“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

-2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Things are different here. Ministry is different here. In America, people ask for proof that there is a God; here, people believe there is a God but instead ask why that God is worth serving. Looking back, I think that’s the question Helen was asking…

So lets go back. 2 weeks ago, 4 of us interns had the privilege to attend the 8^th day of a women’s Restorative Justice program. To make a long story short and omit a great many details, we were having a discussion about the ripple effects of crime, asking women to think through everyone they had hurt by their actions. Helen was a woman awaiting sentencing for suffocating her stepdaughter after finding out the girl’s father was molesting her. Helen, herself having been molested and raped multiple times, couldn’t bare the thought of that girl living the life Helen felt so deeply ashamed of.

As Helen spoke to the group, a woman, Jessica, ran from the room in a fit of tears. The story unfolded, Jessica turned out to be the God-Mother of the child Helen had killed and was also the one who had found the child’s body. At this point in the story, the room was frozen; the air felt heavy with pain.

The women stood, facing each other. Their eyes full of tears, every woman in the room could, in some way, relate to the conversation these two women were having. That conversation ended with Helen and Jessica standing in front of the room apologizing to one another. Each laid down their hurt, their pain and their anger and walked away with the freedom they had found in forgiveness.

My ministry is one that requires complete abandonment of my faith in humanity and total acceptance of my faith in Christ and his workings. We watch men in orange jumpsuits march into the room, restrained more by grief and self pity than by the bars of their cells. We see women who have lived the majority of their lives in torment, their crimes an echo of the horrors committed against them. We thank guards who have watched this for so long that they’ve grown numb to it.

We look to the skies, having run out of questions to ask God. Our elegantly worded prayers fade to silence. We stand idle, watching the sins of the father come to life, unable to treat the generational infection that has spread through this country. We are left with absolutely nothing to say.

You see, in middle class American ministry, there’s always a voice in the back of your head telling you that if you can just “say the right things” then you can do good ministry. But when you dine in the company of rapists, women who have suffocated their children and men who have murdered entire families, you realize that there is no right thing to say. You cannot provide any council that will change the hells through which your company has been.

And so the voice fades away. There is nothing telling me that I can say the right words. The only thing left is faith in power of the Holy Spirit to move hearts and redeem those who the world has said are unredeemable. The truth is, we are incapable of doing “Good Ministry” but thankfully God isn’t. I am neither swift enough, nor strong enough, nor wealthy enough to help these people. However, I raise my hands in praise, knowing that our Lord has laid his hand on humanity and responded “I am.”

D.M.