Street Outreach
Spreading the Word on the street
Goals
This section will talk about the time after dinner when the team went out to serve food, talk to and pray for the people we’d meet on the street.
Kensington is an area struggling with homelessness and drug addiction, and the corners we were on especially had a history of struggling with drug addiction. The population is mostly Hispanic, white, and black. Many of the people we fed and spoke to were homeless and/or had problems with heroin or other drugs, although this was not the case with everyone we spoke to.
The team members who had previously been on the trip had some experience doing this before, and a couple others had similar experiences from other trips, but for several members of the team this was unfamiliar territory. Some of the goals we had in reaching out to the people on the street were to not be judgmental, provide resources, and share the message and the hope of Jesus Christ to them.
I will go through the team’s overall experience through three sections. First I will address the preparation the team took before going out on the streets, then I will talk about what the team did on the street, and then I will talk about the people on the street and some of their stories that were shared with us. I will also try to see how well the team was able to achieve their goals.
Preparing for Outreach
One of the most important aspects of reaching out to the people on the street is not to appear judgmental because of any differences in our lives or circumstances. We are not their saviors, and we are not any better than them and it was very important not to come across that way.
Before the trip, some resources we used in preparing for outreach were the members who shared about their previous missions experiences, whether on this same Philly trip or elsewhere. From previous Philly missions experiences, we found that many of the people on the street were very aware and well-informed about the Christian beliefs we were going there to share, often knowing more about faith and the Bible than much of the team. Some were very receptive and warm to it, others were jaded towards Christianity.
Most of the people we encountered on the street were middle-aged or older people, although there were a few younger people in their early 20s closer to the general age of the team. Many of the people on the streets had experienced more than us lived longer than us, which was humbling to remember. One point I remember being stressed was to listen, and not claim to understand their stories if you couldn’t truly understand.
One night during the trip, we had a speaker come in to talk to us about street outreach. His name was Pastor Ben Rosario, who was a recovered drug addict had since been running an outreach ministry reaching out to the drug-addicted and homeless called ‘The Table’ for 30 years. His main message was about the necessity being “Kingdom-Minded” for a successful mission, the idea of putting the mission for the Kingdom of God first before any selfish fears or insecurities.
Being “Kingdom-Minded” also involved being wise in your actions. He said he would have no one bring any money when serving the people on the street, and instead of simply donating shoes he would exchange shoes with the people so they couldn’t simply sell their old ones to feed their drug habit. He would also not offer them water because he knew most addicts wanted water so they could mix their heroin with it to inject into their skin.
The Team at Outreach
The team would drive in their cars and meet at a corner at a train station, and set up tables for food. Most days we served peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and hot chocolate, although we did have turkey sandwiches one day. There would be a line of people gathering to be served and a few of us at the table serving them. Most of us would be around the area talking to people on street, and some of us would also be singing songs of worship.
We had some simple practical problems in serving the food. The night that we served turkey sandwiches, we forgot to bring forks, so the servers had to use a cup to scoop the turkey into the bread which was more difficult and sloppy. We also had some confusion on other nights about the supplies we did or didn’t bring, or who had them.
There was usually a group of us singing worship songs. However, after the first day there were some of us that expressed concern that our motivations for singing needed to be in the right place. We were reminded that we were there to serve and love the people who were bitter against Christianity, and not there to be against them or challenge the fact that they didn’t share the same faith.
The singing was able to move some of the people on the street. I remember an old man on the street beginning to cry right as we started singing the first song on the first night. Some nights we also had other people join in from the street and sing with us. I remember one man who was a very good singer, another whose voice was more gruff but still willing to pour himself into the songs.
Each team member been paired with another for outreach, so they could approach the people on the street together. Every girl was partnered with a guy for safety precautions, as we needed to be careful of the street culture relating to gender. However, sharing during debrief revealed there were a couple instances where a female member of the team would be speaking to a stranger on their own. There were also some stories shared a couple days after the fact of people on the street hinting or making inappropriate advances on team members. In the future the team could definitely prepare better for these things, addressing these potential situations and what we should do directly and explicitly. It would also be useful to emphasize the importance of sharing experiences to help the team’s awareness instead of dismissing or laughing things off because of discomfort, although an unwillingness to share is definitely understandable. The safety of the team is another important goal that we should have.
Serving food and singing for the people had its impact, but probably the most important part of outreach was the conversations we sought with the people. Some of them were very willing to engage in conversation and spoke for hours, while others said they were busy or walked away after being given sandwiches. Although I had been on the trip twice previously, it was still very uncomfortable to approach strangers on the street to ask them about their lives and about faith. I suspect other members of the team shared similar feelings, especially those on their first missions trip.
The People at Outreach
We saw many people on the street each night at outreach, some that we spoke to for hours and some we never got to speak to. Here I’ll share some of their stories and the conversations we had with them.
The most memorable thing from street outreach for me was being able to listen to someone’s story for what felt like a few hours on the first night. His name was Dwayne, he looked relatively young and he was wearing grey sweatpants, a grey hoodie, a grey beanie and headphones. Dwayne was a recovering drug addict who had just gotten out of jail 2 months prior, and said that being thrown in jail was a wake-up call that he needed. He said that addicts were like zombies, walking around with no purpose: the way he was until recently. He was thankful that we were there helping people because he said this street corner was a terrible place for a recovering addict like him to be.
Dwayne said he carried a lot of guilt and shame for the things he had done. His father had passed away last year, which put him in a very bad place and contributed to his heroin addiction. Dwayne had sold his TV, his car, and then his house in order to feed this addiction. He also had a 5-year-old son who he loved very much: he would go on and on about how much he looked like him. He was very ashamed that his son had to witness the things he had done just to feed his addiction and wanted to be a better provider and father.
Dwayne said his life was always hard. He said he wasn’t racist, but didn’t fit in as a white guy in a black neighborhood growing up and had to learn self-defense. He was mugged and beaten half to death when he was 12. He said he was an addict but never a criminal, because he always worked for the money he made and never fought except in self defense. He said he hated the city, saying “Everything terrible in my life has happened here.” He wanted to move and find a place in the suburbs, saying that trouble always finds him in the city but in the suburbs he’d have to go out of his way to find trouble. He was very gracious and grateful talking to us and for being out on the streets, saying we were doing a good thing.
I wasn’t able to speak with people nearly as in-depth after the first night, but I was still able to hear some stories and see the other team members have long conversations with particular people. There was a woman who said to pray for everyone here, because “this is hell on Earth.” She didn’t share about herself, but said she needed it after we prayed for her. There was a man named Justin who laughed saying he thought I was the pastor from the Korean church down the street because I looked just like him. There was a woman sitting in a car with her family who needed prayer for her lupus and all the pain that came with it. There was a man who just shook his head no when we tried to approach him with a sandwich. There was a man in a wheelchair who stayed talking with the team for a long while.
Conclusion
Through the trip we wanted to provide resources and share the message of the gospel in a way that was not judgmental. We were able to serve many people food and speak with them, moving some of them emotionally. The hope is that these moments could turn their hearts in a lasting way, though for many it may be that we could only provide brief moments of catharsis instead of any drastic change in their lives moving forward.
There are many areas we could improve. Logistically, we could have been more organized in planning and bringing all the supplies that we need. We could also prepare better for specific situations that might arise that would be uncomfortable or dangerous. Still, team was willing and able to share the message of the gospel where the people at outreach were willing to hear it and I think most of us were able to listen instead of trying to preach.
