This week, on at least three nights, members of St Timothy’s spent the night at Samaritan Ministries downtown.  On Thursday night, the group included four of your ministry staff.  We arrived at 6pm, received our instructions, served beef stew and rice, chatted with the men, cleaned up, had a devotion at 10pm, and then we all took turns watching the security monitors for two hours during the night.  For all the nuts and bolts and more, go to Samaritan’s website.

This was the second time I’ve been to Samaritan this year and the experience both times has been the same.  On both occasions my perception as to the type of person that finds himself without a dime and without a place to lay his head has been completely, totally, and thankfully shattered.

Gone are the stereotypes of the lazy and attitude of entitlement.  Every man to a person was beyond thankful, polite, and full of gratitude that someone was willing to stand there and hand him a plate of food.  They were happy to have someone ask them how their day was.  These are men who want a better life.

Lazy?  Not quite.  My shift was from 4-6am.  Since there are no alarm clocks, one of my jobs was to wake a gentleman up at 4:30am for his morning walk.  4:30am?  Not me – but that’s his discipline.  At 5:45am, men were coming down and borrowing the irons to press their shirts.  Ironing?  Yep.

Too often we recall times when our generosity was taken advantage of.  It happens a lot in the church office.  Sadly, however, those experiences tend to taint our views of the poor.

As Christians, taking care of the poor – not just feeding them or providing a place to sleep – but helping them to gain a foothold to rise above their conditions – is part of our baptismal responsibility.

Perhaps the greatest gift of volunteering at Samaritan is that we can see a glimpse of this.  And we want to go back.

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pictures: above – Travis Mann (Friday night, picture by Bill Stallings)
below – Lea Thullbery and Adrienne Beauchamp (Thursday night)