Longing for Something More.
This month’s Street Story comes from on of our Follow Up Care Coordinators, Zach Winterowd. July was actually Zach’s last month with us as he and his wife Shayna move onto the next phase of their lives back in Texas. His time with us was spent talking with guests to make individualized next steps, or a plan that they can realistically achieve, and then walk alongside them for as long as they need. It might look like helping someone get an ID card to helping a couple get married. (true story!) Zach talks about one need he has seen in almost every person he’s spoken with: the need for human connection.
Each and every one of us has an innate longing for connection - connection to ourselves, to others and the world around us, to something far beyond us. This sense of belonging and being can often be a privilege that we take for granted. Such is the case for many of our friends who suffer from homelessness.
One of the most prominent yet intangible needs that I have encountered on the streets is a desire to establish relationships and work on communication skills. It goes without saying that one of the direct results of chronic homelessness would be a decrease in social awareness, speech confidence and relational abilities. For myriad reasons, this is a very common reality for our friends on the street.
One of the purposes of our outreaches is to establish a community of love and relationship that can create an environment in which this growth can occur. Another way in which City Relief is able to accomplish this is through the Peer Empowerment Program (PEP). As a mission of the Follow-up Care Team, PEP exists to provide guests who apply with volunteer experience, case management and spiritual companionship. Through the eight-week program, participants engage in an internship that offers purpose through service, dignity through goal setting and accomplishing, and relationship through discipleship.
When our two most recent participants came on in April, Mike and Mauricio, they both had only one goal that they wanted to accomplish through PEP: To build relationships and work on communication skills. Coming from wildly different backgrounds and contexts, both men had the same drive to be connected that we all share, but they no longer had the tools to do it on their own. Over the next two months, both Mike and Mauricio emerged as vibrant leaders during our outreaches. They began to forge friendships with staff members, volunteers and base teams, and even other guests in beautiful ways. They have bloomed so much, and continue to do so, to the point where we decided to let them continue in their role well past their eight weeks. Mike and Mauricio have become an integral part of City Relief.
Suffering from homelessness and poverty robs so much from our friends, and it doesn’t discriminate. One of the things that it steals that is often less-thought of is the ability, confidence, and even desire to try to connect to others. Be it from bad experiences in the shelter or on the streets with others, mental health crises, or just the weight of suffering, it should not be a surprise to us that this is a reality. The flip side of this that I have also observed is that much of the conversation from privileged folk center upon an expectation that people stuck in homelessness or any poverty-stricken situation have perfect or “normal” social awareness and communication skills. If Jesus meets us where we are, expecting nothing out of us, then certainly that is how we should meet our friends on the street. Also like Jesus, we might just get to be a part of something truly beautiful if we take the time to invite our friends into a relationship that gives them the opportunity for them to discover who they are in themselves, in the world around them, and in Christ.
