DownloadOct. 19, 2009 issue
Warm space, and dignity, for homeless
By Jonathan Hiskes Mennonite Weekly ReviewSEATTLE — What draws members of Lake City’s homeless population to Seattle Mennonite Church is not exactly the hot meals offered each Sunday.
The late Phil Carrasco, a longtime leader in the homeless community, named Seattle Mennonite Church’s homeless shelter God’s Lil’ Acre. — Photo by Michael Whitmarsh
It’s not the free laundry, phone or Internet service.
It’s not the coffee pot, or the kitchen where they can cook and store their own food.
It’s not the emergency shelter the church opens on winter nights below freezing.
Yes, they appreciate those things and find them useful, say homeless neighborhood residents like Tim Dwyer and Jeff Marema. But the real attraction is something less tangible.
“It’s a place you can go and be a human being, for just that short time,” said Marema, 48, a ruddy Navy veteran with dark blue eyes, a one-time electrician and business owner. “Nobody’s going to beat on you — you get to feel like a human being for those few short minutes.”
The beating is not figurative. Homeless residents of the north Seattle neighborhood have been attacked by youth gangs. Marema, who has been homeless for about two years, said he was beaten last winter, then hospitalized with a brain bruise.
“I’m scared out here,” he said. “Ask anybody out here. If they’re honest with you, they’ll tell you they’re scared.”
Like others in the neighborhood, he often spends mornings at the drop-in center in a small renovated house on the church property. Five mornings and two evenings a week, it opens for anyone who wants to stop by. Some make use of its kitchen, laundry or storage services. Others come for conversation and coffee, or to thumb through a newspaper.
Jonathan Neufeld, a community minister for the church, said people on the street sometimes say homelessness is a 24-hour job.
Comments
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This is a very positive and important ministry. From my experience with the "homeless" the most important thing is being recognized and loved as a human being. For the church this becomes a challenge and a call, how do we welcome and love those also created in the image of God, embracing them FIRST in this light, and get to know them as real people? We have to hold back our gut reactions to "fix them" and begin with love and relationship. In the process we discover our common brokenness and healing comes for all through community rather than programs. (yes, I recognize that SMC's ministry is "a program" but it's starting place is relationship).
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Thanks Andy...this week at staff meeting we were listening to Jesus' engagement of Bartimaeus, where he asks B, "What do you want me to do for you?" Not dictating or assuming what the blind man needed, Jesus here (and very often) is depicted as inviting people to name their hopes. Loving relationships are the foundation for calling out hope and the risk of speaking it out loud. My desire is that the companioinship we offer, will be one humble part of the support people need to reclaim a hope beyond just surviving.
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So heart-warming. Thank you for your labors of love for humanity, Jonathan, Melanie, et al. This compassion in action is true Christianity. Thank you!
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