was not attending church regularly.  There was this day where I so vividly recall God asking me what I was waiting for…Brennan was almost 4!  I thought well that is a good question.  When was I going to form this Christian home?  When he was a teenager?  God truly told me that day that I needed to make my life what I wanted it and we went to church that weekend.

The second life changing moment was within that first fews weeks at Grace when there was a video on the New York City Relief Short-Term trip.  Words can not describe what happened that day in church.  God tugged on my heart in a way I have never experienced or maybe never noticed.  I leaned over to my mom and said I am going to do that.  I went home that day, got on the Grace website and signed up for the February 2008 trip.  There is a sign in NYC at the Hope Center that says DANGER…Serving on the Relief Bus will Change your life.  It truly changed mine…I learned in that four days that our role was to love people. I can do that!

After the NYC trip God continued to tug on my heart more and more…I started serving dinner at the Wheeler Care Center for Women and Children in November.  I love it!  It’s really not glamorous.  I didn’t bring someone to Jesus that first meal but I got to serve about 50 women and 10 children filled with amazing moments of eye contact and smiles which were each an absolute blessing!

Brennan helps me rescue food from the Noblesville Panera Bread one Wednesday a month.  What a blessing this organization is!  We go to Panera about 8:55 p.m., right before they close, and pick up all the food that they have left.  We go to Third Phase food pantry, load it into grocery carts and take it in.  It has been really amazing to see Brennan grow through this experience.  At first he went in to Panera with me but then waited in the car at Third Phase.  Now he wants to carry things into Third Phase so he can help me and so he can see everyone.  He will even tell you all about what we are doing with the food and who it is for.

In June we began joining the Grace folks at Wheeler on Sundays serving dinner to the men and then playing games.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to serve at Wheeler I recommend just giving it one chance.  I will admit to you that even after a trip to New York and serving at the women’s shelter I was nervous about how it would go playing games with the men after dinner.  Immediately the first time I went I thought what on earth was I worried about?  It was wonderful and a really great opportunity to connect with people.  When we go now Brennan has his entire game agenda planned out prior to dinner.  It is something we both really look forward to.

I will hopefully be leading a trip to New York next June and I would love to share this experience with you if you are interested in being forever changed!

One of our groups from Access (the college ministry at Grace) decided to be called the “In Action” group.  Every week they make breakfast and serve it to the Hispanic guys standing on the corner looking for work in downtown Indianapolis.  If you look closely at the video below, you can actually see a couple guys getting picked up for work in a mini-van.  It is incredible to see the relationships build as the team shows up every week.  There is nothing quite like sharing a meal together!

Enjoy this inspiring bit of ministry that is happening every week!

“You see that corner back there? That’s where I was told to never go when I was a kid because I’d get stabbed.”

That memorable insight from our trip leader, delivered on a night walk at 1:30 a.m., is just one of the many memories I will carry with me from the Short Term Trip to Toronto I was able to be a part of last fall. It was a cold and rainy weekend in mid-November, and I found myself in a group of six other twenty-somethings following our guide through parts of the city that I never could have dreamed, let alone imagined myself walking through.

Many images remain fixed in my mind from those night walks. I remember a man on his cell phone, standing outside a night club known as a hot spot for homosexual clientele. There was nothing remarkable in the man’s appearance, but I found myself wondering how he had found himself there on that rainy night, and where he was going.

I remember passing a waitress working at an outdoor cafe who had more tattoos and piercing that I could count. I remember feeling sad for her, and then wondering why the fact that she was different from me made me so sad.

I remember crossing the street, while a group of fifteen prostitutes walked directly behind us. As we walked, I overheard their conversation, talking about their friends, their day job and what they watched on TV last night. I thought, “Wow, they’re not very different fom me.”

I remember meeting one young man who was high on some drug or another, but was very excited to welcome us to Cananda. As he explained Canada’s systematic plan to invade the United States, I found myself uncomfortable and wanting to pull away. Why did this man’s ramblings make me want to recoil with fear?

I remember visiting the AIDS memorial and looking at plaque after plaque of names of those lost to the disease. I saw many places where only nicknames were given, and many more where only a date of death was listed, commemorating a friend who was loved in life, but not known close enough to know an age or birth date.

The AIDS Memorial in Toronto (Photo by Katie Osland)

I remember a time when labels for people came so easy: gay, punk, hooker, junkie. Those labels don’t come so easily anymore. For me, those people now have faces, some of them have names, and I know they each have a story.

Some of these people have found themselves in difficult circumstances because of choices they’ve made, some are there because of the choices of others, but all of them are children of God. They fit into Jesus’ category of “our neighbor” far more snugly than I’m often comfortable admitting to myself.  The one other thing I remember about my time in Toronto is taking time to look into those faces, and seeing how much they look like Jesus.

A few weeks ago my team volunteered at the Indy Homeless Connect, an event at the Indiana Convention Center focused on care and outreach for people who do not have permanent housing. I was thrown onto the intake team. This chore sounded as fun as walking in the rain with no jacket while carrying a bundle of cotton candy. Yes, I’ll admit: my attitude stunk.

Then I met a guy who looked about my age. I asked him his date of birth; he said he was born in 1987, which makes him barely twenty-two. The realization that a twenty-two year-old could be living on the street was staggering.

As I was letting this reality sink in, a staff member from CHIP (the organization that hosts the Homeless Connect) came up to me and asked me how I was doing. I told him about the guy I had just met and said, “Twenty-two is too young to be homeless.”

He replied, “You want to talk about ‘too young to be homeless’? Why don’t you go down the hall and check out the children’s area?”

Curious, I decided to take a break from the fabulous intake crew and walked down the hall to the children’s area. What I saw messed me up good: a room full of the most adorable kids you’ve ever seen. The difference between these kids and other kids is that these kids don’t have a place to call home.

In all, there were 49 kids in the children’s area; the youngest was two months; most were preschool-aged.

You want to talk about “too young to be homeless”? That, to me, just isn’t right. This totally wrecked my pre-conceived notions about the conditions that contribute to homelessness. Where before I would have said people are homeless because of substance abuse, job loss, crime, or a series of unfortunate events. Since the Indy Homeless Connect, the way I view homeless people has completely changed.

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Indy Homeless Connect in IndyStar: Event for Homeless Sees More Parents of Young Children

Walter grew up in New Orleans, where he raised a family while working on the docks, loading and unloading ships as they came into port. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Walter’s home was completely destroyed. The government helped him move to Indianapolis, but he left behind a son in New Orleans and a daughter in Texas. Shortly after relocating, he got connected with Grace as part of our effort to reach out to the refugees. Walter was able to find transitional housing, and began looking for work. He was able to get a few temporary jobs, but despite diligent searching was unable to find a steady job.

In February, Walter’s housing aid ran out, and without a solid job, he found himself homeless. He made his way to Wheeler Men’s Mission, where he entered their residential program. A few days later, another volunteer and I made a run for the Wheeler Shuttle, where volunteers from Grace pick up men from Wheeler and bring them to Grace for a meal and a chance to attend Saturday night service. On the ride to Grace, Walter shared with us how thankful he was that the Lord had continued to provide for him in the midst of his circumstances. I couldn’t believe the conviction he had that God was truly in control and was working these events for good in his life. It was a great honor to worship with my brother in Christ that evening.

A few weeks later, we saw Walter at CHIP’s annual Indy Homeless Connect event. He was excited about the possibility of making some job connections. A week later, I ran into Walter again, but this time in a context I did not expect.

I arrived at Shepherd Community Center to serve at Saturdays at Shepherd, a weekly outreach opportunity where Grace volunteers make and serve breakfast to the community, while a group of doctors and nurses volunteer their time to host a free medical clinic. I knew several of the people who had signed up to volunteer that weekend, since they were all from the same Grace Group, but when I walked in, I was surprised to see Walter. I asked him if he’d heard about the medical clinic and come to check it out, but he said, “No, I’ve come to give something back.” He was not there to receive care, but to help us serve breakfast!

Walter serving breakfast with the team at Saturdays at Shepherd

I found out that he’d gotten connected with the small group while at Grace, and he’d kept in touch with them since then. When he found out they were serving at Shepherd, he decided to come because he knew that whatever his circumstances, Jesus calls him to a life of service. I was again humbled as I realized that although Walter has had so much taken from him, he still views giving of himself as central to his walk with Christ. We often reflect on how Matthew 25 talks about seeing Christ in those with great need, and I have little doubt that I was flipping pancakes beside Jesus that morning.

If you’d like more information about serving at Wheeler or Saturday’s at Shepherd, please visit our website.