A shared story...

Since Christ in the City is so much broader than just my role, I want to give you a taste of that broader mission.  So I decided that from time to time I will share a story from one of my teammates' experiences.  Today you get a story from Joseph, who is on our Homeless Task Force.  (So basically, his main apostolate is doing street ministry during the day.) 

Minnesota Runaway
On August 27, the feast of St. Monica Colleen, my teammate, and I went to the 16th street mall where we normally minister for a couple of hours a day. We typically reach out to the homeless youth, and we found a group of young people so we sat down to enjoy their company with hopes of sharing our hearts with one another. After a few minutes a young man by the name of Vladimir came walking up to us.  He was talking about the fun night he had before. We let him go on and on for a bit glorifying his crazy night until one of the other guys who was with us let him know that he had church people present, or as many of the youth call us, "outreach." Vladimir was taken aback. He asked why the heck they were hanging out with people like us. The other young man let him know with much conviction that we were good people and we help them out. Hearing that come from the other young man's mouth gave me a sense of accomplishment, and not so much in a prideful way but it made me realize how much the Lord is really present in our ministry to allow us this gateway in and be welcomed. Much to my amazement, the young man who vouched for us was an ex-gang member and a drug dealer. Needless to say he doesn't just let anybody sit down with him. Ok sorry, I went off on a tangent.

After Vladimir understood why we were there he let his guard down a little bit so Colleen and I pulled him aside and asked him what the heck he was doing there because just at first glance you could tell he didn't belong there. He told us that he was a 18 year old runaway from Minnesota and had been on the streets for two weeks. He had stolen a golf cart, had the charges dropped, hitch hiked to Utah, and got a bus ticket to Denver. When we bumped into him he had been in Denver for three days. Colleen and I looked at him after we picked our jaws up off the ground and told him if he was willing that we would help him get home. We had since pulled away from the group and, with a glimpse of hope that twinkled in his eye, he said he was willing, and that he had seen things in the past two weeks that he never wanted to see again. As our supervisor Adam says, if you have the smallest opportunity, you take it and run with it because it might be the last chance you get. We grabbed Vlad and took him away from the group so we could get a game plan.

It turns out that we didn't have to try that hard because the good Lord put this situation right in our laps and all we had to do was cooperate. See, Vlad was adopted 6 years ago from Russia and has some wonderful adopted parents from Minnesota. His mom purchased him a bus ticket and the rest is history. So we thought....

The nearest time we could get a bus was six hours away and this is where our adventure truly began. We had lots of time to burn and it was getting close to lunch and we just had some McDonald's gift cards donated so we took Vlad out to lunch. Who do we bump into at McDonald's? None other then the same young man that vouched for us earlier at the park. Colleen and I were constantly worried that Vlad was going to run out the door or sneak off because we thought just maybe that he truly didn't want to go home. Vlad sensed this so he constantly reassured us he wasn't going anywhere other than his bus station when the time came. It really is funny how the Lord works because the other young man who we will call "True" for the sake of anonymity spoke more truth to Vlad at lunch than we ever could have. True has been on the streets since he was 13 and he is 32 now. He looked at Vlad and told him if he ever wanted to runaway again to take a long walk around the block and blow off some steam. True never had parents to look after him, he never had the security of a roof over his head, for the past 19 years True had to fend for himself. I sat back and watched the Holy Spirit work through him and see the conversion in Vlad's heart. He knew what True was trying to say and he ate it up even more so then the chicken sandwich that he ordered.

After our meal the clock started ticking, and Colleen and I chased this amazing young man around Denver for 7 hours. Minute by minute Vlad was on a mission to find a cigarette and have a smoke. He spoke like a smooth car salesmen and surprisingly enough he scored quite a few smokes. I didn't agree with it, but I couldn't help but sit back and watch the charisma that this young man carried.  I day dreamed about how successful he will be when he gets home and gets back on the right track. As time when on it got closer to the bus departure so we went to Greyhound and waited, all while denying offers for crack, other assortments of drugs, and making sue Vlad didn't run. Finally his bus was called and we got in line with him. His mom had worked out a deal with the bus company because Vlad has lost his ID during all of this, but the bus driver didn't care what kind of deal his mother had made. The bus driver was obviously having a bad day and said Vlad did not look 18 years of age and he would not let him on his bus without proof of identity. We tried to explain the situation, but he just wasn't having it. He got so upset that he started yelling for security, Colleen burst into tears, and Vlad ran out the front door of the bus station. I didn't know what to do.  For a moment, time stopped and I had to reassess the situation. I knew I had to talk to the bus driver, but that would be pointless if I didn't have Vlad. I snapped out of it and chased Vlad down. For all I know he took the bus driver's bad attitude as rejection, but I wasn't going to let him feel rejected. He is more than that.

I eventually caught up to him and calmed him down and we went back inside. The security guard was actually a really nice guy and helped us find another bus route with a bus driver who would work with us. We sat with Vlad for another hour and finally it was his time to leave us. A part of Colleen and I had very mixed emotions about him going. In the few short hours that we had spent with Vlad, we had truly fallen in love with the guy. We knew that he needed to get back home though. We said our goodbyes and two days later, after a missed transfer in Kansas City, we received confirmation from Vlad's mom that he arrived safely home and he was taking his first shower in two weeks.

 I still think and pray about Vlad on a daily basis and please ask for yours prayers for him as well. All this happened on the feast of St. Monica who is the patron saint of moms. All it took was a short phone call to Vlad's mom and everything else fell into place. This day was especially close to home for me because I fell away from the faith for 8 years but my mom never stopped praying for me. Gotta love moms, but you can even thank the little rascals like Vlad and myself because we make our mothers saints! :)