Homeless by Choice
by Randall Murphree
March 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - "Shelter!" the voice answers the telephone abruptly."Can you tell me if you have any beds open tonight?"
"Hold on!"
A short pause, then a second voice comes on the line.
"Hello?"
"Can you tell me if you have any beds open tonight?"
"If you wanted a bed, you shoulda been here at six o'clock."
With that rejection, Keith wanders through the Pittsburgh streets to another shelter. Same kind of welcome, similar response. No bed for Keith.
Ironically, Keith Wasserman is homeless by choice -- on occasion. Once every year or two, he goes to live with the homeless on the streets for a few days -- and often sleepless nights -- in various cities. He practices this discipline to prepare for ministry to the homeless through Good Works, Inc., which he founded in 1981.
Keith Wasserman in his office | |
Not Orthodox, but Creative
"I go to live on the streets to expand my perspective and understanding of homelessness and homeless people," says Keith. "I want to have my reservoir of compassion replenished."The Athens, Ohio, man grew up in a Jewish home and developed a hostile attitude toward Christ. As a teenager, he used drugs, sold drugs and accumulated quite a juvenile crime record. But after a high school friend persistently witnessed to him, Keith accepted Christ during his junior year in high school.
A few years later, as an Ohio University senior, Keith proposed an unusual internship project to meet degree requirements. Having not grown up in the church, he didn't know he was thinking outside the box when he opened up his basement to the homeless. That's precisely what he did as an alternative to a more traditional internship, and university supervisors oversaw the whole project. Little did he know what he had started.
Keith is a soft-spoken man, but his deep passion for the needy is crystal clear. His forays into street living reflect God's own plan of the incarnation of Christ as an example of one willing to "walk a mile in our shoes" so to speak. By living for a few days with the homeless, Keith not only gathers critical insights, but also earns credibility among those God has called him to serve.
He gains new or deeper wisdom each time he goes to the streets. In Lexington, Kentucky, he says he learned about fear while bunking next to a man who brandished a knife and threatened to stab another man. "Fear changes one's personality," Keith says, "Prolonged fear turns you into someone you don't like and don't want to be around."
In Indianapolis, he learned that time is the enemy of the homeless: "So much idle time to get depressed. So little hope. When you do earn money, you become a target for others to steal, exploit or beg."
In Akron, Ohio, he learned about losing one's identity: "When we lose a sense of who we are, we lose the realization of the image of God upon us and our purpose in this world."
Not Seminary, but Effective
Good Works was a natural outgrowth of his university project, and he is confident that God's hand was in it all along. He began his unique life-on-the streets episodes in the late 1980s. The unorthodox method of preparing for ministry is not exactly seminary, but it works.
"I have learned that in order to understand and help people who are suffering, one must leave the comfort of one's own security and reach out, perhaps incurring some personal risk and pain," he says. He discounts conventional wisdom that most of the homeless could change their circumstances if they really wanted to. Keith emphasizes that people become homeless for various reasons -- job loss, sickness, separation or divorce, abandonment, loss of home to fire.
Over the 25-year history of Good Works, Keith has seen the ministry expand to offer services he could never have anticipated. In1992, he implemented Friday Night Life, a community family-style supper for the homeless and others struggling with poverty. Local churches help sponsor the supper, plus activities for some 90 adults and Friday Night Kids Club for about 35 children.
For Ken Weinkauf, Friday Night Life was his bridge from Good Works resident to a position as Good Works Webmaster. After his family disintegrated, Ken lost his home, his car and his job. At Good Works, he found a refuge where he could rebuild his life.
Ken remembers the welcome he received. "They said, 'You can stay here, we have a bed for you, we have food on the table. Come and join us.'" He lived at Good Works for nine months, got back on his feet and found a job before moving to his own apartment. A few months later, he returned as a volunteer cooking Friday dinner.
"I made spaghetti every Friday night for two years, right alongside Keith Wasserman," he says. "And he saw in me the potential that I didn't see in me. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself, and that is a great gift." Keith helped Ken catch that kind of vision for others, too, and by the mid 1990s, he was on the full-time staff.
Good Gifts is another component of Good Works. The Good Gifts store offers items imported by Ten Thousand Villages, a Mennonite ministry dedicated to helping people who struggle with poverty all over the world.
"We challenge people in this area to buy from us because, by doing so, they're helping the poor all over the world," says Keith. The gift shop also provides another practical avenue for job training for residents.
"The thing I'm most excited about today is something that I would never have dreamed we could do," Keith says. It's the dovetailing of two elements that began as separate arms of Good Works. Samaritan Projects was founded in 1999 to connect volunteers with widows and the disabled. Volunteers work on summer or weekend work teams for larger projects or one-on-one assistance for simpler needs.
In 2004, Transformation Station was begun. Keith explains: "That's a project where people who need a washing machine or a refrigerator or an automobile call us. Then they have to work. For example, the washer may cost them ten hours. Or an automobile may cost them 50 hours or a hundred hours, depending on book value." Such clients are often assigned to perform services for those on the Samaritan Projects list.
Presently, one man is working for a car. He's already been to two homes on Samaritan projects, thus serving two senior citizens fixing things at their homes in exchange for the car he'll receive.
Not Numbers, but Impact
Keith seems happily unaware of the remarkable and unique ministry he oversees. However, others in southeastern Ohio are very much aware. Keith was the first recipient of the Jenco Foundation Award when the foundation was created in 2001. Its purpose is to recognize and honor those who work to better the lives of others in a 29-county area of Ohio Appalachia.
The foundation was initiated and is directed by Athens businessman Terry Anderson, former Associated Press reporter who was a hostage of Shiite Muslim radicals in Beirut, Lebanon, from 1985 to 1991. It is named in memory of Fr. Lawrence Jenco, a Catholic priest and fellow hostage with Anderson.
Ask Keith how many people Good Works serves in a year, and he responds humbly, "I have no idea. I couldn't even guess. It's not something I think much about." If pressed, however, he digs out some 2004 figures -- 216 residents at the shelter, 35 widows and disabled in Samaritan projects, and 17,000 Friday night meals.
But numbers aren't the point. Changed lives are the point. By both measures, Good Works is clearly having an impact for Christ.
Randall Murphree, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is editor of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. This article appeared in the March 2005 issue. The ministry of Good Works, Inc. can be contacted through its website or by telephone (740-594-9000).
