Speaker suggests leaving comfort zone for Lent

by Alice E. Gerard
Grand Island Dispatch, March 7, 2008

For many people, eating familiar foods, seeing recognizable faces, and following a usual route to work, shopping or school are parts of existing in their comfort zone. This familiarity tends to reduce stress and to help people feel relaxed in their day-to-day lives.

Leaving that comfort zone can create stress and anxiety. Examples of leaving the comfort zone could range from tasting new foods to having to communicate in a country where no one speaks your language.

At Wednesday’s Lenten luncheon at Trinity United Methodist Church, Robyn Krueger, executive director of Community Missions of Niagara Frontier Inc., of Niagara Falls, encouraged the approximately 100 persons who attended to use their Lenten journey as an opportunity to go outside of their comfort zone.

“Taking things on and being in an uncomfortable position is talking about the journey that Christ took and the sacrifice that he made for us when he died on the cross,” Krueger said.

Krueger described the work done at Community Missions as outside the comfort zone. “Our community kitchen serves approximately 65,000 meals a year. The majority of individuals are people that no one else wants in their programs, no one else wants in their towns, no one else wants in their buildings. And all because of whatever label we’ve placed on them: the homeless, the mentally ill. ‘We’d help those people but they’re dangerous.’ ‘I don’t want to tell those homeless people that they smell, they don’t take baths, and they don’t eat right.’ And all of those kinds of things are what we hear on a daily basis, not only from people who come to help but also from other people who are eating alongside these people.”

An agency can serve homeless people best by understanding how they think, Krueger said. She described the reaction that a member of Community Mission’s board of directors had to the news that a homeless shelter is being planned for Lockport. “That’s going to take our business away,” the board member said. Krueger explained that won’t happen. “Homeless people on the eastern end of the county don’t want to come to Niagara Falls. Her response was, ‘If I didn’t have a place to stay, I’d travel to Niagara Falls.’ And I said, ‘No, not if you thought like a homeless person. That’s their comfort zone. Regardless of the fact that they may not have a place to stay or to eat, they don’t want to come to Niagara Falls. That’s the big city.’ ”

Community Missions has had many years of experience in understanding the thinking of homeless persons, Krueger said. It was started in 1925, as a response to the revival meetings held in September and October of 1923 with the traveling evangelist Billy Sunday. In the 1920s, the homeless population tended to be hoboes who were kicked off of trains just before entering Canada. “In that era, the only way to be saved was to come to the mission, have a bowl of soup, and say a prayer. That would take care of all of your homeless issues, all of your problems, everything,” Krueger said.

In later years, there were fewer hoboes needing the services of Community Missions. Niagara Falls still had a homeless population that needed emergency services, however. “Over the course of time, we discovered, gee, maybe that’s not all there is. We began to develop services around the homeless population, who were beginning to gather again, this time, around the closure of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and for families who were unable to take care of individuals who had returned to the area. So, the agency needed to take on a different focus.”

From its start as a mission that helped people with crisis services, Community Missions grew into the agency that it is today. It now has four main divisions: crisis and community services, youth services, adult residential services, and adult community support services. “We are a very large, multi-service organization that receives funding from different funding streams. I am pleased to say that our agency overhead is quite low. Eighty-eight cents of every dollar goes directly to service, with overhead being 12 percent or less,” Krueger said.

“During your Lenten journey, step outside of your comfort zone,” Krueger said. “I’m not saying that all of you have to come to Community Missions and serve in the soup kitchen or deal with homeless individuals. Approach somebody that you see and don’t know well, if you see that they’re having a hard time and ask if there is something that you can do. For some people, that’s very easy. For other people, that would be a major step outside of their comfort zone.”

“Lent is a time of sacrifice, a time of thought, and a time of reflection. Just think about standing outside of your comfort zone and see where that gets you on the joyful Easter morning,” Krueger said.

The luncheon was hosted by St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The Rev. Mary Anne Nelson-Loefke said that St. Timothy has adopted Community Missions as one of its missions. She added that the agency’s “Crisis Services is funded primarily through donations, which includes the shelter, clothes closet, food pantry, and community kitchen.” It is never over funded, she added, inviting other individuals and congregations to join the efforts of St. Timothy Lutheran Church in supporting Community Missions.

The next Lenten Luncheon, scheduled for noon, March 12, at Trinity United Methodist Church, 2100 Whitehaven Road, will be the last in the series. The speaker will be Dominic Ding, one of the lost boys of Sudan, who will share the ultimate survival adventure. The meal and the speaker will be provided by Trinity United Methodist Church.