By Jordan Evans, Director of Community Life, Eastridge Church
At the beginning of August, a small group of us from Eastridge Covenant Church in Portland, OR got the chance to drop off a trailer full of high need items (food, clothing and hygiene items) to the Clackamas Service Center (CSC). CSC is a local service center that provides a variety of services for the homeless or very poor (or as the center calls them, its “members”). As a church we had been collecting items throughout the month of July and it was a joy to be a part of distributing the fruit of that generosity knowing that it would be given to those that need it most.
In the past, Eastridge had worked occasionally with CSC but, as COVID-19 began to spread and impact our local community, we felt pressed by God to be more proactive in helping meet some of the immediate and practical needs of the most vulnerable around us. A few different ideas were discussed and after much prayer we decided to reach out to CSC with the simple question of “What are your biggest needs and what can we do to help?” It was from that question that the idea of a drive began to take shape. A call was put out to Eastridge and our church family responded generously with donations.
We fully recognize that although useful, a singular drive for donations is a small contribution to a very large and ongoing problem but, it is important to start somewhere! Too often a task or good deed gets abandoned because we feel like we cannot see the full picture or are able to “solve the problem” but, this isn’t how Jesus usually operates. He doesn’t lay out the neat 5-point plan. Instead, He calls us to faithfully follow Him and trust where He is leading. He asks us to engage with the lost world around us as His ambassadors. We are called to be lights that pierce the darkness and draw the lost to Him.
To do this authentically, it is critical to build relationships and we are in the infant stages of doing that with the staff and members at CSC with a view to the long-term. Our hope is that this drive will be one of the first steps towards a regular pattern of presence for us there. We are excited to see how God will use us as His hands and feet to serve some of the most vulnerable in our own community and as the opportunity arises, we look forward to giving “an answer to everyone who asks [us] to give a reason for the hope that [we] have”. (1 Peter 3:15)
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