My name is Nicolas, I am on the street

My name is Nicolas

I am on the street

I need clean socks

www.ilsmontlavelespieds.be

Perhaps there is nothing more affronting to our sense of human dignity than to see people living on the street asking for money.  Who are they?  Why are they there?  What do they need?  Would they like to get off the street?  What do I do?

Serve the City’s answer is to move towards them with compassion and the willingness to be in relationship.  This starts by learning their names and offering to serve with gentleness and respect.  The rest grows from there.

Last summer, under the leadership of Cathy Zeroug and Ruth Geuze, a Serve the City team spent time with people living on the street and offered to wash their feet.  Here is their story:

Serve the City: How many feet did you wash?
Ruth: Together with Cathy and Steve we washed about 8 feet and talked to even more people on the street.

Serve the City: What was the before and after effect?  What did they say?
Ruth: We started the idea by telling about how we could serve people by help them to relax by a massage. I told Steve we might needed some products and if possible Fair Trade Community products (because those products support third world communities to build up their own economy) so he went to Body Shop and got some free samples. Then we pointed out that Jesus actually gives his disciples the task to wash each others feet and It felt as if this was the right thing to do for us.  So we humbled ourselves by starting to wash and take care of the feet of homeless fellows on the street. We listened to their stories and how they had ended up on the street and what happened in their lives that they would rather live on the street than have a ‘normal’ life. Some were sick, some had just been out of luck and most of them had actually chosen this kind of life by themselves. One man told us that he just didn’t fit in the society and he used to be a president of a bank and one day he lost all his money, his job and his family left him and he ended up on the street and just accepted it: he did not really try to get his life back or maybe something had happened in his mental state: I couldn’t say but still it seemed that he was not really unhappy or something living on the street. Others were really hopeless or angry; like one girl who forced us to give her cigarettes before we could even talk with her. Non of us were smokers so we just moved on.

Serve the City: What did others say?
Ruth: Some said it was dirty to wash the feet of people who never wash themselves but most people found it very interesting that we went out there at Gare du Midi and offered footbaths to the homeless. We also had a lot of fun with them of course and making jokes and all. Also the Kamikaze Kindness people were around wiping the streets around the place where we were washing feet. Cathy was talking in French with most of the Brussels homeless guys and just getting to know about their lives.

Serve the City: What was the hardest part about it?
Ruth: I guess the hardest part was that some of them didn’t want to talk with us or were harsh to us; but I guess Jesus says that if they don’t welcome you just shake off the dust and move on to another place.

Serve the City: What was the most rewarding part?
Ruth: When we sat in the park and were just hanging out after our STC- day and were just reading the part from the bible where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and teaches about humility and we felt like we could have done just a little part of it. Some homeless guys were really ashamed to show their naked feet in the beginning because they were dirty and were so surprised and thankful that some people actually came to them to wash them out of free will: they did not expect that at all!

Serve the City: Would you recommend this as a way to serve others?
Ruth: Yes, I think it could be a good experience to meet homeless people and have a look in their world and in the same time take care of them by dealing with their feet; some had real big foot problems and we advised them about how to take care of their feet as it is really important to prevent infection, etc. by good hygiene. So by helping them you also feel like your own heart gets a ‘ foot wash’ and afterwards you feel refreshed and clean to go back to your own life and deal with your own problems in everyday things.