Street Youth Ministry: Our Bus Driver's Viewpoint

May 21, 2012

Our Bus Driver's Viewpoint

I like to ask people questions about the ministry after they volunteer. We have had a bus driver each evening for about 10 weeks,. After we finished his last evening for a while, I asked our bus driver about his experience. He is from Eastern Europe and comes from quite a different culture.

“What do you like about driving?” I asked. He said,”I am tired at the end of my day but I like returning a favor to the church.” I told him that I liked he was kind, patient, and strong with the street youths. I notice how they changed the subject and he changed it back.

I asked, “What surprises you?” He said, “I cannot understand why they leave their families. We live together in my country. Even here in this country, many generations live together in my community.” I had the opportunity to explain that 40% of our clients simply didn't have a home at all or at least one judged to be fit by our government. They came from foster care, juvenile detention, or an orphanage. Another 40% (roughly split evenly between this first group and those who come from a more traditional home) with at least one stable parent, are experiencing mental health issues or challenges. So these two factors helped explain the circumstances affecting about 6 of 10 clients. The remainder of the clients have different stories. Some involved personal discovery. Some stories involved big differences in values (drugs, sex, religion, legal, and behavior) between youth and those who were able to provide a home. Some clients experienced issues with poverty, i.e. the family or the youth just did not think it was viable to depend on the family anymore. Other factors entailed changes in the makeup of the family that the street youth just could not or did not want to deal with.

I asked, “What do you not like?” He replied, “I don't like how they refuse to dress properly. How they don't act properly. How they are by themselves and set apart.” I had the opportunity to explain that most of our clients choose to be set apart because they have been so hurt. They dress differently partly out of preference but also it works for them... people leave them alone. The bus driver interrupted me. "Ah... I learned something. I always thought they just wanted to be dirty, smelly and odd looking. But now I see... they do this to keep other people away from them! I learned something tonight!"

P.S. We always need people with a Class C CDL to drive our bus. Contact us to add your name to our driver list. We also need errand runners with cars all the time. Let us know if you’d be willing to receive an email when we need errands run for the ministry!