Spending five days in the Tenderloin District, the seediest part of San Francisco, on a mission trip was an eye opener for local teens in more ways than one.
First, Andy Felderman, a 2015 graduate of The Dalles High School, learned how rough some people live. But he said he also learned that those same people are just that: people. And it’s possible to have a normal conversation with them just like you would anybody else.
Carolyn Stone, 17, has gone to San Francisco for three years now through ACTS (Acclaiming Christ Through Sports) a local youth ministry founded by Joe Martin. She’s learned something about herself: that she can strike up a conversation with complete strangers, and ask meaningful questions. She’s taken that skill back home with her.
And that’s one of the goals of the mission, Martin said. It’s not only about doing what a group of 29 can do in five days in San Francisco, but taking those lessons home and applying them here.
Martin has taken groups of teens to San Francisco for five years now. He was feeling in his heart that he should go to San Francisco when a postcard arrived from City Impact, a mission in that city.
He’d glanced at the postcard he’s just recevied on his way to a meeting of youth pastors. There, he asked them what missions they’d recommend, and one of them said, “City Impact.”
Martin felt it was clear direction from God, and he has heeded it ever since. This year’s trip was from Aug. 1-8.
Stone said the mission work also provides a perspective jolt, especially when she sees people who have overcome addiction and are leading productive lives.
“If God can bring these people up out of a life on the streets, it gives you hope that God can bring you out of your situation at home, with friends, with myself,” said Stone.
When Felderman first arrived in the Tenderloin, the first thing he noticed was the smell. It was unpleasant and unexpected.
Martin said, “It’s not near as bad as Third World countries, but it is bad.” You need to pay attention when you walk around to not only avoid scuffles — Stone got caught in one briefly — but also piles of human excrement.
Stone was visiting with a man when two other men nearby started a shoving match over a drug deal. She got bumped into, and a buddy quickly moved her to safety.
The Tenderloin is a square mile of dense housing – mostly former hotels – and street living that is home to 37,000 souls. Some are born there and live out their lives there. Others land there from addiction or mental illness or both. City Impact provides food, schooling, healthcare and a chance to hear about the Gospel.
The missionaries from The Dalles would work all day for City Impact —preparing and delivering food, readying spaces for church services, or cleaning buildings — and then at night, they’d hit the streets for some street ministry.
They’d work in small, unintimidating groups, but still all in close proximity to one another, said Martin, who keeps a very close watch on his charges. It’s a mistake to think the streets aren’t dangerous, he said.
Felderman said they’d have a bigger guy bring up the rear, and pair girls with boys.
It’s common to see people shooting up drugs, barfing or defecating. They know to stay away from the zoned out people, but there are plenty of alert ones who seem approachable. A key is looking for eye contact as to whether someone is open to a stranger walking up to them, Stone said.
If they are, they don’t hit them with Bible verses, they just ask them how they’re doing, Felderman said.
The goal was to talk about the Gospel, but it didn’t always head that way, he said.
He realized the importance of just giving attention to someone who has “gone all day without having anyone acknowledge them.”
He personally didn’t see anyone choose to follow Christ, but some people in their group did. One missionary recounted to Felderman the intense 90-minute conversation he had with an interested person. “He said, ‘I feel like I summed up the whole Bible in that hour and a half conversation.’”
His first night, he saw a young couple with high hopes of leaving the Tenderloin. Just a few nights earlier, they had both been beat up. “They were really eager to be prayed for.”
The missionaries had care packages made by the Calvary Baptist Vacation Bible School. They included food, and that made them popular.
Food isn’t necessarily scarce in the Tenderloin —a person could get up to seven free hot meals a day if they knew where to look — but when it’s readily available, it draws interest, Stone said. “People are more than willing to take the free bags and stuff.”
Felderman learned that the most important thing he could do was listen to people’s stories.
Topics include “where they came from, their family, what they like to do, just a normal conversation you’d have with anybody.”
Felderman said, “I would say that what impacted me the most was seeing how much hope people living in the Tenderloin had when they were living in hopeless situations. That was really inspiring to me.”
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