Feeding Sheep and Washing Feet: the Call to a Life of Service

Drawing by Brendan Maendel, Oak Bluff Colony.

This paper was first written as the final assignment for my practicum placement with Youth for Christ, but also the last essay of my undergraduate degree. Let me explain. I have graduated from CMU with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English and a double minor in Psychology and Theology. As part of its degree requirements, CMU requires all students to complete a practicum: an "in the field" working position employed somewhere. Through what I can only describe as divine intervention, I ended up completing my 120 required hours 10 minutes from home in our local town of Morris. Youth For Christ is a nonprofit Christian organization. essentially a drop in staffed with Christian volunteers, who spend the evenings feeding and getting to know the local youth who see the facility -filled with pool tables, stools surrounding a food bar, lounge area, and tables for eating or doing projects- as a safe place to meet up with friends, hang out, or escape troubling home situations.

Having completed my practicum hours, I find myself now reflecting on the experience, walking away with far more than I ever anticipated. I write it for the Hutterite reader looking for some answer to a prayer about where we are going, what more we can do, and hope that this is a testimony of the last year of growth on our community, in part due to the relationship built with our local drop in center. It is a call to deeper and fuller surrender and to re-examine our assumptions and fears about mission and outreach. This is not because we are failing so much as because I see so much opportunity to do far more, and hope that a synthesis of my thoughts and a reflection on my experience as a Programmer at the Morris Youth for Christ drop-in speaks towards the needs that exist around us if we only pay attention.

* * *

Growing up in a Christian communitarian culture, one would assume that a heritage derived from the basis of fellowship and gemeinshaft would adhere to strong convictions of Christ’s call to “Go out into the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15 NIV). Yet no, this was not necessarily the case. For most Huttarian communities, the reality remains that the small community size of roughly 100-150 members results in a closed system of service within the generally isolated and rurally set communities.

This is often derived simply from the sheer level of fulfilment and ministry one can achieve right from one’s home. I do not want to discredit the ambition and creativity of countless dieneh who sacrifice hours to helping moms with their children, caring for senior members, and those who, when they are no longer able to work, spend their days sewing and knitting for MCC and other ministries. Moreover, the success of many community’s industries due to the dedication of the men, can provide great support in the form of monetary donation to various organizations the community loves and sponsors. There is outreach that all communities perform, and I do not want to diminish this, or what is being done. This paper is a reflection on what I have seen to be the revealing truth that while this is all good, we are called to far far more. 

Volunteering was never something that came naturally for me. Nor is it something that comes naturally for most. Communities have had increasing in-person outreach options over the years through local MCC, Siloam mission to Mulli foundation, or work with Romanian church building. But as a culturally separated people, we must examine our approach to these missions as well, and ask ourselves if we are entirely surrendering in the experience.

How many volunteer options look like this: Go to Winnipeg in the van; pile out at Siloam; sort clothes or serve a meal while laughing in Hutterisch among ourselves, while minimally interacting with those who you hand plates besides to smiling and pitying their raggedy clothing and think, "Thank you Jesus that I am not like them"; hug your favourite regular kitchen staff goodbye, and leave feeling accomplished to have done “the Lord’s work.” Or what of when young people are selected specifically for a marked period of time to participate in longer mission programs -but only for a time, for the experience, because "it will be good for them," because after all the G'ma needs them back. Maybe they will get up and share about their experience in the essenschtuhm. Tears will be wiped. They will be changed. but then, who is discipling and building on that change? See, my push-back is not with the mission field and our efforts, but in the spirit in which this mission field is often approached.

Through my studies at CMU, I became convicted that what we have come to accept as a vision of “service” may not be that at all, but what a professor once called “missionary tourism” –CMU emphasized a reimagining of Christ’s commission in a way I had simply not encountered before. In Hutterian culture we emphasize the aspects of the Great Commission that speak of building God’s kingdom here with one’s immediate circle, to deepen the spheres of influence and relationships we have with those immediately around us. Through persecution, language barriers, and the cultural trauma of relocating to a new continent and scrambling to sustain a growing people group, turning more fully to agriculture, and embracing the rural location of our settlement in North America- our history has shaped our current mindset in regards to witness, evangelism, and the people who have not heard the Gospel- which we often assume is anyone beyond the colony sign.

Yet, the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37 NIV) showed that this circle of community has no right to remain so stagnant but should always be brimming with those who have need. It is a call to ever more deep, personal, and vulnerable relationships with all peoples. I understand that organizations like Siloam rely on these scheduled volunteers to serve in order to free regular staff for more personal work, and this is good work. But it cannot and should not only look like this. God does not run a drive-by. It is a feast which we are all invited to join, to participate in together. We must ask if we are truly pushing ourselves to the limit, or if these isolated experiences we call "mission" are truly all that Hutterian communities have to offer the greater Christian church and the broader world in evangelism.

* * *

It is through coincidences or as I personally believe, divine intervention, that I was handed a number near the end of last summer, and that number led to a call, and that call led to a new and tentative goal. So, when I took up my later practicum supervisor’s invite to “come and see” – to come to the drop-in for one evening and observe as they not only served food behind the drop in counter, but i learned the meal was specifically requested by T (all names will be shown like this throughout this paper). I Watched one volunteer tackle B, another asked E how school was going, and another hugged S and asked if she wanted to play pool, because home life had been tough for her-details of which she whispered confidentially to this volunteer. Something changed. I was walking into an active dynamic relationship- into a story already unfolding, into a building full of children who loved their volunteers, understood they did not have to be Christians to come, but that every volunteer loved them because they were first loved by Christ. My spirit yelled: yes this! This is it! This is the Gospel!

* * *

My goals for this practicum placement (yes, we had to write goals) were generally split into 3 main categories, each regarding what I consider to be the 3 parties involved in this 12 week contract and their particular needs: Myself, Morris Youth For Christ (the youth, supervisors and Morris volunteers), and Oak Bluff Colony (the community and our youth group). I want to share my goals because each of them was not only "met" but because of nothing to do with myself were fulfilled a hundred fold. For me it highlighted the brevity of God's reach, and how, simple trust and faith results in a story unfolding not unlike the woman who poured oil for far longer then the vessel's material capacities, and how God has overflowed in his promise to us at the Drop-in every time we surrender to Him.

My position at the Drop-in took on a unique role. Very quickly, particularly because of my role as a programmer for Girl’s Night, the necessary regular meeting with supervisors, and also my initial intercessory role between YFC and Oak Bluff resulted in a much greater opportunity to work on my goal that addressed my personal development: To gain confidence as a programmer and educator through lesson planning and answering challenging questions, as well as my ability to organize other volunteers, the drop-in activities, and taking initiative in the Girl’s interests. To have built into many of their lives. To have also learned greater patience, empathy, and communication with them. 

This goal is connected directly with my second goal that impacted the Drop-in relationship specifically: To have established a growing discipling of girls in a consistent manner through Bible Study, who are engaged, learning, and building their faith, and to have deepened/built trusting and mentoring relationships with the girls active in the Girl’s Drop-in program.

Morris YFC had 3 regular programs and now has a fourth. Supper Club is the program that runs on Mondays from 6:00-9:00 for ages 12-18, where a supper meal is served to the kids, followed by "God Talk" the term given to the devotional or biblical teaching presented by one of the volunteers. To get dessert they have to stay for God Talk. Most stay, and most actually enjoy it. The second, Thursday evening Drop-in is a shorter and unstructured program from 6:30-9:00, without a God talk, in order to draw in some other types of kids. The Third program is Wednesday Zone, a program for middle school kids, right after school until 5:00. It is structured exactly like Supper club but with an after school snack instead of a meal. God Talks for Zone tend to be more story-heavy, focusing on the old testament heroes, and for us volunteers, the kid's sheer delight over these stories as they hear them for the first time makes it worth it. The last program is one that was introduced as part of my practicum, an evening Girl's Night for ages 10-18, from 7:00-9:00 on Thursdays, run by the dieneh on our community. The structure is a first hour filled with a fun gehbach or snack and an activity: either a game, sport, or skill. This is followed by an hour-long Bible study and worship with the girls.

I think of one Girl’s Night in particular that captures what is at the heart of the mission laid out before our young people this past half-year of service. This Girl's night was the first after one evening that was actually not successful. Two regulars ended up not returning afterwards because of an incident. I took those blow personally and was discouraged and I immaturely blamed myself entirely. I prayed for God to reveal a specific and reachable need to focus on and address to come back from this experience, and of course, he was faithful and answered.

This blow to my confidence as "leader" led to me taking a step back, and only then, when space was made, could God reveal what he had in store for these Drop-in nights for us. The Lesson plan for the new week came together not from myself, but instead by gathering together with my regular volunteer staff: some of the dieneh from our community. Rather than delegating the plan like usual, I asked if we wanted to get together to develop a lesson for them. Together, through discussion of our drop-in girl’s various personalities and what they had shared with us, we determined a recurring theme which we wanted to speak light into. In this case it was a habit of negative self-talk, and low self-confidence. With one girl in mind in particular, we decided on a lesson: “Who are we?”, with an emphasis on the passage from Ephesians 2:10 (NIV), which states that we are “God’s masterpiece” and thus sovereignty goes not to us but to him who declares us wonderfully made, regardless of what others (and ourselves) say. I gave one of the dieneh half an hour of the lesson plan- with great difficulty, only to discover together with her that she has a natural ability to animatedly express the stories and explain them in a way I never could that deeply resonated with the girls.

The start of this Girl's Night did not go as planned either. I returned from Zone (the middle years YFC program) around 5:45, and was extremely rushed to collect props, activities, and snacks for our “High Tea and Waffle bowl” themed tea party we planned for the hour before. This idea was derived from another conversation with two of the girls who shared discomfort in their relationship with their identities, particularly in how they dressed. Both presented themselves more masculine and it had become part of the strain in their home relationships. The conversation was simply not one I could speak towards (nor do I believe many Hutterite could) so I simply listened, and prayed for a way to reach them in this fear and confusion. I felt the Lord place it on my heart to do something about this. So when the volunteer dieneh thought of our own tween years and dress-up tea parties, While C and I were piling our Regency-era-dress-up’s I had collected for the evening, we discussed the situation, "Why force them into dress up they are not comfortable in?" and "How else do you show someone that how they dress is not who they are, than to imitate it ourselves?" We decided to join the girls in wear frilly dresses and suit jackets with top hats and speaking in silly accents to show that we all play characters, but the truth of us is only God's to reveal.

Anyways, while running late, I lost my Drop-in key. The parents were already at the Drop-in and I debated cancelling due to my lack of key and not wanting to call my supervisor for this since I had only gotten it two weeks previously. But our community dieneh stepped in where I hesitated, rounded up the girls for a game outside and joining them in one of the parents cars while I tracked down another volunteer’s key. 15 minutes behind schedule, we opened the Drop-in and set up our tea party. While we had a sense of satisfaction with the evening -with the reactions fo the girls, their giggling and excitement over the blazer and top hats, and the others girls squeals over the regency gowns made by C- we didn't know "what" exactly had taken place, nor if it had been the right call.

At our next meeting, my supervisors asked me in great detail about this particular Drop-in day, and coming off of the failure of the one before, the late start, the dolling out of my presentation time, and uncertainty about the costume idea- I was very self concious. However, I gave them the details: I told them about A and H's reactions to the suits, which they gleefully dawned and did not take off until closing. How they thanked us and asked when we would do it again. About the light that shone from E's eyes as our dieneh told each of them "God deliberately and intentionally made a little girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, who loves to dance and doesn't love school and is small and sweet. "You, are made exactly as God intended," speaking directly into her doubt, anxiety, and lacking self-confidence.

When I finished by retelling about C's God Talk on having an Identity formed in Christ, I saw the Drop-in directer with tears in his eyes. I was shocked, and what he said stuck with me. “Alisia, what you all did is what you were hired for. The gospel isn’t complicated. You girls saw particular needs and pain in the world's of these girls, and you found a way to make it a little less, even if only for a while. You are called to love, and love is to notice." I want to also note that our relationship with the Directors at the centre has been instrumental in our growth in faith and commitment, because of their wisdom, insight and gentle discipling through conversations, guidance, or even handing us a book and saying "read it and let me know what you think."

This event has come to mark the turning point for me, and also for our colony's young people group. We are in a committed exercise of Love. When anyone asks what it is we do at the Drop-in, it is that we simply love. We set ourselves aside for a few hours and hear a bunch of children speak about anything and everything, and then, we pray and ask for courage to perhaps, if necessary, share about the only person who can take away the fears, doubts, hurt and pain so evident in their young lives. As for me, I think of what John the Baptist says: "He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30)." We are learning to be less of ourselves. I must continue to, especially as a leader, simply observe and see where my volunteers and my drop-in girl’s needs and strengths mix. It has almost nothing to do with me and everything to do with Christ. How much of myself am I willing to give up is what ultimately will build the qualities we hope to improve.

The Final goal was an offshoot, and not so much worked towards deliberately, but came to fruition second-hand. This goal targeted the need I felt for our youth group at home to not only participate in volunteering with me, but also for my whole colony to see how their support was part of the mission as well: To deepen and increase the ties and relationship between Oak Bluff and Morris YFC Drop-in, through  maintaining a consistent volunteer group, meal preparation, and activities beyond the regular programming, such as presenting God Talks and deeper relationships with staff and Morris residents.

I watched this goal come about on its own without much impact from myself. While some youth on our colony had to be chased down and forced to fill out their applications and onto the vehicle the first few Drop-in’s, soon I watched them connect with volunteers, such as those of a similar age to us, like K, Q, and A. I didn’t understand how far we had grown in this capacity until We invited all the Morris volunteers out to the colony for a supper, and then an evening of sharing about the drop in with the community, what it has meant for us, and how we have seen God moving. Part of me was nervous. Partly because of my role in its initiation, I felt a deep need to "impress" my community with our "success," to "convince" our crowd that it was important. How stupid of me.

Half way through the evening, a revelation struck me and quickly dispelled this notion as well. Perhaps it was when M shared how the Zone God Talks had convicted her to read the bible again with a childlike-delight, like those kids at zone who are hearing them for the first time. Or how E said "I thought I would be ministering, but I was the one ministered to." Or How S shared how the evenings and our inability to prepare our answers for these kids, because we never know what they will say, taught her to listen to the Lord's leading. Or perhaps when C shared how our prayer at opening and closing- learning to set aside our self consciousness and speak to God in front of the other volunteers, has transformed us to appreciate vulnerability. Or when Q and K, our Morris volunteer friends, shared about their own days as youth at the YFC, and they couldn't finish, because we all had tears in our eyes and the words stuck in their throats as well, but we all understood.

I realized this: this was far beyond me. Whatever impression I hoped to leave had paled in comparison to what God was revealing here. The image painted by each young person's witness was one of a changed life- of a Drop in just 10 minutes from our colony that in only a short 6 months had been instrumental and strategically placed, waited for, prayed for, and discovered in order that God could begin something new in our young people. Something was burning; Something was on fire and the little flame I had come to the meet with was embarrasingly small to the bright light of simple testimony of God's work, Not ours. That while we believe perhaps we are "giving" - it is not a charity. The Gospel is far greater than our often too small image of the church and our great commission. Because we too are transformed daily, and not simply the poor and lost Other we think we are witnessing to. It is an all-encompassing thing. We were not prepared for how making ourselves available meant that we were saying yes to God reshaping Every. Aspect. of our lives, of our relationships, mindset, G'ma, and outlook on His church.

It is my conviction that every time we assume that our call is to try and convert or change the Other, the Stranger, the "englisha" outside of the confines of our little isolated churches, and we approach with entirely only the idea that we have something to give them, and that nothing will be exchanged for us to learn, we are actually fundamentally failing to Worship God and see his Image in these individuals, which they bare as clearly as we ourselves.

The truth is in the revealing and exposing power of God's love. While we saw and heard and felt things that we couldn't yet share, what was far truer for all of us was that Love- the love we offered to the children returned in full force. We had found a community of believers in Morris! Beautiful volunteers, their families, the parents of the children at the drop in who were also believers, and all were learning from one another. I think of Q in particular, who connected with some of our young people who encouraged him to give his testimony, which he would only do if they were all there to support him. We were and it was beautiful and moving and powerful. Afterwards we hugged him, gathering around him to encourage, and prayed in gratitude that Q had been so brave. Moreover, the relationships with parents developed with time as well. H's mom comes into the Drop-in on Girls Night to say hi every time, embarrassing her daughter as she snatches some snacks and thanks us for this opportunity for her daughter. One comment that stuck with me was early on, was when she said, “I am so glad you girls are doing this. Morris needs more youth programming, but I didn’t even know Hutterites were Christian.” This stung, and I shared it with my prediger who retold it in the Sunday service: Where is our witness if our neighbour's in the town 5 minutes away do not see Christ in us? But then again, how could they if we maintain a separatist approach to witness, and never talk to them about our shared heavenly father? How will we ever know the likeminded believers with so much to teach us just a town over?

But this too is changing. This was growing, and we were learning- are learning, and are changing because Love is never a singular exchange. Both people are altered in a relationship. Something alive, something breathed with the breath of Christ will grow and we can do nothing to stop it.

* * *

Turning now to reflect on other aspects of this placement, I came in contact with YFC Morris through a degree requirement to graduate from CMU with my Undergraduate degree. Earlier I talked about our seperatist mindset when it comes to mission. Going far beyond merely the Hutterite relationship/outlook on mission, this mindset is inherent in all of us and is part of what holds us back from greater and deeper purposes God might have in store for us.

Interactions and specific conversations and programming at the Drop-in reshaped my perception of the concept of “mission.” A mission is not something you turn off at the end of the day. I do not go out to "do mission," instead there is only ever one singular mission, and that. is Christ's Great Commission to all believers. In Ephesians 2 Paul writes, "For we are God's masterpiece [handiwork], created in Christ Jesus to do good work, which God prepared in advance for us to do (2:10, NIV). It is a way of life, a life-goal set forth through our new identity in Christ. Mission continues, expands, grows and is animated by God's spirit within us to empower us to live out this purpose in every aspect of my life.

However, I see the isolationistic and separatist mindset that many of us have not only in out outlook on "die Wilt" but also on our personal time, interests, hobbies, and actions which are set aside for specific times, rather than fully surrendered. It was obvious in my own behaviour with my approach to my degree early on: I entered university with a self-defined goal rather a kingdom building vision for the degree I set out to achieve. Thus, I often rattled off a response, “My community is paying for my tuition so that after I complete my degree I can teach at our local school.” This is a goal and it might even be a noble goal, but it is not an all encompassing mission- it is not the good work prepared in advance, but here i was defined by this partial seperatist identity. I go to school and then I come home. The events are separated in my mind and when I return exhausted from a 12-hour day on campus I am finished with my “fair share” of service. I have given enough of my time to justify “me time” – relax on my phone, maybe go for a run, maybe play a board game with some friends. And I thought I was filling myself up to empty myself again. This is exhausting and unsustainable, and neither is it how God intended his children to exist.

Followers of Christ forget that our partial, reluctant, and sectioned times of service are not the model we are given in Christ:

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing.

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8, NIV)

It is only after Christ’s complete kenotic emptying that the Father is fully revealed, glorified, and therefore exalted (Philippians 2:9-11 NIV), thus exalting the Son, signaled with the event of Pentecost through recieving the Holy Spirit. If the Great Commission of Christ is to go out into all the world to proclaim the gospel, heal the sick, cast out all evil spirits, and raise the dead (Matthew 10:8 NIV), then where are we given permission to stop giving of ourselves? It is not an option! If we are to imitate Christ, how can we forget that his very nature became a servant. He didn't just act "servant-like" when he chose, but his very nature- his human identity was one of service to others, in obedience to his Father. Yet here we are so often, Instead stopping our surrender to God halfway which is no surrender at all.

At Pentecost Peter understands the fulfilment of the promise of a spiritual helper- a sign that Jesus has been exalted by the Father- through the words of the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people,’” recalling the signs of this event through prophecy, dreams, signs, boldness, and above all, that ‘all who call on the Lord are saved’ (Acts 2:16-21, NIV). It is poured out on those to hear the Words and then ask and believe. We no longer ask and believe, instead merrily go on in partial completion and incomplete surrender and are stunted servants. Service to Christ – “mission” is not a partial leaving behind or a set time of day we set aside for God to use us, it is an entire disruption of life modes and patterns. It is a letting go of all our time to make entirely time for the other. Only then is the Father completely exalted.

Thus, Drop-in, or any other form of evangelism we practice cannot become a scheduled or sectioned jumping onto a vehicle. It must carry over into our daily lives, it must be our purpose and identity. Youth For Christ exemplifies this through its mandatory assessment of all regular volunteers, holding them to a particular lifestyle and purity, especially if they are to witness to youth. There is a tremendous and open mission field for communities throughout Manitoba, precisely because the churches in rural settings are struggling with half-hearted and partial surrender as well.

In conversations with YFC Drop-in directors from Winnipeg, Portage, Carman, Stonewall, McGregor, and more, I was made of aware. of an alarming fact: these Drop-ins are spread thin, limiting attendance, and exhausted because they are understaffed. "Yes, Christian young people still come to volunteer, " noted one director. "But time and time again I have to turn them away. this generation of young believers cannot sign our declarations of faith." These forms, required of every volunteer candidate, include a written testimony, along with the signing of a document that states that you hold to a lifestyle that reflects convictions on purity, the sanctity of Marriage, the place of 2 clear and created genders, and more. This Director went on, "We need the Hutterite Church too. They are among the last pockets of Christians in North America that raise young people to hold on to these biblical and traditional values of family and faith. YFC will not compromise its documents and statements of faith, but we are suffering for it. We desperately need community volunteers."

* * *

I also see the Spirit of God poured out and overflowing as it impacts those around me. J, one of the dieneh on our community, inspired by the Drop-in’s Girl’s Night have begun a Girl’s Night with the girls here on the colony, following the same program. One. of our senior women, L, started a ladies night following an online discipleship program to increase fellowship in our own communal circles too. Other communities are looking into local centres and asking about opportunities they could participate in and, God willing, this may catch on to others as well.

For myself, I see how my view of my goals and mission have changed. Before it was a rigid goal of "teaching." 2 years ago, if anyone had threatened this goal I would have been devastated. It was my identity. It was my isolated and rigid goal, with no room for movement and change in myself. Yet this changed. This knowledge was limited when I held on to the clear-cut path I or others had marked out for me. But God has called us to a newness and fullness of life in him, where we give up those goals, and he reshapes them into something far more glorious.

* * *

Think of our own Identities: is it something we do? something we hold on to and are afraid to let go? Is it something in our cultural practice? What about Language? Pride? Something else? What are we so afraid to lose? I ask this -and could be wrong- but what if all of this is the baggage that is seperating us, isolating us, and slowly crushing us, preventing the Hutterian church from fully reaching its potential to witness and reach a desperate world? To reach hearts inside our very communities! What are we ready to surrender to be fully filled and changed? Are we ready to lose it all and take on that very nature of servants, who hold on to nothing, but instead have an entire identity defined by their obedience to their Master.

Overall, I see hope. Girl’s Night goes on. We make supper for Supper club once a month. I have a weekend training program with my supervisors in two weeks. It is all continuing and is far greater than anything I hoped was possible. The paradox of the gospels is that we are exulted only after we surrender. The Father lifted up the Son only after the Son didn’t see equality with the Father as something to take advantage of, instead making himself nothing in obedience to the Father. Growth takes place only after the seed has died. But the growth that bears fruit is not only outwards and an increase of individuals, but a deepening of roots in ways Oak Bluff probably did not believe possible a few months ago.

Youth For Christ is one mission field, one small avenue of change and a call to greater and more mission from our community, but also yours. To transform our lifestyles from complacency and privatized time and service into a transformed life in Christ. Service -gelassenheit- will become our breath through the strength of the Holy Spirit with time. I trust communities are structured in such a way that I have hope that once God breaths on old structures and dry bones of 500-year-old systems built for mission, they will come to life once again.

May 15, 2024

Alisia Maendel

Oak Bluff Colony