Takin' It to the Streets

4!+).´ )4 4/ 4(%342%%43 WALKING THE EMMAUS ROAD WITH RUNAWAY TEENS

BY PETER LARSON

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he Crocodile Lounge is the birthplace of Seattle’s grunge rock scene, a club once frequented by Kurt Cobain, Pearl Jam, and others.Tonight “The Croc” is mobbed with fans packed tightly between the bar and the floodlights.

On stage, guitarist Tim Morello of Rage Against the Machine is fronting an eclectic band that includes singersongwriter Steve Earle, Ben Shepherd and Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Mark Arm of Mudhoney,Wayne Kramer of MC5, and Boots Riley from The Coup, a political hip hop group.

While none of these musicians identify themselves as Christian, tonight they’re playing a benefit concert for New Horizons, a Christian ministry that cares for Seattle’s street kids.

“Tom Morello called up out of the blue and asked if they could do a benefit for us,” says Dan Shelly, executive director of New Horizons. “I told him, ‘Well, you know that we’re a Christian organization.’ He said that was fine.The only thing that mattered is that we were helping street kids.”

Seeds of New Horizons’ ministry were planted in 1978 by a man named Don Ericson. Living at the Bread of Life Mission on South Avenue and serving as a volunteer chaplain,

Ericson began walking the streets of Seattle at night. Although the exact details of his ordination are somewhat of a mystery, he wore a clerical collar and was known as Father Don. As he walked the streets, Ericson discovered a subculture of homeless teenagers who were caught in a deadly web of substance abuse, violence, and prostitution.

Although Seattle had homeless shelters for adults, none was safe for — or welcoming to — teenagers. In response, Ericson founded New Horizons, opening its first drop-in center in 1980, in downtown Seattle’s Columbia Building, dubbed the “Dismas Center” after Saint Dismas, the traditional name for the thief who hung on the cross next to Jesus.

Plagued by funding problems, New Horizons was repeatedly forced to relocate to a series of dilapidated buildings until finally, in 1998, the group raised enough money to purchase a three-story building downtown on Third Avenue. Today, the building houses a large drop-in center that provides a place for street kids to take showers, do laundry, eat hot meals, and receive counseling, mentoring, and job training. More than 1,500 teenagers, from as far away as Tacoma, Olympia, and Spokane, visit

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says Shelly. “Another 25 percent get placed in foster care. But the last 25 percent are the ones who fall through the cracks.

The hopeless ones — those are the ones we get.”

Another myth about street kids is that they are criminals and perpetrators. In reality, they are usually victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. “Nearly all of them have experienced sexual abuse,” notes Shelly.“The abuse mostly happens from someone society tells them they should trust — a family member or friend of the family. The result is that they don’t trust society. They’re walking around with deep wounds.”

Many street kids leave home because of a problem with addiction. For others, it’s a result of their sexual orientation.

“For instance, a kid comes out and says that he’s gay,” observes Shelly. “The family can’t handle it and so they simply disown him.”

Another myth about street kids is that they’re looking for fun or adventure. “It’s not fun on the streets,” says Shelly. “It’s really hard with drugs, violence, and prostitution. But even with all those things, life on the streets is usually better than the home environment that they left.”

Still another myth about street kids is that the problem can be solved by providing them with housing or shelter. The reality is that street kids form family units that they look to for protection. “If you want to sleep in a shelter, you have to leave your family,” explains Shelly. “Also, you can’t bring your pet into a shelter, and most of these kids have a dog or a ferret.”

Shelters also require residents to be clean and sober and to observe a 10 p.m. curfew. “All this breaks down their support system,” says Shelly. “That’s why we welcome them here with their pets, and they don’t have to be sober. They just have to act in a safe manner.”

Why do so many street kids gravitate to Seattle? “It’s not because of the climate,” says Shelly. “Seattle is usually cold and wet. I think it has to do with the attitude. On the streets of Tacoma, kids are constantly being harassed by the police. If you try to camp out, the police show up and slash your tents and spray your belongings with pepper spray so they’re unusable.

That doesn’t happen in Seattle; people here are more accepting.”

The majority of street kids turn to prostitution, for “protection” or money or both. Shelly tells of a girl named Claire who was 13 years old when she showed up asking for help.

“She had beautiful red hair and a smile that lit up a room,” he remembers. “She was out on the streets at the age of 12.

She was constantly raped by her stepfather and when she finally told her mother, her mother slapped her across the face and accused her of telling stories to try and break up her relationship. Over the course of a year I watched her harden, putting shields up, to where by the end of a year she no longer smiled and you wouldn’t have recognized her as

the drop-in center every year.

“We practice incarnational theology,” explains Shelly.“If you read the gospels, it was the presence of Jesus that allowed people to approach him and have conversations with him that changed their lives. That’s what we try to do. Some of these kids have been on the streets for five years, and it might take another five years for them to transition off. In the meantime, we build relationships with them. It takes a long time to build trust; it is not a quick fix but a long journey.”

Before joining New Horizons, Shelly worked in the corporate world developing a relational database server for Microsoft. His career path took an unexpected turn during a mission trip to Africa.“My African hosts insisted that I preach for them daily,” says Shelly. “I had no experience as a preacher, but when I got home, I found that I missed being able to preach.” Shelly enrolled in seminary at Seattle University and began training to become a pastor. As part of his seminary training he interned at a drop-in center for street kids in Tacoma. After graduating from seminary, he pastored a rural church but felt God calling him back to the city.“I was pacing like a caged tiger because my heart was out on the street with the kids,” says Shelly.

STREET MYTHS One of the prevalent myths about street kids is that they have run away from loving families who are searching for them.

In reality, most of them have fled dysfunctional families who don’t want them to come home. “Last year we saw 1,500 kids at our drop-in center,” says Shelly. “Only four of those kids had parents who were actually looking for them.”

Statistically, 2,000 kids run away from home every year in the Seattle area.“Half of them go back home within a week,”

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One of the prevalent myths about street kids is that they have run away from loving families who are searching for them. In reality, most of them have fled dysfunctional families who don’t want them to come home. the same girl. She got on heroin, became addicted, and used her body for protection. She found an older guy, lied to him about her age, and had a sexual relationship with him to provide her with protection on the street. He was also a street kid. I asked someone who served as her case manager, and they haven’t seen her for a while. One of the many names and faces that just disappear.”

Three months later, the phone rang again. James was back in jail and deeply depressed. “I asked him what was wrong,” recalls Ruthruff, “and he replied, ‘A guard just told me that my blood tests came back and that I have the AIDS virus.

Remember that day at your house when we ordered pizza and your wife made hot chocolate from scratch? The reason I’m not going to kill myself is because I want to have one more day like that.’” Finishing the story, Ruthruff pauses to collect himself, then continues.“It says in the Book of Proverbs that the righteous man falls seven times but rises again.

Sometimes, the courage to get back up comes from having a normal day. If we can help a kid to have one normal day, then he might begin to glimpse an alternative and say, “Maybe my life could be like this.’”

THE POWER OF A ‘NORMAL’ DAY Ron Ruthuff has been working at New Horizons for 25 years. He started out as a counselor and case manager; today, he serves as resident theologian. Ruthruff says he himself went from being a near high school dropout —“They only let me graduate in order to get rid of me”— to earning a doctoral degree at Gordon-Conwell Seminary.

On the wall of his cluttered office he displays a poster of Marlon Brando astride a motorcycle from The Wild One. Explains Ruthruff,“In that movie there’s a scene where a soda jerk asks Marlon Brando, ‘What are you rebelling against?’

Brando replies, ‘What’ve you got?’That’s me. I’m a rebel, and my rebellion is to speak out against these atrocities that are being done to children.”

Although he quotes Bonhoeffer and Brueggeman, Ruthruff says he learned most of his theology from the street kids themselves. One lesson he learned is that true ministry isn’t motivated by sympathy, pity, or altruistic notions of doing good.

“I’m not Florence Nightingale trying to save the world,” he notes. “My wife and I are called to be with kids that are broken, because we know that is where Jesus is. These kids have taught me more about Jesus than I ever learned in church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that ‘the Jesus in you is much bigger than the Jesus in me.’” Ruthruff finds that as he sits with abused, confused kids, struggling with their sense of self and wondering about their purpose in the world, “they teach me things about Jesus every day.”

For Ruthruff, ministry starts by treating kids as people of value. For many street kids, that’s a foreign concept.“The gospel doesn’t start with John 3:16,” says Ruthruff. “It begins with the first chapter of Genesis, that we are created in the image of God. Kids don’t leave the streets because they are tired of drugs and prostitution; they leave the streets because they discover that there is something good in themselves, that maybe they can do something with their lives.”

Ruthruff talks about a boy named James who spent most of his teenage years in jail. One day when he was out of jail, he called Ruthruff on the telephone. “I picked him up at the ferry terminal and said to him, ‘James, this is your day. We can do anything you want to do.’ He didn’t know what to do, so I took him home and we spent the day watching a Huskies football game, eating pizza, and drinking hot chocolate.”

CHURCH AT THE CORNER Although New Horizons operates a drop-in center, much of the ministry takes place on the streets. At least once a week, a chaplain from New Horizons serves communion on the streets. “In the place where we serve communion, there’s a sign right above us that says ‘No loitering or trespassing.’” says Ruthruff. “We’re serving communion in a place that says you’re not invited.”

According to Ruthruff, many street kids feel drawn to worship. Services take place in a small chapel located in the basement of the drop-in center. One wall of the chapel, called the “wailing wall,” is scrawled with handwritten prayers written on sheets of poster paper. Worship services are a mix of Pentecostal spontaneity and liturgical structure, centered on the church calendar.

“These kids love liturgy,” says Ruthruff. “Why? Because

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their lives lack structure. When we light candles at Advent, that is very life-giving for them. It creates a rhythm for kids whose lives have been very unpredictable.” Bible studies at New Horizons are never dull. “We probably have the only Bible study in Seattle where people ask,‘If God is so good then why did he get Mary pregnant before he married her?’”

Ruthruff notes with an appreciative smile.

Street kids involved in prostitution usually aren’t able to visit the drop-in center, because their pimps would “fine” them by confiscating their property or beating them. For that reason, the ministry sends teams of women into the streets to provide coffee, hats, scarves, personal hygiene items, and a “bad date” list generated by the prostituted youth themselves.

Included on the list are the names of men who have beaten, robbed, or raped them, and the cars that they drive.The teams also hand out condoms.

“I’ve had some church leaders accuse me of enabling this lifestyle,” says Shelly. “They claim our ministry is too permissive and that we approve of women being prostitutes.

It’s like the story of the woman who was caught in adultery and was brought to Jesus who said to her, ‘Go and sin no more.’ But Jesus kept the woman safe and alive until he could have that conversation with her alone. That’s what we’re doing—we’re trying to keep these kids alive until we can have that conversation.”

The ministry strives to keep Christ at the center of all they do. Staff members are required to sign a faith statement. They begin the day at 9 a.m. by praying together for one hour before opening the doors of the drop-in center. Outreach teams pray before they hit the streets and after they return.

Often, they pray for protection.

“We take risks every single day,” says Shelly. “When you choose to be with people who are marginalized, you find yourself outside the normal rules of the game. Sometimes we

have to call 911. When a kid behaves violently, sometimes they have to be banned. But God watches over this place.

Our chaplain had a kid pull a knife on him, but he wasn’t frightened. He said, ‘What do you think you’re doing pulling a knife on me? Go on, get out of here!’” Kids are asked to check their weapons at the door — and that includes guns, knives, skateboards, and snowboards. Illegal weapons are confiscated.

WILLING TO WALK ALONGSIDE But for Ruthruff, the risks are worth it. “We give kids our phone numbers, and some social workers are appalled by that,” he observes. “It violates the boundaries! But for the sake of relationship, we do things that are nontraditional. That’s why we’ll pay our case workers to take a kid to the movies, because these kids have never had anyone who’s just willing to walk with them.”

In recent years New Horizons has expanded to offer transitional services to help kids get off the streets. In 2009 they opened Street Bean Espresso, a coffeehouse located in a rentfree space donated by a local landlord. “Nobody wants to hire a kid off the streets who might have two or three felonies on his record,” says Shelly. “Working at the coffeehouse gives them some skills and a job history.” For kids who want to get off the streets, New Horizons also assigns individual mentors who teach basic life skills, like how to set an alarm clock to wake up in time to get to a job. Another transitional ministry, called Bridges, matches kids up with local business leaders who provide them with brief internships and teach them job skills.

For every kid who manages to get off the streets, Shelly estimates there are three or four who don’t. “A lot of them age out of the system,” he explains. “When they get to be 23 years old, they can’t come to the drop-in center anymore.That becomes a sacred time to speak to their lives. When they’re younger they’ll tell you, ‘Yeah, I live on the streets, but I’m not like that guy,’ and they’ll point to a wino or a homeless guy. But when they reach the age of 23, they can’t say that anymore. So at that age, they’re asking questions about their lives, and God can break through.”

Despite the high rate of failure, what keeps Ruthruff going are the moments when he encounters Jesus in the lives of these kids. “It’s like walking on the road to Emmaus. What I’m trying to do is help kids understand who they are walking with and where they are going.” Q

In The Least of These (to be released in October

by New Hope Publishers), Ron Ruthruff shares how the world’s street children can become some of our greatest teachers, for both their brokenness and their dependence on God.

Peter Larson is pastor of Lebanon Presbyterian Church in Lebanon, Ohio, and a contributing editor to PRISM. Learn more about New Horizons at NHMin.org.

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