Today in Ministry

I recently had request for a description of what I do in a day for ministry. Here was Monday:

9:00 Daily Bible Reading (at home). I read with a group of folks following a reading schedule. We email one another when we're done to help keep accountability. The group is described here. Anyone can join the group. http://sites.google.com/site/terrycole002/prophecyreadinggroup. It was founded by a friend of mine. The theme today was God is Faithful.

10:00 Prepared for Bible Teaching on Tuesday. I'm teaching through Matthew 8 this week. The focus will be on the value of faith. I will also help the street youth relate to as many of the people described in Matthew 8 as possible. Some might relate to the leper, the Roman solider, or the demoniacs. (Not that they are any of these, but these men suffer in some of the same ways as many of the street youth.) In addition to reviewing the scriptures and commentaries, I also designed an group session. We will start out by talking about how someone they observed was sick and recovered and how that felt. Then we will share a time we felt really sick ourselves. This will go with the healing theme found in Matthew 8. After the Bible lesson, we will play a memory game with two teams. The game pieces are all items relating to faith. I will ask whoever makes a match to describe someone they know who values whatever the match is. I printed out 15 matching photo pairs with things like prayer, worship, bible... and money, church, running. And we will conclude with a personal time of sharing about the value of faith to them... high, low, strong, weak. How do they take care of their faith? How do they feed it? I printed the lesson plan and emailed it to my helper.

Noon: Had a lunch with my wife. It's one of the benefits of us both working out of the home! I had a meatloaf sandwich made from marked-down ground beef. We try to use money stewarded to us by donors wisely. After my delicious sandwich, I had my big indulgence for the day: my one cup of coffee. I get irritable after more than one cup and it messes with my sleep, so I enjoy my one good made-at-home cup of coffee after lunch. Mmmmmmm... I checked up on FaceBook and email while I enjoyed it.

2:00 Volunteered at the Street Drop-in Center of Lifeworks (located in the basement of a church on the Drag). Actually I'm an adjunct staff member. This was my first day there in a week because I took Spring Break off from Lifeworks. So everyone was happy to see me again and there were some new folks. I screened a couple of new folks for eligibility. I had to turn one away because he was 24 and was able to help the second with the in-take paperwork. I helped him with food and advised him how to get the bus pass he was seeking. I checked in with a couple I counsel... I regularly ask about their stress and anger levels on a scale of 1 to 10. Both were superb... a very welcome change. I also followed up with a couple of people who I knew were thinking of traveling soon. I tried to follow-up with a very young client, but he was not open to my questions. I tried to follow-up with another young man. He let me know that he was having a terrible day and didn't want to talk. I respected that and let him have his space. A couple of people started physically play-fighting. I broke that up because the drop-in space has to be safe for everyone. No horseplay allowed. I noticed one young man in bad physical shape. I checked in with him to find out why he was hurting. I helped refer him to some medical advice. I signed one young lady up for dental treatment on Monday. I sat with another young girl who was scowling. Turns out she's on some medication that is really upsetting her stomach. We talked about what options she might have to help this. I found some saltines for her to take away. All in all, I visited with 19 street youth. Three were new to me. 

3:45 Drop-in clean-up. Each day we spray down all the furniture with bleach water to kill germs and parasites. We sweep the floor and take out all the trash.

4:00 (outside) I walked the Drag from 26th to 19th street. I found my first group in back of a parking lot near 25th. They were talking about one street youth's birthday party over the weekend. I wished him happy birthday. I followed up with one of these youth about getting an ID. He lacked an address for receiving some important paperwork so I helped him look at his options. I invited them all to Bible study the next day at 2.

I met my next client waiting to cross the light. He's a very regular Bible reader, but today he was limping. I asked what was the matter and found out that he had gotten a bad foot fungus over the weekend but had begun to treat it. 

I met a trio from Maryland next. They are new to town so I tried to familiarize  them with the rules of downtown Austin (no sitting on sidewalks, no panhandling near ATMs, what aggressive panhandling means). I don't expect them to follow all the rules, but traveling kids always seem to appreciate someone helping them learn what's what in a new town. I invited these newcomers to Bible study tomorrow also. 

The next group I met were begging for spare change (they call it "spanging") at the corner of an abandoned storefront at 24th. I held an impromptu drug counseling with two of these. They have both expressed being sick and tired of addiction. One is taking action to look for a job. The other is thinking of starting over in a new location. I offered options for getting help to both and suggested that both have to start dealing with the addiction... neither jobs nor a new location will be good unless the addiction get addressed. There is no easy path for either of them. However, they can choose which way to go and how much help they accept. Both were appreciative of our discussions. At the same location, I met a young man who I hadn't seen for a while. He'd been in jail last week. He was drunk and a little out of control. But he was at least talking with me. He has a very big hurt in his life that he needs to eventually deal with. I asked how he was doing... OK. I asked what he's up to. "What I'm best at," meaning taking risks and hurting himself. I prayed for him as I stood with him. I pray for him to come face to face with his trouble either working with me or some other person who can offer support. He's alone with his hurt now... and it's so much to carry. I reminded them all that they were welcome at Bible study.

The next person I met was one I had seen in the drop-in earlier but who was having such a bad day. He wanted to talk now. I listened to what was bugging him. I was relieved because, even though it was sharply painful for him, it wasn't severe. We talked about some options he had to relieve what was bugging him. He adopted a plan and set about it. I reminded him about Bible study tomorrow.

This continued as I worked my way down to 19th street. In all I met with 26 people this afternoon. That's a pretty high number. I gave out nothing today while walking. I do that on Fridays. While it would be wonderful to give stuff out every day, I've got a couple of issue with it. First, I'm not buying their relationship and I want them to know that. Second, it takes a lot of time to manage all the material, moving it from donations to storage to loading it and giving it out. I reserve that for Tuesdays and Fridays.

6:30 Dinner with the family. First day back from Spring Break was good for everyone. 

7:30 Responding to emails. A new monthly donor needs to be thanked for letting me know a regular check will be going to Covenant to support my family and ministry. I edited my web site because I noticed some horrible mistakes on the donation drop-off site page. I responded to a donor who wants to drop-off a needed boom-box and to help proofread future publications. I sent thank you notes and photos to the sandwich providers from last week. I uploaded photos from my camera that will be used for an upcoming blog.

8:00 Updated my records for last week. I write down the names of everyone I visit with each day. This helps me learn their names and serves as something I can pray through in spare moments. I enter the records each week into a spreadsheet that updates my web page graphs at http://sites.google.com/site/streetyouth/who-we-serve/some-numbers. So far this year, I've met 154 new kids and reconnected with 58. I've had 1605 contacts so far this year with new and old clients: 143 for witnessing, 28 for crisis intervention, 71 for counselling, and 422 for follow-up discussions.

8:30: Created a welcome email for all those people new to our mailing lists but who haven't yet received a newsletter. I haven't sent a newsletter since January, thinking everyone heard quite enough from me in November and December! However, it's important to keep people aware of FaceBook, the web page with sign-ups, ministry needs, donation methods, etc. I am told over and over again that it is impossible to over-communicate to busy people! The email should be waiting in the in boxes tomorrow morning of the 120 people who are new to Street Youth Ministry volunteer, newsletter, and donor lists since early December 2009.

9:00 Wrote and edited this blog entry.

Self Care and Random Thoughts

This week I am taking off most of the week for self care. I have been feeling tired recently. I realize that I haven't taken any time off in a long time. I took a week off for Christmas and I had a week long vacation last July. So I heeded the instinct to slow down a bit this week.

I have been keeping careful enough records of my direct service time to make a graph of my hours. Since January (and really since last September), I have been doing 20 hours of direct service per week. The rest of the time goes into preparation, administration, study, community speaking, and other forms of marketing (to potential clients, networking partners, and financial donors).

However, this June I made changes and added more direct service time. My average weekly hours went up to 25 hours a week. This may not sound like much but it definitely has taken a toll on me. So I'm going to have to do some soul searching and cut back down. Eventually I may be able to handle this load when I'm full funded since maintaining the financial donors takes less work than securing them all. However, after 5 months of fund raising work, we're receiving 40% of what we need. I still need about 50 more donors so I'll be doing fundraising at least through the end of 2009.

In those 20 hours of direct service, I typically see 70 different people in 120 different conversations. Most are brief follow-up, some are longer, and about 20 per week are in depth. Each week I meet about 10 new people on the street.

So how does one do good self care? I think it's one of the most important keys to working in this field... second only to the ability to have compassion for others. I have been privileged to learn from people who really care about me and care for themselves.

First in importance is to be in prayer and study of the Word. I do this in several ways. My ministry partners help hold me accountable for prayer before ministry. And record keeping also helps me remember to pray for individuals. I am kept in the word by a bible study group. You can join it, too. It's described at http://pages.google.com/edit/terry.cole/prophecyreadinggroup. By holding my feet to the fire daily to be reading the Bible, I gain enormous strength and refreshment. I also listen to KNLE http://www.candle88.com while driving to and from work. (And yes... I give them a portion of my tithe, too! They need more!) They play lots of Christians songs which help center me on my work.

Second, you pay attention to your feelings and act early. I was feeling tied so they encouraged me to take time off. You have to be self-aware of your own feelings even as you work with others on their feelings and issues. One of the best ways to do this is to have a regular meeting with someone once a week to check-in with them. Hopefully they will ask, "So how are you feeling about your work this week?" It's not a yes/no or good/bad question. It's a question that needs some comparative adjectives... better than last week, more tired than last week, really centered compared to a couple of weeks ago.

Third, you set and hold boundaries for yourself. You can't be more invested in an outcome than a client is. While we are there to encourage them, we really can't make them want anything. We can offer options for solution and they have to make all the choices. You also can't solve all of a clients problems. This is really hard, but you can only go down a list of things that you know how to do. Once you have, you (and hopefully the client) have to accept that you've done all there is to do. There's a Linda Martin song about this... "What do you do when you've come to the end... You just stand." As someone who sees 70 homeless people a week, I have other boundaries that may not be needed for the average person: I don't give out money, I don't take people places, I don't bring people home to sleep in the garage or couch, and I don't go buy people new items that they request. The issue with any of these is the same: which of the 70 people would I choose to start? and where would it end? I'm not saying any of these things are bad, and in fact I praise the Lord that there are people who have the ability to take in one or two people at a time and do so regularly. However, I recognize that I am not positioned to do this. And I limit what I give away to those things which can be purchased on my very meager ministry budget and which can be donated by many very many Christian supporters. I want to give my homeless youth everything that I can, but it needs to be given through loving hands and not simply a credit card. And these boundaries keep me able to love and able to continue my ministry because I have taken care of my biblical requirements to be a good provider and head of my own household. You will be temped to violate your boundaries from time to time. I have done it, but I heartily recommend checking with a friend before violating them. It is far to easy to rationalize yourself into doing something you should not. A friend can really help figure out if what you are doing in an exception or the first step to disaster for your personal self care.

Forth, you have to spend time time processing what you have done. I think it's extremely helpful to write down some stories. Or you could simply meet once a week and tell some stories to a friend. Often we cannot see the forest for the trees. This happens two ways for me. First, sometimes I fail to see the big picture for a specific person because we're so busy working on little details. It's only later that I realize that this client has really made a ton of progress, e.g., because of how they are approaching the situation compared to a month ago. And it also happens across multiple clients. You can be so busy with each client that it only dawns on you in reflection that you've been helping 8 different clients with drug counselling and that 6 of them are making progress even though they're in different stages. Reflection takes time and discipline, but it's definitely part of self care. I find that record keeping helps me take the time. By keeping sufficient records that I can count the interactions and name the type of interactions I've had with clients during the week, that I also have sufficient raw material in reflections to realize where my ministry is.

Fifth, you have to enrich yourself constantly. Enrichment comes in many forms. You can read what others are doing to pick out new best practices. You can get certified to do something new. And you can take time to practice and hone new skills so they become easy and second nature. In my ministry, I always read descriptions of services for street youth with interest. I want to know what is being done out there in the world so I can copy the best of the best. I also try to get classes, continuing education and certification on new things. I became a voter registrar to I can help people with a secondary ID. I became a notary public so I can help those who support me with a useful service. I became a certified food handler so I could be sure I knew how to handle foods given out safely. And I am always looking around at what gets done for homeless, and asking myself if I could learn to do that. If the answer is yes, then I get mentored, start practicing, and then start doing it. An example is filing out certain forms. This usually means passing the client to someone who is qualified, but this is disconcerting to the client. So if I can become qualified and practice so that I can do it well, then I can be of better help to the clients. Another example, if dealing with specific situations. Unless you have benefit of a mentor or a book, you are going to learn how to handle such situations one person at a time. But by referencing an expert, you can grow much faster. However, it still takes practice to master.

Finally, you need to find new inspiration from time to time. I thrive on being around passionate people and on hearing great stories. So I go once a year to something called the Leadership Summit. I know I will hear from 10 great leaders in the country from churches, academics, and business. And I know I will hear amazing and inspiring stores for two solid days. I walk away totally energized and totally ready to face another year!

So whatever you do, be sure to exercise good self care!