“Is this a sales pitch?”The reply was a stunned pause and a forceful, “No!”, but in reality it was. Was there any money needing to be exchanged? No, but there are costs; the cost of giving up control in a situation when many feel like they already have none.
The question was posed at a disaster relief meeting in Parkersburg, Iowa where an F-5 tornado ripped through the town, destroying homes and taking lives. It was asked to a group of good hearted people trying to help the community recover from its collapse.
Besides FEMA and the Red Cross, faith based organizations make up the majority, if not all, of the organizations that enter communities after disasters. They offer a myriad of helping services that in some ways overlap, but they all work together. At the table that day in Parkersburg there were four faith based organizations eager for the community to ask them for their services. The Lutherans, the Methodists, the Reform Church of America and Church World Services were all present. A virtual smorgasbord of service were presented, which all sound great, and all claim to be free.
However, as I said before, the cost is giving up control. Rural communities stick together. The community members at that table wanted to help their fellow men and women. They want to be the ones finding the needs and meeting them, but the fact is that they have the needs themselves and are underequipped to meet the needs of others. So, they give up control, reluctantly.
The interesting thing about the comment of, “is this a sales pitch?” to me was that I had heard something very familiar before. It took me back to the first day a newly created Young Life team and I entered the West High School cafeteria. We were prepared with fliers about club, information about camp at Crooked Creek in Colorado that summer, and a general excitement about meeting kids. After five minutes of talking with a group of kids at a table one kid stopped me and said, “what are you selling?” See, young people are in a similar position as those affected by a disaster. They have little to no control over their lives, and they are constantly on the lookout for the next person that wants to take advantage of them. They know that something is not right, but they have no idea where to turn. They are grasping for truth, but coming up empty handed.
When these thoughts were entering my head it brought me back to a very dark spot that I had covered up for a long time. It reminded me of my trip to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in Poland where possibly millions of Jews were killed by means of gas chambers. As a college student I studied the Holocaust in Poland, and we concluded our studies with a trip to Auschwitz. It was a day that will forever shape my life. The entire tour was a heart wrenching experience for me. My hands and knees shook, I could not stop sweating, and tears pooled in my eyes and ran down my face continuously. I could feel the presence of evil in that place. Towards the end of the tour I approached what looked like a concrete shed sunk in to the ground. I knew what it was at first glance, but I tried not to think about it. I wanted to experience it, and if I thought too much I would have fled. As I walked down the couple of rotting steps into the dark, cold, musky room my legs almost fell out from under me. I went to find support on a wall but instead found images that haunt me. The claw marks of innocent Jews trying to escape something that they knew was wrong, but had no idea where to turn for truth. Lies were all they were told, there was no hope for future once they entered that chamber. Water would not come from the shower heads above them. Even as I write this now my chest tightens, and I feel the darkness that was so present there.
People need to have hope to let go of the reigns. They need to have faith that, because of their loss of control, they will find comfort. I was asked by a leader of another faith based organization why I want to help people. My answer was that I have seen the darkness in the world and it tried to drown out all of the light. I had to search long and hard to find a flicker of light to start the fire in my heart again. I want to make it easier for others to find light in this world that seems pitch black so often. I believe that is what faith based organizations are trying to do in our communities that are ravaged by disaster, and I know it is what we, as Young Life leaders, were trying to do at West High School.
Only when we have faith that something is bigger than us; that we are out of control in the first place; that we can have hope that there is a plan for our lives; can we truly begin to recover. Whether that recovery is from a natural disaster or from natural sin, we must give up control to faith. We must give up ourselves, everything we have, to God in order to give others hope that love can shine through the darkest shroud of fog that tries to envelope this world.
Philippians 3:7-11
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
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