Helping Hands Turned Blue

About a week ago, our faith community spent the day at City Rescue Mission in downtown Oklahoma City. The mission offers emergency relief services to meet the immediate physical needs of men, women and children who are homeless and others who need help. Our crew has committed to befriend City Rescue Mission and make the deepest impact possible with our missions efforts. For us this means deep personal involvement rather than merely tossing some money their direction. Although we believe in that, too! On that particular Saturday, we cleaned and painted throughout the facility. The paint was a bright, deep blue and oil-based - explaining our blue hands. It was such a fun day, yet sobering. I made the comment that I had observed pain and loss versus hope and comfort. I thought it would have been entirely possible to walk away and be overwhelmed by the needs. But what I walked away with was overwhelming hope.... HOPE WINS! Other feelings were gratitude, humility, heartache, empathy, and friendship. We met so many people with stories that should be told, stories that I pray find a way to intertwine with Christ's story. Like the man with three college degrees, who worked for the CIA, started the first ambulance service in Oklahoma that wasn't owned by a funeral home only to be forced out of business when EMSA won the city contract, he eventually ended up with Multiple Sclerosis and is now struggling to stay healthy which takes precedence over housing. So he's finding help at City Rescue Mission. Or the recovering drug addict who ended up in Oklahoma because he was trying to find his parents after being raised in a children's home in Texas. There were moms with babies and other kids in tow. People who wouldn't look you in the eye and others who grabbed paintbrushes and jumped in to help. It's so easy to turn a blind eye to the severely impoverished among us. They hang out around shelters in areas of the city that we don't pass by much. We might occassionaly see one on the corner with a cardboard sign but are afraid to help because we might be enabling someone. I wish everyone could spend a day elbow to elbow with those who really aren't so different from us. I know it impacted our group more than our paint job did for the mission. Praise God I have an amazing family and friends who have helped us out so much over the years and that while I have made some pretty stupid decisions, none of them have been so devastating as to render me with nowhere to go. Praise God for City Rescue Mission and others who spend their lives ministering to those in need.

The volunteer director Jonathan told us that OKC has one of the highest homeless rates in the nation. OKC also has one of the largest faith-based populations in the nation. It's kind of staggering to think that in a place with so many Christians, churches, and other religions represented on every street corner, there's still such a lack of resources. I know that the problem will always exist; Jesus said the poor would always be among us. However, in all the talk of OKC becoming such an amazing city that is leading the way in revitalization, I pray that we become examples of how to take care of our neighbors. "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40

To learn more about City Rescue Mission, click here.