YouthWorks Summer, Mr. Bill and Me

I’ll never forget walking in that day. In one hand I was grasping optimism, excitement and joy for my first service partner meeting. In the other – fear, confusion and doubt about walking through a second YouthWorks summer.

 

I gave Mr. Bill a quick phone call to let him know I had arrived outside the church. He came out with the biggest smile on his face and a large chuckle after seeing me in my soaked rain jacket and hood over my head as the rain came down relentlessly. He grabbed hold of my elbow and pointed me towards the Allison Hill Community Ministry door.

 

As I stepped inside, the noise and movement overwhelmed me. Men, women and children were spread throughout the small room. Two women sat on folding chairs by the far wall, a couple men were going up and down the stairs carrying bags, and small children were running around tables and chairs playing tag and shouting back and forth. The women carried on in Spanish, laughing and shaking their fists and throwing their heads back in emotion. The children cackled and spoke in Spanish. Then, the phone rang loud and long. Mr. Bill motioned me to one of the four long card tables in the room as he excused himself to answer the phone in his office.

 

I felt like the centerpiece of the room. As I slid my laptop out from my soaked backpack and placed it on the table in front of me and opened my service partner interview questions, I could feel the eyes of the room on me.

 

“Alright, sorry about that!” Mr. Bill exclaimed as he stumbled back out of his office and pulled up a folding chair to the table.

 

As we began discussing the history of Allison Hill and the vast amount of poverty surrounding this area, my heart began to break. Mr. Bill mentioned that this area was deemed the “poverty pocket” of Harrisburg and spoke of the many children he had seen come through this program and grow in incredible ways.

 

“It’s all about nurturing; that’s what we’re doing here,” he told me.

 

And that was so evident in this man’s love towards others. Even while we were talking, men and women from the community began to appear by his side. They would stand there, silently, and smile at him.

 

“What can I do for you?” he would ask them.

 

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to see you,” or “I just wanted to say hi.”

 

I couldn’t help but picture the love of the Father in that moment. As followers, all we ever desire is to be in the presence of our sweet Savior. We crave His presence. We desire to simply rest with Him. We are drawn to His spirit.
Two hours later, I was standing by the door on my way out, when Mr. Bill smiled and said, “You’re wonderful, Rachel.”

 

I can’t begin to explain to you the love and the peace that I began to feel over my summer in that moment. After just two short hours with this sweet soul, I had loosened its grasp on fear, doubt and worry, and grasped hold of the optimism, joy and excitement for the journey ahead.

 

 

Over the next weeks I would visit Allison Hill Community Ministry each Monday to get the ball rolling for the week’s new participants and adult leaders, and then I would head out to other service sites. Then, slowly, as the summer continued, I found myself gravitating towards this ministry and this wonderful man. I stopped by on my lunch breaks, sat on the steps outside of the ministry on my 45-minute breaks, and stop by on distribution days when I would enter in through the back door and sit down beside Mr. Bill as he directed people to the resources they needed. I never needed to explain why I was there; he simply would smile at me and say, “It’s good to see you, dear.”

 

It soon became abnormal for me to go longer than a day without visiting sweet Mr. Bill. We’d grown a deep bond and love for one another. My fellow staff said we were “kindred spirits.”

 

One time, Mr. Bill told me, “You could take a man living in the slums of Liberia or the president of the United States or the biggest CEO of a company – each one has the same dignity and the same worth, and we have to treat them that way.” He taught me that regardless of who a person is, where they came from, and what situation they find themselves in – they have worth! Rather than seeing the poor through a lens of “poor you,” Mr. Bill gave me the ability to see every man, poor or not, through the lens of “Jesus in you.”

 

Another time, when Mr. Bill and his wife brought me to Applebee’s, I quickly chose the cheapest option I could find – soup. But when I ordered, Mr. Bill interrupted: “Now, we’re not getting any soup. You have to choose an actual meal. This is a special time.” I sat there at that table and felt the love of Jesus spilling from every corner of that moment. Not only had Mr. Bill let me see Jesus in others, but he had shown me Jesus in himself daily.

 

 

And then, the summer started to come to a close.

 

I went to Allison Hill Community Ministry for the last time with a deep knot in my throat and stomach. I looked around and really saw – saw the playing cards spread on the table… saw the pictures drawn from the children strewn across the walls… saw 7-year-old Joceline’s sweet smile and her eyebrows frown as she laughed and joked, “Miss Rachel, I’m calling the police on you again!” I saw simple joy.

 

Mr. Bill noticed I had been dragging throughout the day. And he gave me another bear hug and told me, “Now, promise me you won’t leave this place without saying goodbye.”

 

Holding back tears, I smiled and said, “Promise.”

 

Leaving that day, I saw the impact this man Mr. Bill had made on my life.

 

Then it was the Saturday before our team headed out. I pulled up to Mr. Bill’s house around 2:15 in the afternoon and found him sitting on the patio, flipping through the YouthWorks Devo Journal I had given him that week. He set it down and looked up with joy as I sat down on the patio.

 

We talked about anything and everything. About how the summer had changed me. About how Harrisburg had stretched me. About how my staff had impacted me. About my life I was walking back into in just a few short days.

 

And then, we talked about how God had blessed each of us with each other.

 

I told Mr. Bill the story of how I had never really had a mentor stick with me throughout my life. I have had people come and leave. I told him that I was eternally grateful for the wonderful mentor and friend he had become to me this summer. I told him how fearful I had been coming into a second YouthWorks summer. I tried to convey to him the impact he had had on my life. And I tried to do it without bubbling over with tears.

 

“You know what this sounds like?” he murmured.

 

“What?” I asked.

 

“The story of Saul. Saul was blinded by the Lord. And the Lord said to him, ‘Go to this city.’ Saul had no idea where he was going or why he was going there. He simply had a strong call by the Lord to head that way, blindly. This was you – you were called back to this journey of YouthWorks. You weren’t exactly sure why, and you weren’t sure of where he was going to place you. You were Saul, being sent to Harrisburg.”

 

“And then, Jesus told Anias, ‘Go and meet Saul in the city. Take good care of him.’”

 

“I was your Anias. God sent me to be present with you,” he said.

 

Cue tears on tears.

 

We hugged, and cried some more.

 

Realizing it had reached well past five in the evening, we began to walk toward my car. He picked up the fruit and vegetables he had picked for me that day and set it in the seat beside me.

 

“This is hard,” he laughed. “You know, we just have the rest of our lives, right?”

 

 

To this day, each Saturday, Mr. Bill and I talk on the phone. We laugh together, share stories of our crazy lives, and reflect on the goodness of the Lord. To say that Mr. Bill changed my life – and continues to change my life – is a terrible understatement. Each Saturday brings me new wisdom, new joy and new realizations of the goodness of the Lord.

 

I know it is cliché. I know it is said a lot. But I mean it when I say that YouthWorks truly is more than just a summer. I look back on my second YouthWorks summer and I see exactly, in clear vision, the beautiful hand of the Lord in placing me with such an intentional and loving service partner, mentor and friend.