Extreme Home Makeover -- Safe Haven Edition

Written by: Doug Myers, Youth Minister at First United Methodist Church. This post is his reflections on a series of “work days” spent by the youth of FUMC at EECM’s Safe Haven program. FUMC has earmarked the majority of its youth ministry budget for improvements to the Safe Haven apartments, including cleaning and providing new linens, beddings and other necessities.

I wish I could explain how cleaning bathrooms and kitchens at a Men's Shelter can be fun, but in addition to our 10 youth who spent their Saturday morning doing just that, I can assure you that Jesus was smiling!

Armed with buckets, rubber gloves, sponges, and various cleansers our youth attacked four apartments, and wiped, scrubbed, swept and polished. During the first work day, we helped the eight residents of Safe Haven to have the cleanest kitchens and bathrooms they have had in years! They also have new kitchen & bath towels and shower curtains. We returned several weeks later for a second work day spent painting four of the eight bedrooms. We also provided new mattress covers, sheets, pillowcases and blankets. A third workday in April was spent giving the remaining four bedrooms the same improvements.

These work days have been a tremendous success in many ways. First of all, eight men living at the Safe Haven shelter now have cleaner and more attractive living quarters. Secondly, these men were motivated to help themselves, working right alongside our youth. Karlin Bilcher of the EECM commented that he was impressed not only by how hard our youth worked, but that they didn't treat this as a charity project, thus preserving the dignity of the residents.

Aside from the physical help our youth provided, these men were visibly affected by these teenagers spending their Saturday working at the shelter, as evidenced by their standing at the windows waving as we left. No teenager wants to crawl out of bed on a Saturday morning to go to church to work – but this group did it with enthusiasm - and was rewarded with the glow that comes from serving others and the respect and admiration of their leaders for their faithful Christian witness. Our goal has not been to make the shelter a palace (fortunately!), but to show the residents that Christians, especially young ones, care about them and are willing to come to their home to help them.

Two images that will stay with me for some time are from the first work day. I was in the apartment in the neighboring building and came back to find two of our teens cleaning a bathroom and the residents of that unit cleaning the kitchen. It was obvious that the grime in the kitchen had been building for some time; that some teens were scrubbing the sink, tub and toilet motivated the residents to join in the work. Secondly, when we were getting into the van to leave that first day several residents were standing at the windows waving. I took that as confirmation that what we were doing was making a difference.

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matt 25:40 NIV)