I responded to an email recently and i feel like it expresses alot of what is going on in my head, so here it is in full:
Dear Dorothy,
It is so encouraging to hear from you. Our Father and Mother always tell us that people ask about us, and i always think, "why don't they ask us?", so it is really good to hear you, and not just to hear of you. We have not been to any Hutterite communities yet but that is a possibility. As you might know from reading our blog, we are getting a bus. Actually we just got all the money together and got the title today, and are now just waiting until it's livable in order to travel in it. Most of the work we need done on it will be free to us because of connections but there is alot of work to be done, and still alot of money to be raised. We just pray that we can use it enough to make it worth the work. We are actually teaming up with a ministry that already exists, through this whole bus thing. The name of the ministry is David's key ministries ( www.davidskeyministries.com ) and they are a ministry which, up untill this point was just a family that traveled on a bus serving the poor and the forgotten. This includes the amish, native americans, mayans and mennonites. The family includes a son, Howie, who is actually on board with us on our bus, and so he actually has alot of experience with these cultures. We hope to carry out the tradition of helping out the poor and the forgotten. We don't know what that will look like exactly but we hold the bus with an open hand relying on God to direct us and it. Up to this point we have a vague idea of what that means; having a full kitchen set in the bus, and buying food in bulk in order to have enough food to feed anyone who comes to the bus, or whoever we go to, setting up art supplies to minister to people through art, by encouraging people to express themselves honestly and creatively, by serving people by means of transportation, both by having a mobile bike clinic and by offering rides to people on our bus, by praying for and with people, and encouraging people to focus the simplicity of God's Love, and to love their neighbors and enemies as themselves. We hope to minister to American Indians, as well as many other forgotten people- whoever God places in our path, or calls us to go to. This hopefully includes many subcultures that the church ignores or is unwelcoming to. Recently we went to the Rainbow gathering and served there. When i first heard of the rainbow gathering i thought it was the most obnoxious thing ever created, but after being there i have realized that these people, naked or not, are broken in the same ways i am, and have much more crap in their lives to deal with than i do, and need Christians to support them and not always preach to them. I feel like a lot of cultures, like the rainbow family, are mistreated by church. John and I, as well as the other people we are traveling with have had to deal with this sort of treatment by the church recently. Yesterday we went to a big church in Daytona, mainly to help serve food to the homeless, but potentially also to go to the service, and by the end of it 3 of the 5 of us were asked to leave and labeled as security threats by the deacons of the church. Within that time i also witnessed a homeless man almost get the cops called on him for staying in a stall in the bathroom too long, because he was sick and puking. Not a single "deacon" (i think they should be called "security guards") offered him water or bread (which a person needs when he's puking) or even asked if he was o.k.. I also learned that the Homeless had suggested seating in the service, and i watched a minister give the homeless a lecture before they ate about their bad hegiene and about their mannor of leaving the service when it was finished. One Deacon said to some us "You see all those people (pointing at a group of homeless people)? They'll take whatever they can get. Their out to get whatever they can" When i tried to talk to minister about these things she hushed me up by saying she had to talk to another minister and that she didn't have time to talk to me. We feel as if the bible is very clear about treating the poor as you would treat Jesus, and that it is unacceptable to call the cops on Jesus or lecture him before feeding him, or force him to sit through a service before feeding him, or label him as a security threat, or deny him aid when he is sick. So we are trying to live out these ideals the bible gives us in the beattitudes, through this bus opportunity. So that is exciting to all of us, even though it will be a process and alot of work. But we can't turn down the opportunity because we feel like it is what God wants us to do. After all we started daydreaming about this one week ago yesterday with enough in our pockets to buy two mice for 1.39 each and yesterday we got the confermation that the bus is going to be ours. And today we picked it up.
The people we stayed with, and the people who have helped us with this bus effort have shown us what it means to be servants and fully trusting in God. One person gave us 500 dollars towards the bus, as well as speak life into our lives and aid us in countless ways the same day he lost his job. I can only imagine what it is like to have that kind of faith and live out what 1 John 3:18-19 says about loving each other. Compared to these people we have faith almost as big as a mustard seed.
It is encouraging to see these people live out their faith and wake up everday because God tells them to wake up, and work hard for the kingdom that seems so far away. And it is such a blessing to see and meet people of like-mindedness. We met one minister who , after it had become illegal to feed food to homeless people in St. Pete Florida in a public setting, said that he will continue to eat with his homeless friends and that if he got arrested he would file a religious freedom lawsuit against the city of St. Pete because his bible tells him to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. That is what excites me- people serving God and his children despite circumstances. We also have met with a minister who has told us about alot of opportunities to serve through non-traditional means and opened up possibilities such as volunteering at the P.A.P.A. festival (People Against Poverty and Apathy), which is linked with the Christian Anarchist Convention, and other more radical events and things.
Hopefully we can fit in as much of that, and serving different communities, and traveling to different places as possible.
The Most important thing i've learned about community is that it must be Christ and mutually respectful as possible. But even that doesn't work unless you learn to have grace and forgiveness with each other. And I've learned that you have to be really intentional about living or interacting with others, otherwise it's fruitless. That's all stuff i had to deal with and learn while living in the community i lived in in Colorado Springs. All of those things I fail at and suffer because of it. But that's the grace part.
Its really important to both John and I to hear from people back home and it's so encouraging. Thank you again for writing.
Enjoy the cold and God Bless
marcus
