Tag: christianity

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Unlikely Friends

Sometimes you meet someone and you become instant friends.  That happened to me awhile back.  I went to Massachusetts for some training on media interviews with one of the more brilliant marketing experts in the country, Shel Horowitz (http://shelhorowitz.com/).   He’s the author of Principled Profit, Grassroots Marketing (a must-have for bootstrap marketers), The Penny Pinching Hedonist, Marketing without Megabucks and his latest, Guerilla Marketing Goes Green.  He’s a true wordsmith and a master at getting the most bang for your marketing buck.

 The odd thing about our friendship is that Shel and I disagree on a whole host of issues.  Shel is liberal on most issues.  I’m mostly conservative. Our religious views are quite different.  Yet despite our apparent incompatibility, our friendship quickly flourished.

 Why?

 First, we found our common ground.  Shel and I both believe in leading a simple, responsible lifestyle.  We both enjoy hiking and drinking in nature’s wonders as we go.  We both get riled at the sight of injustice and corruption. It didn’t take us long to find lots of other areas where we agreed.

 Second is integrity.  Shel lives what he believes.  He does what he says he’ll do, and he won’t be shy about telling the truth.   I try to be the same way in my life.  Unfortunately, integrity seems to be a dying value in much of our culture.  So when I meet someone who has it, I am drawn to them.

 Third, it’s OK to disagree.  We accepted our differences and voiced our positions in friendly, reasonable conversation.  You can’t bring everybody to your side.  Jesus didn’t even reach everybody he came in contact with.  So Shel and I both took time to listen and learn from each other. We didn’t change each other’s opinions, but we broadened our minds.

 It’s not hard to get along with people.  Instead of focusing on our differences, try to find some common ground.  There’s more of that kind of real estate than you can imagine.  From that starting point, make an effort to truly listen.  Digest what the other person is saying.  In far too many discussions we humans are guilty of concentrating on how we will advance our position and fail to truly hear the views of the other person.  You don’t have to agree, but you must try to understand.

 Yes, Shel and I are unlikely friends. I can’t speak for him, but my life is richer for it.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

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What I Learned from My Dog

Mandy the Little Lady

As the vet was preparing the injections that would end her life, our dog, Mandy, laid her little head on my hand.  With tears flowing, my wife, daughter and I were all gently petting her as she took her last, small breath.

 Mandy had fought a cancerous nasal tumor for a year.  The veterinarian had told us she might last 6 months if we gave her a high-dose radiation treatment.  We refused, and took a natural course that kept her happy and content until the last couple of weeks of her life.  Oh, she had some rough spells, but she would always bounce back. 

 Finally, dental disease we couldn’t treat, combined with the cancer, brought her to a point where she could only eat a little bit at a time.  She began to lose weight quickly, but still was our bright, cuddly puppy.  It wasn’t until the last few days of her life that she grew despondent. On the last day, her expression took on a distant sadness, and she sought out hidden places to curl up and die.  Before we put her in the truck for her final ride, she let us know that she had made her decision about life.  How could we not honor that?

Like most dogs, Mandy loved her family.  Every time we came home she acted like she hadn’t seen us for months even if we had only been gone an hour or two.  If we did something that hurt her, she quickly forgave us like nothing had ever happened.  She loved attention and food more than anything in the world.  A few pets and a full belly was all it took to make her happy.  It makes me want to re-think my desires in life.  Maybe I want a bit too much.  I’ll admit that I might want more than a tummy rub to experience the richest joys in life but do I really need all the stuff I think I need?

 During her illness, Mandy taught us how to face adversity with courage, taking it in stride. Even on her bad days, she would still come up for petting and greet us when we came home.  She didn’t stop trying to get the most out of life just because she was going through hard times.  Mandy looked for, and discovered, every little positive when almost everything around her was negative.

 But the greatest lesson Mandy taught me was a trait she possessed that was rare even for dogs. She loved ALL people.  When Mandy was young, we kept one of Lindsey’s little friends with us for a weekend.  I have to confess that the child was incorrigible the whole weekend.  At one point, I heard Mandy squealing in pain and ran in the next room to find Lindsey’s friend pulling as hard as she could on her ears.  I know a lot of dogs would have would have tried to bite or attack to protect themselves.  But not Mandy.  She never made any attempt to hurt that child.

 God loves all people, regardless of how they look or smell, whether they’re nice or nasty, rich or poor, liberal or conservative (although some of you may disagree with that last one).  My little Mandy demonstrated that kind of love more than any earthly creature I have ever seen.  She never judged anybody and would show love to everybody.  That didn’t make her much of a guard dog, but it sure endeared her to a lot of people.

 So as I take these sentimental moments to reflect on the life of my little dog, my prayer is that I can learn to love all people half as much as she did.

 God’s grace to you,

 Steve Jennings, Executive Director

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Immeasurable Outcomes

“Measurable Outcomes” has become a buzzword in the world of grant writing and securing support from major donors and corporations. They rightly want to know that their donations and grants are making a difference. So if you can say that your shelter was able to provide beds for 30 more homeless people, you would have a measurable outcome to report back to the donor.

But there is another side to outcomes that can’t be quantified so easily. How do you measure the hope you have given homeless people by helping them begin to believe that they don’t have to spend the rest of their lives on the street? How do you quantify the change in perceptions about poverty and homelessness that you plant in a volunteer? How can you place a concrete value on a new sense of justice and compassion aroused in a teenager?

In over 20 years of working with poor people and volunteers of all ages, these “immeasurable outcomes” are the ones that most clearly define Teens Opposing Poverty. They can’t be placed in charts or graphs, yet they bear witness to a very real impact on the hearts and minds of scores of people.

When teens decided to use money they had set aside for a fun outing to pay the security deposit so William Daniels could get into his first apartment, he returned their kindness by volunteering with the Washington, DC ministry. Now he is on staff and directs that ministry.

Reggie had given up trying to get off the street after suffering a seemingly unending series of setbacks. After two months of encouragement by young volunteers, he tried again and was finally able to “beat the street.”

Marcel was bitter after losing his job and home and not being able to find work for over a year and a half. A smiling, fifth-grade girl interrupted his epithet-laden rant about his situation. As she looked him in the eye, she handed him a simple hand-drawn picture. He looked down at it, returned her smile and said, “If I had a refrigerator, I’d put this on it.” As she walked away, Marcel turned from us to wipe away his tears. When he turned around, he was a different man. Gratitude and hope had found their way into his heart. In that one precious moment an 11-year-old girl changed his whole outlook on life.

I’ll admit that it’s more difficult for us to secure some financial support because we don’t have enough “measurable outcomes.” That’s OK. In my book, a few changed lives are worth the sacrifice.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings

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Arms Flailing, Head Wagging

We saw him from two city blocks away.  The tall, gangly, slender man sat on a retaining wall that bordered a small plaza along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.  His head wobbled.  He flailed his arms about so wildly they didn’t even appear to have bones in them.  His face was contorted, and his tongue darted in and out of his mouth like a snake. His eyes looked everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

 The youth who were with me bringing food to homeless people in the area were spellbound by him and were confused about what to do.  Should they approach him?  What would they say?  They talked nervously among themselves as we drew closer to him.

 Finally one of them asked me what they should do.

 “Give him a sandwich,” I said. “But show it to him first.”

 The man continued his gyrations, but his eyes showed a glimmer of lucidity as we crossed the side street and began walking in his direction.  Three brave teens broke from the group and approached him tentatively as they held out a sandwich.

 “Would… would you like a sandwich?” one of them asked.

 The man’s eyes locked on the sandwich.  With startling speed he dropped his arms, pulled his tongue back in his mouth, smiled and said, “Thank you.”

He looked at the group of youth, making eye contact with most of them.  They looked at him and drew closer.  I stood back as he ate his sandwich and spoke with the teens for 5 or 10 minutes.  I didn’t hear what they said and didn’t need to.  This was their moment of discovery.  Things aren’t always as they seem.

 They gave him another sandwich, said goodbye, and we headed down the street to serve other people.  On the way back we looked over at the retaining wall and there he was, arms flailing, head wagging, tongue jumping.

 Did he have a mental illness, or had he been hurt so often that he figured out how to keep people away from him?  I guess we’ll never know the answer to that. 

 But we do know this.  He responded to love. 

 He dropped his façade when somebody cared enough to break into his world, offering him something and asking nothing in return.  For at least that moment in his life he stepped out of the safe place he had created in his mind and took a chance on connecting with other people. 

That’s what the love of Jesus does.  It breaks down walls.  It pulls people outside of themselves and into a moment of discovery that maybe – just maybe – there is something better.  May God grant us the power to share that love with our world.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings

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Lessons from the Street

Some “how-to’s” of homeless ministry.

Based on 20+ years of working with homeless people, here are some things I have learned. Your mileage may vary.

1. Freely give at first. Don’t worry about whether the person you are helping is “using the system”. Err on the side of grace, and use your giving to establish a relationship with that person.

2. Pray for discernment as you continue to work with a person. If it appears that they don’t want to take action to improve their lives, you must first determine two things:

a) Do they have a clue as to what they need to do for their part?
b) Do they have the capacity to do what is necessary?

In other words, do they have physical, mental or emotional challenges that make it difficult or humanly impossible to make the changes in their own lives?

3. If a person is able but unwilling to take action, don’t enable them to continue in their current lifestyle. They need to feel pain from their situation in order to move out of it. On the other hand, don’t abandon them. Be there. Be a friend. Be an encourager. Share the love of Christ with them. Help them to bring Jesus into their hearts so that the power of the Holy Spirit can strengthen them to overcome the forces that hold them down.

People trapped in poverty face a ton of obstacles to success: emotional, physical, mental, situational and spiritual. We MUST minister to the whole person. We MUST get involved in their lives and make ourselves vulnerable to the disappointment that often comes when they fall. When we do that, God can use us in incredible, life-changing ways.

Steve Jennings
Executive Director, Teens Opposing Poverty