Frazier Blog

On Friday night I went to downtown Portland to help serve with Nightstrike, a event hosted by Bridgetown Ministries. Nightstrike is a ministry that seeks to love on the homeless in the Portland area and show them the amazing love that Christ pours into us and out through us. I had an amazing experience serving God and loving on the people of Portland.

I arrived downtown at Liberation Street Church to attend the orientation and then go serve under the Burnside bridge. The orientation started with some worship to prepare our hearts to serve. Then came the meat of the orientation. Finally an orientation that was short and to the point; well done Bridgetown.

God certainly does have a sense of humor. At Nightstrike they have many ways to serve.  People can serve by washing feet, cutting hair, washing hair, distributing clothes, serving food, having great dialogue and many other awesome opportunities. I thought that all of those sounded great, but I had personally decided that I would not wash feet. I told Allie this as I drove downtown and she said “well maybe you should do it then.” But I assured her that I was already getting out of my comfort zone enough by hanging out with people under the Burnside bridge on a Friday night. As the orientation proceeded I felt God telling me, that I would be washing feet. And by the time the staff person took the mic to assign jobs I knew I would be washing feet. Then just to confirm it, the staff member said “Whatever you want to do, don’t do it, do the activity you don’t want to do.” Well that settled it, my role would be washing feet.

As I walked from the Church to the bridge I was with two girls. One of whom had done feet washing before. She assured me that it was not bad, and was a great experience. I said a quick prayer and then we were under the bridge. I made my way over to the foot washing area and listened for instructions. We were shown how to fill the tubs for washing, the flow of the process and what to expect. Now it was time to wash feet.

I put on gloves and walked up to someone waiting by the side and asked if they were waiting to have their feet washed. He said “yes.”  I told him to sit down in the chair. I introduced myself to him and he told me his name was “Mike.” His tub of water arrived and I knelt down to wash his feet.

What an experience. Instantly all my fears, and worries about being disgusted or embarrassed by washing strangers feet washed away. Mike and I had a normal conversation and I learned about his life and his travels around the country and his experience in hurricane Katrina. I finished washing his feet and started to dry them off. He told me about his plans to get a job, now that he had gotten his ID back after his wallet had been stolen. I gave him his new socks and he thanked me and went on his way. Then it was my turn to fill and empty used tubs. And repeat.

Throughout the night, I washed many feet and carried on normal conversations with each person. Many told me of their plans to get back on their feet. One man told me of his plan to get his GED, while another was struggling just to move around with his visibly swollen ankles. I felt that the act of washing their feet showed that I truly cared about them and created a great way to get to know them. You could tell that each person genuinely appreciated the act of service we were providing. Many, if not all remarked how nice it felt to have their feet washed. I was thinking, how weird it would be to not to have access to a shower on a daily basis.

The location of Nightstrike creates an almost surreal environment. It occurs in the same location of Saturday market, right in front of a MAX stop. The stop acts as window between two linked, yet different worlds. I felt transported into Batman begins, in the scene where the Wayne family is riding the Monorail through the city and Bruce’s father is talking about the plight of some in the city. I could see people staring out of the MAX onto the seemingly bizarre scene of people washing the feet of the homeless. For many the scene appears as one from an world seprated from their own, one they see but may never intract with. I could picture myself in the MAX and the countless times I have looked out onto the homeless while I have gone through the city. Myself being in that separate world. In this world there is so much that separates us, but yet we are all created by God and that should matter so much more then what our social class is.  For those brief moments on Friday night, I felt as if I was just having coffee with a friend, or meeting a new person and getting to know them and what is going on in their life. The acts of serivce that were being provided under that bridge cut down the differneces and linked the two worlds and connected the lives of Gods people. I love connecting with new people.

While washing feet I felt the joy of God through serving and loving on this group people. Serving always fills by heart and mind with such happiness. It never fails to amaze me how much serving for the right reasons energizes my life. While I know God is with me always,  in these moments I feel directly connected to God. I felt that being a part of this event truly had shown God’s love to more people in the city of Portland. This is very important to me as I feel that Christians, including my self, need to do way less talking and way more action. This year I have a desire to serve myself less and serve others more. I plan on doing this event again and hope that some of you will join me next time. As I head back to Eugene I hope I will be able to find other ways to serve and most importantly, take the time to do so.

As i have been reading the book of Acts I see the early church preaching , but they were also out in the community serving others. As Marshal the founder of Bridgetown said before we went out into the city “tonight instead of just going to church, we are being the Church.” I think most churches and myself included need to focus less on going to church and work harder on being the church.

Honored to be used by God,

Paul