Tuesday, June 07, 2011


As Nick let me know EHA is planning to focus on a local ministry each weekend in June, and explore reaching out to people with practical displays of love, I was amazed, because I was thinking about focusing on ways we can remind ourselves that Jesus is here, now, like setting a place for him at our dinner table (which we have done, with interesting results). Sometimes one of us remembers it’s there, and it calls us to ask for prayer about something or someone. Since it’s close to my place at the table, I think I’m reminded more often than Susan and the kids, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we recognize His Presence in our lives, and respond to Him.


But this idea of Nick’s is even better. Finding ways to BE the hands and feet of Jesus really helps when the cares and woes of the world and the people who inhabit it seem overwhelming and prompt the "it’s such a huge problem, what can one person do?!?" There are things we can do, one person at a time, often for one other person in need. And we become the hands and feet of Jesus. What a joy!


I’ve found that to be so in serving as the area office administrator at Young Life, a Christian ministry for middle school and high school students. This ministry is founded on the concept of walking beside these kids, being there at school lunch breaks, their art or sporting events, taking them to camp in the summer, and getting to know them, so that when they are ready to talk about their relationship with Jesus, they know the volunteer staff person, and feel more comfortable about talking with them.


The joy comes for me because I know I’m supporting the staff and volunteers so that they are freed up to be with the kids when it matters most. I also enjoy the privilege of praying for each kid I add to the database when they’ve signed a "club card" at the weekly gatherings, or registered to go to Washington Family Ranch in Antelope, Oregon for a week in the summer, billed as "the best week of their lives".


I have a "built-in" prayer list. I pray for staff, volunteers, and kids while completing my administrative tasks. My "part-time" job is a "full-time" prayer experience. Everyone who comes into the Young Life building I consider a spiritual encounter. As soon as they push open the door, I start praying, whether it’s staff, a volunteer, a kid, or the UPS driver.


As you read these words about Young Life, perhaps you will think about how you might find a place to walk beside a kid. Call me! We’ll go for a coffee, and talk!


As we hear from others in the community who feel called to the ministry they are sharing about in this House issue, my prayer is that you will be listening for that Sweet Voice of the Holy Spirit, urging you to step into that for which you hear Him calling you.


We grow as we share,


Mary Hagle, editor


An Interview with Brian Wrezesinski


Bio-Notes . . . Brian Wrzesinski: Brian has known Jesus as his Savior from the age of eight, growing up in Onalaska, and finishing high school there in 1977. He attended the Presbyterian church and was active in a youth group comprised of kids from four churches in the town, who came together as one group. Brian attended the Inland Empire School of the Bible in Spokane, considered a "junior college for Whitworth" with thoughts of being a Christian school teacher, but he was eighteen, and just married to Monica. They moved there together, and stayed for ten months. It snowed hard for months, and when Monica ran over their snowman in March, that was enough! They moved home.


Brian enjoys baseball and reading in his spare time, and especially likes reading "cops and robbers" novels, and Max Lucado. He also enjoys teaching Sunday school to little kids every Spring, as his "anti-work" experience.


He feels he is still working on establishing spiritual disciplines, and is most grateful for family. He and his sister and three brothers all still live an hour from their parents’ home, and Monica and her two sisters and brother all live one and one-half hours from her parents. At Christmastime, there are 35-50 family members gathered at his mother’s house.


The House: Thank you for taking time to talk about the prison ministry that is a part of what you do as an Administrative Sergeant in our local law enforcement. You told us that your work includes arranging transportation, overseeing volunteers coming to offer support to inmates, and making sure inmates and staff have the supplies they need.


Can you tell us more about how you became involved in the prison ministry?


Brian: This ministry was definitely a calling on my life. It wasn’t hard to recognize it for what it was, as I grew up with a social worker and nurse for parents. Dad would bring his clients home with him, give them a place to stay until they were able to go out on their own, so jail and these people weren’t new to me.


I came to visit my dad at his office as a probation officer, and a job was posted just outside his office door. I had only visited him at his office three times, but when I saw the posting, I applied for the job immediately and was hired to work in our local prison system.


Ten years ago the captain who was head of the program was retiring, and I was asked if I would be interested in taking his position, and I said yes.


The House: How have you recruited volunteers for the program, which you told me has grown to over 100 volunteers?


Brian: Thirteen years ago Monica and I were without a church home, and visited many churches in the area, and met a lot of Christian people in the process. When I began looking for volunteers, many of them I found because of getting to know them at the churches we visited until we were led to join East Hills Alliance.


The House: Can you tell us about the different ministries actively reaching out to inmates currently?


Brian: On Saturday there is an NA group, as well as Seventh Day Adventist church services. On Sunday, there are five different churches that share the responsibility for church services, including Shekinah, St Rose, the Gideons and New Life. There is also a Bible study on Tuesday, AA on Thursday and Attic Ministries comes one Sunday morning a month.


The House: What is Attic Ministries? Do they serve former addicts?


Brian: No. It is a "street ministry" and they minister to lots of people on the streets, not just addicts. It is ministry to the homeless, whatever their history.


The House: How long have you been involved in this ministry?


Brian: Thirty-one years. I see family members being booked in their third generation of burglars, but I also see churches stepping up and ministering to these people within their churches.


We have training for volunteers every quarter. Ten of our volunteers have been doing it for twenty years. We need new volunteers, as these faithful ones are reaching the place where they will retire from the service they are doing.


We have a volunteer potluck every November, which is a "Volunteer Reunion" of all the volunteers who have served.


We also have "Chaplain Call" and inmates can ask to talk with a chaplain. There are about 7 "regular" local pastors who come to talk and listen. There are a couple of them who have been coming for ten years.


There are pastors who have members in jail, and can visit their congregants twice a month.


Some volunteers have been inmates who have been out of jail long enough to be able to come back as volunteers, after they have proven to staff that they have genuinely changed their lives and want to help others. They make great volunteers, because they have "been there".


Some of these people don’t have ANYBODY to care. The interest and compassion the volunteers show makes a difference in the inmates’ lives. Showing them respect and responding to them as another human being is something they are hungry for.


The key to volunteering in prison ministry is KNOWING you will make a difference in these people’s lives.



Some of you will recognize Love INC by another name: Servant Week.


For the last 5 years, area churches have banded together for a week (or two) of service to the community. During these 5 years, hundreds of Christ’s servants gave time, talents, and energy to help needy individuals, whole neighborhoods, schools, and city governments.


The idea of service together was such a success that requests started coming in for year-round help. As a result, the participating pastors made the decision to adopt a more permanent structure for serving the community, i.e., Love INC. Love In the Name of Christ officially was launched last fall and later (last February) hired me (Larry Russell) as the Executive Director.


Here’s what Love INC does. We mobilize believers in the local participating congregations (about 22 at present) to meet the needs of people falling through the cracks. This week a group of us helped move an elderly woman into a new apartment. She could find no one to help her and started calling churches. One of the churches called Love INC and 24 hours later she was in her new apartment. The same day over 100 youth from area churches cleaned trash out of 12 Highlands alleys. Next month we will replace a leaky roof for an elderly widow in North Kelso. As I am writing this letter to you, a call came in to help clean an elderly man’s yard.


Another Love INC ministry is "Loving Teachers". This program purchases school supplies for teachers to give to needy kids. These are supplies the teachers normally have to buy themselves.


Mobilizing the saints for serving the community has given the church tremendous favor in our two cities. Hundreds of opportunities (divine appointments) are just waiting for God’s people to meet. Many of these calls for help will come to Love INC. Saturday, June 18th and Sunday, June 19th I’ll be at East Hills Alliance to tell you how you can be part of what many are calling "The Movement."


-Larry Russell


Executive Director


Love INC of Cowlitz County


 


Contact Love INC


by calling:


(360) 430-1355


By: Cheryl Wilson


I heard about Pregnancy Resource Centers back in the 80’s, but never investigated fully what they were. When we moved here from California in 1989 I met a couple who were involved with the Caring Pregnancy Center. Still, I didn’t pay much attention.


Shortly after our daughter was born in September, 1990, God began to softly whisper that He wanted me to volunteer at CPC. I was working full-time (from home) and our benefits were through my job, AND I was a new mom. So what could I do? Why, ignore Him, of course!


However, over the next 8 months His prompting grew stronger, and I tried to continue to ignore it. I’d since learned that this was one of those pro-life places for women with a "crisis" pregnancy. Well, I’d never had one of those, so I knew I would be of no use to such a ministry.


One morning while I was having quiet time I felt so heavy with conviction that I’d been running from Him, but at the same time I was angry with Him for hounding me! Surely He understood my predicament! I reminded Him that I had to work full-time and couldn’t volunteer, so if He wanted me there he’d better figure something out.


The company I worked for was based in Connecticut, but I was with its California subsidiary. Two short weeks after reminding my awesome & faithful heavenly Father that He would need to figure something out if He wanted me volunteering, I got a call from my boss. Something about taxes…my residency in Washington state…too expensive…blah blah blah. He was very sorry but they were going to have to let me go.


Not amused. The God of the universe, and this is what You come up with?! Fine. I’ll just keep ignoring You, because now I have to found another job so my family can have health benefits!


Well, long story short, my awesome & faithful heavenly Father did not allow me to continue to ignore Him. My husband and I prayed and agreed I would be a stay-at-home mommy now, as that was really where my heart was. We would just have to trust God to provide. And after an additional 8 months I ran out of excuses and finally got up the courage to talk with the Director of CPC about volunteering.


Although I hated leaving my daughter, I loved volunteering at CPC. I had to completely depend upon His leading in order to minister to each young woman that came to CPC, and because of that I grew closer in my walk with Him. But in all honesty, I hated the days when a young woman would have a positive pregnancy test, and instead of being filled with joy she was scared, or angry, and was adamant about her decision to abort her baby. I would go home crying out to God, asking Him where He was and why didn’t He soften that mama’s heart? Why did He let me fail? Where were THY words that could’ve been spoken to change her mind?


And then something very terrible happened. In the span of one year I suffered two miscarriages. My heart became resentful toward these young women, whom I now perceived as cold and heartless, and undeserving of ever being blessed with a baby.



I hated the ugliness that I saw within my own heart, so I called the Director to let her know that I needed time for God to heal and soften my heart. He is faithful…


Over the years there were times when I was unable to volunteer ~ two, three years at a stretch. But for some reason my heart remained. And while I was volunteering the summer of 2004, I was asked to come on staff temporarily. The Director of 11 years was retiring at the end of the year, and by that fall I knew God was calling me to become the new Director. Believe it or not, I attempted to ignore Him again!


I have been Director since January 2005. It has been challenging and rewarding, exhausting and exhilarating. And while I have no clue how much God has used me to touch the lives of others through this ministry, I do know that my life has been forever changed because of my involvement.


The women who come through our door each have a story. Most are from a culture that is not too dissimilar to that of what Paul encountered in his travels. These young women desperately need to know of the unconditional love and saving grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We may have one encounter to share His love with them, or they may become a client whom we get to mentor and minister to weekly. In every encounter we desire to be His hands and feet.


I remind my fellow Christians that we are ALL ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you want God to use you, just have a willing heart (sometimes that takes a bit of prodding!) And pray. I am so grateful that He is so faithful to equip us when He calls us!


If you’d like to know specific opportunities about volunteering at CPC ~ give me a call (636-3333) or come talk to me, and sign up for our newsletter so you know about miscellaneous opportunities that arise.


Cheryl Wilson


Director


Caring Pregnancy Center

By Ann Hight:



I wish everyone could have the experience of working in the environment of a healthy church. I love coming to work, love the variety of tasks, love the people I work with, and love the blessings that come my way every day. When people talk about the challenge of sharing their faith at work, I cannot enter in to that conversation because everyone I work with is a Christian and nearly everyone I meet with each week is living a life of committed faith.





But there is an underlying problem with all of that. It is easy to lose awareness of the needs in our community and world. It is so comfortable to sit in my office and talk Jesus stuff with people and leave the gritty rest of the world way out on the periphery of my life. It is easy to let the darkness creep in as I work in the Light.





From our earliest days on staff here we are encouraged to find ways to serve outside these walls. I had dabbled around with this, trying a few things, but never really connecting in the way I wanted to. I envied Pastor Nick having the opportunity to connect with kids as he coached; I kept looking around for ways I could connect in that way.





Then one day I happened to see a small ad in The Daily News offering training to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). I was not even sure what that was, but it piqued my interest. When I saw the same ad a couple of days later I picked up the phone and called. After an initial conversation followed by an interview, I knew I had finally found a place to serve outside East Hills.





A few months later, after successfully completing the training, I clutched the folder of my first case. I was ready to dive in to the world of dependency. As a CASA volunteer I investigate the issues and people surrounding the placement of children outside of their family home. When cases are brought before a judge for his or her decision, I have the opportunity to speak on behalf of that child, using the information I have gathered to seek the best resolution for those who otherwise have no voice in the system. During court proceedings parents have lawyers, the state has the attorney general, and the child has a CASA. Each case takes more than a year to complete, so I get to know the principle people involved and often get to speak about hope in the middle of distress.





It has been an interesting three years and the opportunity to learn more is never ending. The juxtaposition of my two "jobs" reminds me that everyone needs to experience the love of Jesus, no matter what their circumstances are. I have new appreciation for the verse in Proverbs 31 that says, "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.