Years ago (2005-2008) I used to do street outreach in Camden with our outreach team so I am familiar with the territory. Still, it had been a while since I drove past all the boarded up properties, groups on the corners, and legions of prostitutes strolling up and down Broadway. I hang out at the site for a while, giving out water, asking the kids to help me with some work I had to do for a fundraiser, and watching neighborhood activity outside the front window. It was fascinating...Maybe because I work with a different kind of kid in Atlantic City...or maybe because Atlantic City has a few bright spots itself...You can be poor in AC or even homeless and still be able to walk a few blocks up to the beach, stroll on the boardwalk, see the "resort-ness" of it all...Smell the carmel corn/pizza/cotton candy, see happy people on the beach, allow the looming casinos with their lights and hoopla at least bring you a bit of hope that there is employment available, there is money being made, there are people that will come and be in this city where you may have very little.
Not quite so in Camden (at least in my perspective). The kids I met seemed to have little hope, little belief that their world would ever change. They were nice kids, respectful, and when I told them I was taking a walk around the block, they said, "Ay, yo, we got you!" (meaning they'd keep an eye out for me, this white stranger they'd met 3 hours before). It was all very eye opening.
For the last part of the day, we went out to do some street outreach (which thrilled me beyond words!) When you do outreach, at least Covenant House style, you are looking for "Lisa", a 16/17 year old. I have .1% guilt over this slight "fib" because I am quite sure there is a 16/17 year old "Lisa" out there somewhere, and very possibly on the streets of Camden, who needs our help. We look for "Lisa" because when you do outreach, you aren't strolling around the business district speaking to Mr. or Mrs. "on-my-lunch-break-from-my-comfy-office-job"...no...You are in the ghetto and you look for the street people--the homeless, the pimps, the prostitutes, the drug dealers, the gangs hanging out...And you certainly don't just walk up to them like they need your help and start talking about Covenant House...You approach them carefully...you tell them you need their help--you are looking for "Lisa" and "if you see her, could you please give her this card with our address and phone number on it? In fact, if you know any kids under 22 who might need some help, could you give them this card?"...and 99% of the time, any one of those street folks take the card and promise to keep an eye out for Lisa...and it says to them, "Those Covenant House people are here to help"...and it keeps us safe(r) on the streets.
So we looked for "Lisa" for a while...I spoke w/ a guy with a few small spikes in his ears and face, a girl with multiple track marks (heroin) up and down her arms, some girl who was tweaking in the middle of the street and talking to herself, folks that didn't smell too good, folks who looked scary, folks who I might dare you to sit next to on a bus and you'd be like, "NO WAY!" But every single person we encountered was willing to listen to us and agreed to help...Which humbled me in a way I'd forgotten...These "people"...these "least of these" were probably so encouraged to feel important enough to need our help...for a brief moment, it gave them a purpose, a mission, a sense of "Yes! I can do something! I can keep an eye out for Lisa for these nice people!" In a city where there is little hope at all, it gave them something...even for a minute.
I pondered all this on the way home...I realized that I'd met "Jesus" today in the multiple people I'd encountered...I gave bottles of water, I gave a kind word, I gave a granola bar, I gave a smile...not to "prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, etc"...but to Jesus..."For when you did it unto the least of these, you did it unto Me". And I had no fear, no disgust, no reservations...I had compassion, empathy, sympathy, a hurting heart...
Do you look for "Lisa"s? When you see the "least of these", do you turn away in disgust? I'm not saying that the way I view the "less desirables" of this world makes me better than anyone else, just different...and hopefully more like Christ...
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