Living a Sheltered Life

Christian Life Lessons through Homeless Youth

Paul Cummings

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781725251809, 9781725251816
• eBook ISBN: 9781725251823
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

As I reflected on working in a Teen Challenge Youth Emergency Accommodation Shelter, I began to realize that in serving others, I too had been greatly served. I didn't work at the shelter to receive blessings or any such thing. My understanding was that I worked there to help others less fortunate than I, in obedience to God's will for my life. But I did get blessed. Abundantly!It's a spiritual dynamic that when we serve others, we are also served. As I served the homeless youth in Brisbane, Australia, God served me through those very same homeless teenagers. The lives and issues I faced were used by God to grow and mature me as a Christian. Without knowing it themselves, different residents were used by God to speak to my heart and teach me his ways. It came through reminders of God's grace toward me in my adolescent years. I gained insights on how to grow the ministry using scriptural leadership principles. I also saw the power of prayer in action. God used all those things, and more, to give direction and purpose to my life and work. I went to serve others and God served me.

chapter 2

First Shift

Deliver me from my enemies, O God;
Be my fortress against those who are attacking me. (Psalm 59:1 NIV)

My shifts at the shelter were to be every Monday and every other weekend.

Monday mornings at Hebron House, I discovered, were not a pretty sight. Well, most of them anyway. All the issues and dramas of the weekend would build up, and there was an immediate need to prioritize and work through everything. Since Alec didn’t officially work on the weekends, it was often a mammoth task for him to sort everything out on Monday. The task was not made any easier by the fact that the staff who had been working the weekends were not always around or able to be contacted on Mondays. There were power struggles between the kids to sort out, staff decisions to analyze, Child Care Officers to contact, Police to notify, parents to call, a house to tidy, shopping to do, the list could go on and on. Alec would take each child into the office, one at a time, and work on their case.

As it was my first day, I was not familiar with the new ways of Hebron House. There was not a lot I could do without guidance from Alec, but at least my previous volunteer work at the old Hebron helped me to relate to the kids. I watched over the remaining residents, whilst making sure breakfast dishes and a bit of house tidying was done, while waiting for Alec to finish. The morning grew into afternoon as rapidly as the afternoon grew into evening, with Alec attempting to instruct, in between his non-stop workload. Alec and I prayed together just before he left, and I was under strict instructions to contact him on his pager if there were any problems.

I’d made a nice meal of mashed potatoes, vegetables and sausages to be followed by ice cream and canned fruit. It was a real challenge having to cook for eight children and three adults, especially since I was used to my wife doing the majority of our cooking at home. Generally, Hebron prepared for up to eight residents; however, occasionally we would have extra if there were emergencies. For my first night, we were full, and Chris was coming over to be with me as it was my birthday. I also had a volunteer coming, named Kim, who I had never met.

The quality of some volunteers left a lot to be desired. Though they were always appreciated, they could sometimes put you in difficult situations. As I pondered on what type of volunteer Kim might be, I couldn’t help but remember Trish.

Even though I had only been a volunteer at the old Hebron House, I had shown enough initiative to be left in charge sometimes. I usually had a female volunteer working with me. Trish became a volunteer who was often scheduled to work with me, and we had many laughs together, though we did not always see eye to eye.

As much as we worked well together, Trish did put me in some difficult situations without really trying. I remembered one evening in particular. It was after lights out and all the residents were in bed, except for one young man who had not arrived home by curfew. I was pretty tired, and Trish said she would wait up so I could go to bed. I had been working at my job all day and had come straight to Hebron after work, which meant I had been on the go since 6:30 a.m., and it was now nearly midnight. I had an early start the next morning, too.

As I snuggled into bed, I remember thinking I would quickly fall asleep. Nothing could have been further from the truth. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I could hear Trish talking to someone in the office. I thought it must be the guy who was late coming home, and I seemed to sense all was not well with him. I was soon to find out it was him, and all definitely was not well.

He had come home looking for Tony, the then director, who had been the day worker, to accuse him of splitting up his relationship with his girlfriend. His intention was to confront Tony, and then beat him up. Trish explained to him that Tony was no longer there, but that I was here and pointed him in the direction of my bedroom. Great for Trish, not so great for me. Fortunately, I had already begun to pray for wisdom and even more fortunately I received it.

Suddenly there was silence, and the next thing I knew my bedroom door flew open and crashed against the wall. “Are you Paul Cummings!?,” screamed the voice. Now that in itself was not too bad, but as he was screaming, he pulled up his loose hanging t-shirt and proceeded to draw two bits of wood from the inside of his pants. These same bits of wood happened to be joined together with a chain which turned them into a potentially lethal martial arts weapon. He spun them around his body, as I had seen Bruce Lee do in some of his movies, and I could tell this guy had a fair idea of what he was doing. I suspected he had an even better idea of what he was going to do to me. I pulled back the bed covers and leapt to my feet while screaming back at him, “Am I Paul Cummings? Am I Paul Cummings? Never mind if I am Paul Cummings, who are you?!” I made sure to show no fear and that my voice was a couple of decibels higher than his to give a good effect.

I had not yet met this young man, and it was still my assumption, at this point in time, that this was our resident arriving home late. He seemed stunned, and he just stared at me in disbelief, his weapon now dangling limp and aimless by his side. He tried to talk but could only manage to mumble, “I’m staying here.”

I was in the process of frantically trying to pull my pants on, and it seemed that I was in control of the situation for the moment, and I thought I’d better keep it that way. I screamed back at him again, “Staying here? Staying here? I’ll decide if you’re staying here!” I can’t say he was a perfect angel after that, but at least no one was hurt, and I felt much better trying to get to sleep knowing his Kung Fu weapon was locked away. However, I did ask Trish to be a little more considerate of me in the future.

I was hoping Kim would not be that type of volunteer. The kids were getting a little impatient for tea and we were still waiting for two boys and for Kim and Chris to arrive. Chris arrived a few moments later with a brightly wrapped parcel under her arm, I couldn’t see the point really, I knew it was a pair of jeans, why waste the money on fancy packaging? But Chris liked to do that type of thing.

Kim arrived just as I was about to serve tea, we said a brief hello and went straight into feeding the hungry masses. The two male residents had not arrived home yet, but they knew what time tea was served, anyway, we would save them some.

Meal times always seemed to bring out the worst in the residents, though it could also be a great time to get to know some of them more closely. I looked in horror as my beautifully prepared food was soaked, saturated, and then rolled in what seemed to be an ever-flowing river of ketchup. The bottle was the biggest I had ever seen and, as someone who rarely uses the mixture, I found it all quite sickening to watch. As time went by, I began to learn that to Hebron residents, ketchup was the opiate which made all meals taste good.

I had to leave the meal table a number of times to answer the telephone. Each time it was the same person, the brother of one of the female residents staying there. I had been instructed to expect him to call, but under no circumstances was I to let his sister speak to him. Why she couldn’t speak to her own brother I wasn’t sure, only Alec had that information. I did know she was on a “Form Four” from the Department of Family Services which meant that while she was in our care we were classed as her legal guardian, that meant she was supposed to do as we requested.

As I returned to the table, the telephone rang again. Kim must have seen my frustration and volunteered to answer it. I finished my tea, and by now it was just Chris and I at the table, as the residents never hung around long after the food was gone. As I was leaving the table, Kim popped her head around the corner and asked me if I could spare a moment in the office. I asked Chris to keep an eye on the residents and joined Kim.

If I thought the office was dark and dingy in the daylight hours, it was nothing compared to the evening. Kim informed me Miranda’s brother (Miranda was the girl on the “Form Four”) had telephoned again and he was on his way over.

The news had not really taken me by surprise, as I half expected that to be his next move. Hebron was not really that hard to find, as we wanted kids with nowhere to live to be able to find it easily. We knew he could find the address in the telephone book and we considered that if he was calling from Miranda’s normal home address and if he was leaving right then by car, then he could be at Hebron within the next ten minutes.

Alec had asked me to page him if there were any problems, and I thought I had better do so, just to cover myself. I was later to discover that it could sometimes take quite a while to receive a call from Alec after paging him, fortunately tonight though, his response was swift. I spoke with Alec and my instructions were straight forward, don’t let the brother in the house, don’t let him talk to Miranda, and keep an eye on Miranda so she doesn’t run off with him if she sees him outside.

As I hung up the telephone, I explained the instructions to Kim. We decided to pray and hand the whole situation over to the Lord, and I’m sure glad we did. We decided that Kim would casually keep an eye on Miranda, and I would keep myself free to be able to answer the door. It was not long before our strategy began to go horribly wrong.

Kim was in the living room talking with Miranda and two other female residents, while Chris was talking to another girl on the deck outside, and I was chatting to one of the male residents about the importance of holding a pool cue correctly. Suddenly the back door flew open. I thought it must be the brother wanting to take us by surprise, but to my relief, in walked the two male residents who were late coming home for tea. My relief quickly turned to anguish when I realized they were both drunk!

The house rules were such that if anyone came home drunk, they had to be evicted. However, this decision had to be made by the director, so this meant another paging of Alec.

Fortunately, the two boys were not disruptive, as they knew they were on thin ice and were in danger of having nowhere decent to sleep that night. I left them in the dining area with their tea and went into the office to page Alec. No sooner had I picked up the telephone, even before I had time to dial the number, I heard a fearful scream and the next thing I knew Kim bolted into the office. “He’s in the house” said Kim, referring to Miranda’s brother, then looking down sheepishly, she continued, “And he’s talking to Miranda.”

It wasn’t really Kim’s fault; situations rarely seemed to turn out as you would want them to at Hebron. Some wise person once said, “If anything can go wrong, it will.” I think that person must have worked at Hebron at some time. You see, unfortunately for us, the female residents restroom is out on the veranda next to the main entry door. Normally, this would not be a problem, however in this little scenario, its location was of strategic importance. One of the girls had gone to the restroom, and on her way back to the living room noticed someone at the front door. Thinking she was doing the right thing, she let the person in and asked him to wait on the veranda; the person happened to be Miranda’s brother. As the girl continued on her way, whom should she pass on her way to the living room but Miranda, who was on her way to the restroom. Of course, the mighty scream was let out by Miranda, as she saw her brother standing there. It was only later in the evening, as Kim and I analyzed the events that I understood what had happened.

As for now, it was panic stations, and I rushed from the office through the hallway to the veranda, not really knowing what I might find. Fearful images of a battered Miranda or worse still, no Miranda at all, were flashing through my mind, not to mention trying to explain the whole sorry affair to Alec. Once on the veranda, my initial fears were removed as I saw the two of them sitting on the old couch facing each other and talking quietly. Miranda had her back to me, so I went over and stood in a position where I could see her face, she seemed all right, there were no tears and more importantly, no blood.

I felt frustrated with the lack of information regarding them. Why weren’t they allowed to be together? Could he harm her? Could sh...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Answered Prayer
• First Shift
• Things That Go Bump In the Night
• Horsing Around
• Sally & Norman
• Life & Death
• Changing Places
• Director’s Tears
• Administration & Communication
• Angie
• Liar Liar
• The Sting
• Public Relations
• Prayer
• Daily Dangers
• Make ’em Laugh
• Faithful Volunteers
• Whinge & Gripe
• Outings
• Choosing Staff
• Lost Child
• Stan
• Prayer Ending