No Need Among You

Today was the first full day of the No Need Among You conference. It started with a breakfast with the homeless at the Lutheran Church. I met a really nice guy named Will. He was dressed in the old Army camouflage head to toe with really shiny boots. He had throat cancer at some point, so he can't talk really loud or eat very much or very fast. I also met Thomas, who seemed to have schizophrenia. When I sat down, he acted like he was dozing off. Every now and then he would lift his head and mutter something. At one point, he waved to an invisible person, picked something invisible up and put it on the table, and I think he shot it. I introduced myself and he said something about be f*cking crucified and saying, "you won't like that. Nice knowing you for three minutes." I asked him his name and where he was from. I think I scared him off, because he went to go sit at another table soon after that. I also met Inez, who was pissed at someone at the Meyers Center for not supporting her to go to nursing school. I just listened. She has several kids and a set of twins. She was fun to talk to. She made no sense most of the time, but she was fun none the less.

I then made my way across town for the actual conference at the Crestview Church of Christ Community Center. They have a nice facility there. Fortunately, we weren't talking about poverty because I would have felt guilty with the four HDTVs and really nice sound system with several cameras and control booth. (Very professional setup)

The first speaker was Dr. Matthew Stanford on mental illness. This was generally good. Having grown up in a fairly conservative fundamentalist church, I wasn't at all surprised by that stats that say churches and pastors tell people that there is no such thing as mental illness, their only problem is a lack of faith or sin in their life, or both. It was overwhelming to think that pastors are almost the first and only person someone with a mental illness will see. According to his research, nearly 1/3 of Americans have a mental illness.

My first breakout session was on Confronting Human Trafficking with Dr. Kim Kotrala. This was very moving. Two thirds of those being exploited for either sex or labor are US citizens. 90% are female, and a large percentage are children. We heard about a law enforcement officer who testified before the state legislature that he could go to any truck stop and say something on his CB and within 5 minutes a thirteen year old girl would show up for sex. We also heard of a local couple who bought a twelve year old girl in Mexico City for $50. They abused her, starved her, and forced her to take care of her children. At some point they made her drink toilet water. This makes me so angry. It seriously makes me want to believe in redemptive violence. This is definitely something that churches need to address. This will take some creativity. There are so many people who need to be freed from oppression right here and right now.

Dr. Ray Rivera gave a sermon after lunch. It was interesting to hear about his experiences in NYC. He seems like he would be an interesting person to shadow, but I was mostly bored with the information. He spent a lot of time proving biblically that we need to be involved in helping the poor and the oppressed. I wanted to know more about how to get a church on board. Perhaps he was doing just that with his sermon. I went to his breakout session afterward and was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, he is an incredible man of God.

Totally not related, I finally had a date night with my wife. It was parents night out so it was so nice to have a break. We really should do this more often.