Four of our middle school youth left home today on a local
mission “trip.” Joined by youth from
Holy Cross in Redmond, we’re encountering and serving Christ Seattle. We’re calling this CityServe.
During the week, we’re staying at St. Luke’s in Ballard. St. Luke’s is a congregation truly in the
middle of the action. Ballard is a mixed
neighborhood with expensive condos, massive new development, a thriving
business district with trendy restaurants and boutiques…and people sleeping in
their cars or on the streets. St. Luke’s
has been here a long time and has had its share of challenges. In the late 90’s, the church almost died…and
it would have if it wasn’t for a dozen or so faithful saints who stayed put
because God had called them to this neighborhood and to serve those in need
right here. For over 25 years, St.
Luke’s has been feeding breakfast to the hungry and homeless each and every
weekday morning out of the basement kitchen.
It was the breakfast cooks who were the church during trying years.
Our group with the Rev. Britt Olson and Barbara Wilson at St. Luke's
Our experiences of service and encounter begin tomorrow when
we’ll join over 100 people for breakfast at St. Luke’s before preparing a meal
for the women and children at Union Gospel Mission’s Belltown shelter.
Today, we had dinner at a Seattle institution – Dick’s
Drive-In. Most of the youth had never
been to Dick’s so we were glad we could introduce them to greasy drive-in
burgers and fantastic milk shakes.
After dinner we played with a puzzle together. But when we play, we play with a
purpose. Puzzles are great ways for us
to think about community, diversity, how we see the world, and how we are
connected to those around us. We each
chose a puzzle piece to study. Some
puzzle pieces are certainly more interesting than others. Some have faces, some have clues as to what
the bigger picture is – and some are just really boring or plain. We each described our puzzle pieces, what we
liked or disliked about them, and how they made us feel. “Empty,” “lonely,” “isolated,” and “joyful”
were some of the words used. While we
could make some educated guesses about the picture, we realized that we
actually needed other pieces to learn more.
So we put our pieces together as best we could, without having all the pieces to use. The picture was certainly more clear. Within our small group, we had enough to get
the general idea. Sounds like a lot of
communities we are a part of, right?
Whether it is our churches or our group of friends, there are enough
people present to feel like we can see everything…that is until we realize what
(or who) is missing. When we added the
rest of the puzzle pieces, we realized that there were things we hadn’t even
imagined present in the picture. Small details
like a flower or the look on one of the characters’ face all helped define the
picture. Out challenge is to take a step
back and ask who is missing from our communities. If the groups we associate with truly were
representative of the people who call our places “home,” who would be a part of
them?
During our time in Seattle, we will be encountering people
who are different than those we normally hang out with. And that is a beautiful and wonderful
thing. It might be uncomfortable (we
realized that when we choose our communities and which groups we will be a part
of, we often gravitate towards people who think like us, believe similar
things, look like us, or have similar things), but we grow when we are
uncomfortable and stretched. We are also
able to receive what others have to offer us when we take the time to sit with them
and get to know them.
Our time this week is about more than service. Sure, we will be doing some work that will
hopefully help someone. But we are open
to receiving as much as we give, to being served as much as we serve. That’s the beauty of the puzzle…each piece
has something to give and, as one of our youth pointed out, we are not fully
ourselves without the others (granted, he was talking about a leg being cut off
on a puzzle piece…but that is a deep statement). Even our service is something deeper than
just helping someone. As another one of
our youth said, we’re serving God. How
true that is. When we sit at a table to
share a meal with a stranger, we’re sitting with Jesus because Jesus is in that
person. When we give food to someone who
is hungry, we’re giving food to Jesus.
So we are waking up tomorrow, excited to have breakfast with Jesus.
With that in mind, we ended our day today with Compline at
St. Mark’s. We took time to sit in
silence and say in our hearts, “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.”
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