Feeling Appreciated

Feeling Appreciated

These past few months have had their many ups and downs. It has been a very trying and often discouraging experience, but it has also been pretty life changing in a few areas. I have a better idea of what I want to do when I graduate (which is only a month away!), which involves doing some type of community outreach with the homeless. I have been given the opportunity to have a wide range of experience working with the homeless in Springfield. I really had no idea that there were so many homeless in this area or that there were so many organizations offering their services. Plus, just getting to know the different people I have been working with has been great.

This week I have been working at Contact Ministries, which is another homeless outreach organization. This experience was much different from working at the Mission because Contact typically deals with the street homeless, whereas Inner City Mission mostly just caters to those living in the shelter. Contact also has a shelter for women with children, but when I was there I just worked downstairs with the people that came in off the street. A typical day involves giving food vouchers for the people to take to local food pantries, getting clothes and other items (household items, personal hygiene kits, etc) for those that need it and that sort of thing. I helped sort the clothes in basement (these clothes are then given to the residents in the shelter and the people in the community as they are needed). Twice a week a doctor comes in and will offer free services to those that are homeless. There are many more things that Contact Ministries does, but I didn’t really help out in any of those areas.

Working at Contact was an awesome experience. It helped me to see a totally different perspective on ministering to people- I just loved being there. And quite honestly, I didn’t want to leave. It just rekindled my passion for doing homeless ministry and having some type of outreach program for the community. I love this type of work and I’m praying that I can found a job where I can do this all the time.

I guess one of the other reasons that I really loved working at Contact was because I felt like I was actually needed. Or useful. I was busy pretty much all day long- constantly running around and doing stuff or getting things. The women I worked with were really fun to be around and I just felt like I was a part of what they were doing. They didn’t make me feel like I was in the way or that I was bothering them by asking so many questions. I just felt appreciated.

This week I will be working at the Food Bank. I’m really not sure what I’ll be doing there. When I went there a few weeks ago it really just seemed like there was a lot of stocking foods and stuff going on- but not much else. Of course, I only saw a brief part of it. So hopefully I’ll actually be doing something.

So, I’ve had a few emails from people that they can’t leave me comments on here. Sorry about that. I forgot to change my settings to allow those that don’t have a username to be able to comment. Just comment as name/url and type your name. Let me know if it works.