Checked my mail

This email is from a man I met at Eagle's Nest, the homeless ministry I've been helping out at since Spring 2008. Both he and I used to be more regular volunteers. The only difference is that he's homeless.

We've had some good conversations, and through my interactions with him and other people at Eagle's Nest, I began to see that people are similar regardless of where or how they live. We all have dreams, hopes, fears, loves. We all need God.

I used to help out at Eagle's Nest's early morning breakfast feeding sessions, but that got too hard to wake up to (and deal with--it breaks my heart to see the people there sometimes). So I moved on to help start up their computer class, and struggled with trying to convince participants to attend and stay consistent.

I've stopped attending Eagle's Nest as regularly because I wanted to concentrate on other activities. Volunteer work of this kind is discouraging; most of the time few people showed up for our computer class and although we met their immediate needs (set up email account, learn to type, obtain library card, find out what to do about identity theft), I always left wondering what would happen to them after they left the class. Would they come back? (Most of the time, no.) Would they use the skills we taught them? (Some, I heard, take computer classes at a jobs resource centre nearby.)

As I've mentioned previously, I am impatient. I want to make my mark on the world. When you are in a university setting, reading books by trailblazers, you sense that you should achieve and alter the status quo as well. What brings me down to earth is the realisation that sometimes, all we can hope for are small changes. And sometimes, we can't even see the changes. We just have to trust that God is using us.

I went down to Eagle's Nest last Saturday to help Pastor Larry, the pastor in charge, design a powerpoint presentation for his new organisation, one that coordinates mission teams to Sudan. That was when I met B, the author of the email above. He gave me a big hearty hug and we exchanged greetings. I was glad to see him; over the summer a disagreement had occurred and while we resolved it, we had also begun visiting Eagle's Nest less frequently (due to other reasons on both our parts).

On the way back that Saturday, I shared with Jamie, my fellow volunteer, that I didn't feel that I was producing anything useful.

"Just think about the look in Pastor Larry's eyes when he thanked you for coming down," Jamie said. "I think our being there encourages him to keep going."

And his (Jamie's, Pastor Larry's, B's) encouragement encourages me to keep encouraging him (all of the above, all at once) in a world where money cannot matter because there is never enough of it.