07.18.2017
“Hi, we’re from Esperanza Health Center and Urban Hope Church, and we’re doing free health screenings around the neighborhood. Would that be something you’re interested in?”
It’s amazing how accustomed I’ve grown to saying this line after knocking on doors for 3 weeks. Coming into SMI, one of the things I hoped God would show me was how to love and care for people in circumstances different from my own. But going about it by knocking on doors in the neighborhoods of North Philly was intimidating, and I definitely had my doubts. I was skeptical that people would be interested in talking to us. In the suburban neighborhoods of Maryland where I grew up, and in the crowded City of New York where I now live, we tend to brush off the strangers who come knocking on our doors or approach us on the streets, thinking them to be nuisances who take up our valuable time. As I walked the streets of North Philly where so many were living in poverty, I didn’t think it would be any different here. After all, we were strangers to them, and they were strangers to us. However, at the first house we approached during our first outreach, I was pleasantly surprised when the woman living there without hesitation welcomed us into her home after we introduced ourselves. Even though we were strangers, she allowed us to perform a health screen on her and her mother and let us pray for them.
This kind of hospitality and reception to prayer is something that I would continually experience over the next three weeks. Of course there were periods of time where we would get strings of no answers or ‘No’s, but the people who did welcome us and even the people who flagged us down to talk to us on the street gradually revealed to me God’s presence in the communities of North Philly, and the desire that the people had to experience Him. This was ever clear to me one day where we encountered many people who actually declined the health screening, but when we offered prayer, they said yes. Even without the health screen as a means for caring for their physical needs, people were wanting to open up about their lives and have their spiritual needs cared for. During those interactions, I wasn’t a medical student with the resources and knowledge to provide them a health screen, but I was simply another human being like themselves, offering to hear about their struggles and joys. And the fact that I came from a completely different background and often couldn’t relate to the suffering and poverty that a lot of the people were experiencing did not prevent us from joining together to bring their burdens to God. From these interactions, I’ve seen that when we simply care enough to ask a person about his or her life in Jesus’ name, God can work through that. In Matthew 18:19-20, Jesus says “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” God was present during those moments of prayer, and through it the people we visited were putting their hope in Him.
On our last day of outreach, our team returned to the first street we visited on when we started our outreaches in North Philly. There we saw Alfred (*name changed) standing on his porch. We had given a health screen and talked to Alfred and his family during our first day of outreach. When we met the first time he told us that he had negative experiences with the Church in the past, and his wife and two children were either no longer attending church or no longer believers. After we prayed with Alfred and his family, we had left them with information about the local church we were partnering with, and we were incredibly happy when we saw him at church the following Sunday. As we caught up with him on the last day, he thanked us for connecting him to a welcoming community where he could grow in his walk with Christ, and he was looking forward to bringing the rest of his family to the church eventually. I don’t think there was anything we said in particular in our conversation and prayer with Alfred that spurred him to go to church on Sunday, but I know that through our interaction we were able to at least show Alfred the love of Christ in the midst of his circumstances. And through that seed, I can trust that God will continue to grow Alfred and in time, use him to reach the rest of his family as well.
Out of the many people I met during this trip, Alfred was only one of few individuals who I was fortunate enough to witness God working in during the brief time that we had. However, when I think about Alfred and all of the people in the past three weeks who asked us to pray with them, I realize how strongly God wants us to serve one another in love- even those who are strangers to us. In our daily lives it’s easy to ignore those around us and instead focus on ourselves and what gives us comfort. But what I’ve seen in North Philly is that when we take time to leave our own comfort behind to bring God’s comfort to others, God is faithful, and He moves the hearts of people closer to Him in ways we can’t predict or explain.
-Bryan Kuo