In the middle of summer in rural Oklahoma, one thing you don't want to be doing is roofing a house in 100 degree heat, but that's where me and eight of my friends from Charis Ministries found ourselves a couple of years ago. We had committed to spending three days painting, roofing, and cleaning the weathered home of a man named Herbert from Idabel who we had met through the local Glenmary priest.
It obviously was hard work, but what was apparent to all of us was that this house we were working on would easily be considered a "tear-down" back in the Chicago neighborhoods we lived in. So what were we doing? We we honoring this man by giving him a couple more useful years of shelter in this old home? Were we just doing it for the sake of doing good, or satisfying our own pride? Or was this really just a waste of time?
I pondered this question over the three days we were working. I had done Habitat-like projects in Chicago over the years, but this was the first time I'd done a similar project in another state or country. I think my friend Dave talked me into making the road trip with him, and I think the road trip from Chicago was what initially captured my interest.
As we worked, it became apparent to me that this frail house filled with many possessions (both in the house and strewn about the yard) was a symbol of the man who lived inside it. When we first drove up and introduced ourselves to Herbert, he barely cracked the door to say hello. He was a quiet, solitary man. As the days progressed, however, we got to know and see more and more of Herbert. Little by little, he learned our names, watched us work, and ultimately invited us in.
With every nail we drove into the roof, and with every brush-stroke of paint we covered the house with, we were ministering to Herbert. We were being drawn into intimacy with him. As we carefully mended the whole in his roof, we were mending Herbert and putting our hands into his wounds. As we cleared the broken machinery and trash from his yard, we were clearing out the old, lost dreams and making room for new ones. And ultimately when he invited us into his hot, cluttered, cockroach-infested home, he was being entirely vulnerable with us about who he was and asking us to accept him on those terms without fear or judgment.
On a personal level I was able to connect with Herbert on two occasions. One day, as I was getting ready to haul a load of trash to the county dump, I paused to watch Herbert go to his mailbox. He walked across his lawn to the road, opened the hinged door to the mailbox and peered inside, only to find the mailbox empty. I'm sure this kind of situation happens every day, but I was struck by the look of loneliness on Herbert's face that he longed to be in relationship with someone who knew him and cared enough to send him a letter to say hello. "Boy the kids sure are getting big these days, you should come pay us a visit soon," or "Your cousin Joanne is getting married this fall, and we hope you can make it." Some kind of hope that his life mattered to someone besides himself as the hours turned into days, and the days grew into weeks, and the weeks marched into years.
The second connection I had with Herbert was one day he asked me to go fishing with him. Wow, I thought, that would be fun, but the reason we're here is to repair your house. I can't just ditch my co-workers to go fishing. So this struck me as a Mary vs. Martha moment. This man wanted to hang out with me and go fishing, but my preoccupation was with the repairs and being a team player. So I brushed off his invitation and kept working.
On the last day of our visit, we hastily finished painting and roofing Herbert's house in advance of the long drive home the next day. We were all exhausted, dirty, and sunburned, but we were also exhilarated to have accomplished such a difficult task and to have given this tender, caring gift of our time and friendship to Herbert. I won't say that we were buddy-buddy with Herbert when we left that day, but we felt like we had truely ministered to this man, not just cleaned his yard and repaired his house, and the appreciation was mutual.
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