Hi CUMC readers!

I’m back to tell you that volunteering at Mission First is much more than providing clothes or food or a path toward shelter and services.  It is daily exercise in connecting with others who are less fortunate—the needy, the old, the disabled, the addicted, the homeless.  The challenge and the personal reward are tangled up in the struggle to see the person rather than their circumstances.

It is not easy to connect with members of a community that holds “us people” at arm’s length.  They are just as wary of us as we are of them.  But all the work to create a dialog must come from those called to mission.  Slow going.  Few opportunities.  I try hard to remember names to go with the faces.  Given the slightest encouragement I ask questions to engage the people I meet.

I first noticed him last year because he spent so much time in the parking lot, frequently as an unidentifiable mound of sleeping bag along the church wall.  Or wedged against that same spot with his stuff piled around him.  Unapproachable.  But when I watched him scraping bark from a tree limb, I asked Clare about him.  A name—Cameron.

Months passed.  When Cameron signed in at the clothes closet in March, I approached him to ask about what he was doing with that stick (genuine curiosity on my part.)  I’m sure I was that strange woman being nosy.  After all, I had to tell him I had asked about him!  I told him I’d love to see what he was doing, if he ever had a chance to show me.

I’ve been volunteering a couple of time a week since November, so the community is growing accustomed to seeing me there  I still don’t have a name, but Cameron returned a week later asking for the blond lady.  He brought his gnarly, bark-less tree limb, which had a lot of natural character and was quite attractive.  He brought a friend who carried a twisted root with a crystal resting in a crease to show me.  Maybe you must spend time here to appreciate how fulfilling it is to gain that little bit of trust.

Anecdotal, I know.  It doesn’t make us pals.  But I hope to see and talk with Cameron again.  Small steps.  It made my day! 

Sue Meloy