My day job transports me beyond our nation’s borders every morning. I rally our supporters to unleash grassroots entrepreneurs in places like Bujumbura and Lubumbashi. But, I live in Denver. I walk these streets. So when it comes to my town, who do I cheer for (apart from Tim Tebow, of course)?
Many great organizations serve our city. We need important agencies like Joshua Station and Providence Network that protect our city’s most-vulnerable families. What energizes me most, however, are entrepreneurs at the margins. I’m drawn to the innovators that give job opportunities to those who typically go without. These two great organizations inspire me:
An open industrial garage door invites discount-hunters into a nondescript warehouse in northeast Denver. Inside Bud’s Warehouse, profundities of all varieties are commonplace. Bud’s, a home improvement thrift store, hires the unhireable, mostly former felons. They repurpose construction site leftovers and lighten the load on landfills by selling these products to deal-hunting contractors and home remodelers.
Each morning, the Bud’s team gathers for a “hood check” to discuss faith, family and work. Bud’s is the cornerstone business of the Belay Enterprises portfolio. But, after growing Bud’s into a $2 million business, they launched new ventures including a commercial cleaning company, a baby clothing consignment store, an auto garage, a jail-based bakery and a custom-woodworking business. Together, these businesses help rebuild lives and create immense value in our community. The masses–including major publications like Christianity Today–are starting to catch the Belay fever.
They aren’t based in Denver, but Jobs for Life recently sank roots into Coloradan soil (and they’re probably in your city too). Throughout the Mile High City, many unemployed and underemployed people are rediscovering their purpose through Jobs for Life seminars. God designed people to apply their hand to a craft, to work hard and to yield fruit from their labor.
Especially in this socioeconomic climate, we need to recapture this message. Even many good-hearted charitable efforts stifle our design as workers. We forget we are co-creators with the God who toiled for six long days to create the galaxies and ecosystems. Jobs for Life helps our communities rekindle the message of work. Their new video communicates this better than I can:
Entrepreneurship is in my blood. I visit places like Bud’s Warehouse and am inspired by their creativity, profitability and impact. Who inspires you in your city?
When our pregnancy was revealed mid-December I wondered if the timing would allow me to engage in Advent to a deeper degree. Sure, we had our pregnancy revealed by six blue lines (2 positive lines x 3 tests = 6) instead of Gabriel, but something was clearly binding me to the emotion of Advent in a new way. While this may have happened to a small degree, I underestimated the way in which my pregnancy would bind my heart to my students and neighbors.
The spring was filled with moments in my classroom that I will always cherish (“Your baby is going to turn out so cute and I know you’re not going to have a miscarriage because you are healthy and clean”) and others that were truly humbling (“Ms Horst, today you don’t look pregnant at all! You just look fat!”). A month after the big announcement was made, this interaction occurred:
Me: You guys are going to have to make more room for this pregnant woman to sit down.
Feliciano: I didn’t know you were pregnant!
Me: Feliciano, you know I’m pregnant… we’ve been talking about it for the last month.
Feliciano: Well, I knew you were going to have a baby, but I thought you were going to be pregnant this summer.
I knew I was beginning to think like a teacher when I was able to appreciate the logical explanation of inferring on Juan’s assessment despite its brutal honesty:
“Inferring is like predicting what is going to happen. You use your prior knowledge and your beliefs. For example, I believe my teacher is having a baby. My evidence is that her tummy is getting fat.”
At Joshua Station, we’ve had a few gut wrenching conversations similar to this one with Fanta:
Fanta: Is your boyfriend going to marry you now?
Me: Chris? We’re already married.
Fanta: But now that you’re pregnant… is he going to marry you?
Me: He already married me before we were pregnant.
Feliciano: Do you have a ring?
Chris and I didn’t fit Fanta’s five-year-old understanding of marriage, so the fact checking continued: Did he get down on a knee? Did he say “Will you marry me?” Are you still wearing the ring? Do you live together?
Now, less than two weeks away from 8.9.10, I’m beginning to infer like Juan… Using my prior knowledge (everyone I know has always stopped being pregnant at some point, usually around that 40th week) and my beliefs (that jab to my ribs felt like a baby is inside of me), I am going to infer that our life is about to get pretty dang sweet.
Three years ago I read a book by Robert Lupton which changed the way I think about helping the poor. In that book, he introduced the concept of the “dignity of exchange,” which is one of the primary lenses through which I now view compassion. Lupton suggests in this book that “people would far rather engage in legitimate exchange than be the object of another’s pity. There is something in one-way giving that erodes human dignity.” The Christmas season has reminded me again of why exchange matters.
Today, Mile High Ministries (which also runs Joshua Station) is hosting their 16th annual Christmas Store, which gives opportunities for low-income moms and dads in Denver to buy Christmas gifts for their children (at subsidized prices). Parents, as customers, are able to be providers for their children at Christmas. The real Christmas gift of this annual tradition, in my opinion, is given to these parents: Dignity. These parents are no longer needy recipients…they are bargain-hunters.
As a junior in high school, I joined with a group of my friends to purchase Christmas gifts for a low-income urban family in my hometown, Lancaster, Pennsylvania through a local urban ministry. We got the name of a family and a list of suggested gifts and we went to Walmart to pick up the items. After purchasing the items, we drove to to the house, which was in a low-income housing community in a rough section of town. The four of us, all exuberant Christian kids, then hauled the gifts from the car to the door, where we delivered them to the mother of the children, while the children looked on.
I think back to the experience often:
What would it have been like if I was one of those kids? …to see my mom receiving my future Christmas gifts from a bunch of youth I didn’t know? How would I felt to be that mom or dad? …to have my neighbors see me receiving those gifts? …to feel as though I was incapable personally of giving my kids a great Christmas?
Compassion is important. But compassion, without thoughtful and prayerful consideration of the consequences of the actions, can be harmful. Most mothers will do whatever they need to do to provide for their kids, even if that means they have to humble themselves to allow wealthy high-school aged kids to pick up the tab for Christmas. One gift which we did not give to that mother was dignity. I am excited that Mile High Ministries, and many other wonderful organizations, have re-examined their Christmas efforts to support low-income families.
Jeff Johnsen, Executive Director at Mile High Ministries, said this as to why they began operating the Christmas Store 16 years ago. “A lot of us at Mile High Ministries saw over and over again that there was a hidden price being paid by some of the families that were served [through their traditional Christmas giveaways]. You could see it in a dad’s face. These generous gifts were also a reminder to him that he couldn’t provide for his family that year.I decided there had to be a better way…Dignity is perhaps The Christmas Store’s chief product.”
For the single mothers living at Joshua Station (all 25 families here currently are led by single moms), life has been characterized by broken promises. Fathers who swore they would always be there for the kids. Ex-husbands who claimed they would never hit them. Family members who somehow always forgot to pay back borrowed money. For these women, it is only safe to have low expectations.
It was in that context that our small group at church endeavored to plan an event for the women of Joshua Station which inverted that pattern. Exceeded expectations…instead of lowered. Fulfilled promises…instead of broken. Alli and I were thrilled when the plans started coming together and we truly took a backseat in the process as the generous and enthusiastic members of our group took the lead. They each brought their own creativity, energy and passions into the planning. After many discussions, we settled on doing a “Ladies Night Out,” featuring spa treatments, massage, desserts, live music and foot-washing.
St. Augustine ends one of his famous quotes by saying, “And in all things, charity.” From the beginning, our group’s unstated motto exclaimed, “And in all things, luxury.” Each member of our group found ways to ratchet it up a notch. Nothing was done cheaply, as if anything they could do was “good enough.” One group member asked her masseuse to volunteer for the event. Another member recognized a large percentage of the moms were Latina so she made culturally-sensitive desserts. And together the group hand-made neck-warmers, facial scrubs and foot baths. To top it off, the transportation for the evening was a stretch-SUV limousine.
By all accounts, the evening was a smashing success. The men in our group watched the herd of kids for the evening, allowing the moms to have a free night, and the women in our small group lavished the Joshua Station mothers with an evening fit for even the most elite women in the most prestigious country club. For at least one night, we wanted each of these women to know they were created for dignity by a God who knows and loves each one of them uniquely. For at least one night, they were the honored guests. For at least one night, they were given the very best.
In many ways, our goal was to reflect the love our Savior demonstrated in choosing, as omnipotent Creator, again and again, to lavish each of us with exceeding grace. And from the comments we heard from the guests, that message was clear. One of the mothers commented after the evening that “the hosts just kept surprising us.” Another wrote this in her heartfelt thank-you note:
It is inspirational and authentic to be shown true respect and “feel the love” one human to another in the manner you ladies demonstrated the other night.
The members of our small group communicated worth, honor and respect to these women who are all too accustomed to broken promises. It was beautiful to observe this extravagance on the margins.
Thanks to our community group member & photographer, Elizabeth Strauss, for the photos.
(Chris)
Living at Joshua Station is truly a joy. Alli and I have quickly accustomed ourselves to the roar of the highway, the dated exterior, the industrial neighborhood, and the fact that we’re living in a transitional housing program. We cherish the relationships we’ve built with our neighbors and truly have come to enjoy living in this converted roadside motel more than we enjoyed our hip downtown apartment where we resided previously.
Life at Joshua Station is not without its challenges, however. The most saddening aspect is the lack of dependable men in the lives of the 50 children who live here. Of the 28 resident families, there are remarkably 26 single-moms. Many of the fathers are in jail, several have restraining orders because of past abuses, and nearly all of them have completely failed their children.
A few weeks ago, we were babysitting two girls, age 5 and 6, for one of the residents, a single mom. While playing with the girls, the older sister asked, “Chris, can I call you daddy?” This was probably the saddest question I’ve ever been asked. And I honestly don’t even remember how I answered her. The truth is, I cannot fill the void of having an absentee father. And sometimes I’m not sure how much of an impact I can actually make here. I don’t know what it’s like to live in a fatherless home. I’ve never lived on the streets. There were never any doubts growing up that there would be food on the table.
In the midst of those personal insecurities, I know Alli and I have been called to be here. And we’ve been called to faithfully reflect Christ’s love to these families through small acts of tenderness and encouragement. We can’t heal the wounds that so many of these children have. We can do the little things. Alli and I hold hands when we walk to the car, make stove top popcorn together when neighbor kids drop-in and are quick with words of affirmation with children who so rarely hear them.
(Chris)
