Hey all,
Just got an email from Chris Smith of Doulos Christou Press in Indianapolis. It’s the story of a member of the community who’s given most all his possessions away and lives as a full time volunteer.
If you know folks like this in your community, let us know!

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Jamie–

Hope that the tour is going well and that you’re staying sane!

Kyle came around for our church dinner on Wednesday, and I had him walk me through his story. This morning, I had a chance to write up the conversation.

Peace,
Chris

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Six months ago Kyle Schlenz had a decent job and was living on his own in an apartment, with all the typical stuff that a twenty-something guy enjoys: video games, movies, etc. Kyle had dropped out of college a couple of years earlier on the realization that his degree in English would not offer him many opportunities to eliminate the debt that he would build up. Such a debt, he believed, would be like “promising years of his future,” committing him to focus his life on paying off the money he owed. So, he set himself to working a variety of jobs. Having grown up in a fundamentalist church and having more recently felt compelled to deconstruct those religious roots, Kyle wrestled to understand what the shape of his faith would look like in this new, independent phase of his life. However, he had found a new church home that offered him the freedom to question and wrestle with challenging issues. At the same time, he was reading the Gospels, especially Jesus’s teachings on wealth and poverty, and had a nagging sense that he was only building up his own kingdom. Stories of gross poverty from around the world helped him to realize that despite his modest means, he was – as an American – very wealthy. It seemed to him that the church of his youth, and many other Christians, were quick to dismiss or explain away the Gospel teachings about wealth. Over several months, God used these troubling realizations to lead Kyle to relinquish control of his possessions and indeed his life. He sold or gave away everything he owned, except for a few odds and ends that would fit in his pickup truck. He finished out the lease on his apartment and decided that for now his truck would be his home. He had a strong sense that his church would help him with any needs as he followed the call of Jesus in this way.

Today, Kyle serves his church in urban Indianapolis for no pay, doing whatever needs to be done; he helps with the church’s tutoring efforts, and with their work of providing affordable housing. In the urban people that he works with, Kyle has seen profoundly that a primary factor in homelessness is an individual’s isolation and thus the lack of an adequate “support system.” Thus, even though he lives out of his truck now, he does not consider himself homeless, and he is deeply grateful for God’s abundant provision for his needs through the church. He has had people offer to help support him, without his even asking. He is being mentored by the church’s pastor and he has a passion to connect people in his church that have resources with those who have needs that such resources could fill.

This is a new adventure for Kyle, and he realizes that challenges will come his way as he continues down this road. He will soon have to take on some part-time work to meet his needs, but those needs are much fewer than they were six months ago. But in the face of uncertainty, Kyle reads the scriptures, thanks God for the ways in which he has already been provided for and trusts unswervingly that God will continue to use the church to meet his needs.

1. m tedeschi, June 28, 2008:

   Beautiful display of deep love deep change and a way that is unseen.

2. eliacin, July 2, 2008:

   Kyle introduced me to the amazing looking quadline skates at the Goshen In Everything Must Change conference in May.

   Good to read more of his story here.

   Paz y esperanza,
   Eliacin