Jared Woods - STUMP 2009

STUMP...Where to begin? 

Well STUMP is a short term urban mission project run at Streetlevel by the Salvation Army.  It takes a group of young people, puts them in a totally foreign environment, so that they can be broken and changed.  It challenges them to do things that they never thought they could or would ever do.  It humbles them into believing that others are more important than themselves. Here's a day in the life at STUMP and even a conclusion to boot!

Day 4 - Wednesday

Had a better sleep, though not the greatest. Today the men and women were separated. The women went to do some work at Samaritan House (homeless women's refuge). This involved painting the chapel and getting high on paint fumes! haha! They also connected with the community members. The men on the other hand had a different day. We started our day by meeting up with Tim from Hope Street at Wayside Chapel. He was leading a group of High School students around the city, showing them where all the services for homelessness are and a couple of other little things. They had already started when we joined them. We then hung out with Tim back at Hope Street. We had coffee with him and just listened to his story. This was interesting as it allowed us a place to connect.  He then led us back to Crown Street and we made our way back home. The boys, except for me, thought it would be exciting to dance up Crown Street to Michael Jackson and the Bee Gees. This was thoroughly embarrassing. When we got back we had some lunch. Then we went with Robbin to visit John at his house. This was really cool as we got to see Robbin in action. We also shared some things with John and we prayed with him at the end. We got back at about 4pm ish.  With four hours to wait till our next event, it was a good time to just relax.

At about 8pm we got ready to go on our night walk. Nathan took us on a thorough tour of the city. We got back at 1:30am! It was really good to see all the areas that people don't often see when they go to the city. Our first stop was near St Mary's Cathedral to get some dinner. We only missed the van by about 5-10 mins. We saw it leaving. Then a homeless man named Floyd led us up the stairs, where there was a group of schoolgirls from Mercy College giving out free coffee, hot chocolate, pizza and biscuits. Unfortunately we'd missed the pizza! There was also a band about to play. Floyd was excited to hear them. He told a few of us a bit about himself. We got to watch a bit of the State of Origin (football) in Wooloomooloo, as a couple from The Salvation Army had set up two tv's. There were about 20-30 people in front of the tv's and about another 60 in the adjacent area. IT was crazy to visit these areas where there was a high concentration of homelessness. It was interesting walking through Kings Cross and Oxford Street. We got some dinner at the Wall.  They had a few food vans a long this area, including a place where people can get a safe sex pack and free needles.  We got introduced to the people that run this. The Wall is an area where there used to be a lot of male prostitution back in the day. It has gone a lot more underground now, but there are still a lot of homeless people there. Some very interesting characters! We got to see the legal injecting centre then we went to the base of SOS, which is an outreach service. This is where Nathan used to work. He told us a story about a lady that knew his mother.  It was a crazy coincidence that they should meet.  No more than twenty minutes later, but who should we run into, but this lady! It was quite insane. The last half an hour of th walk we spent homeless. We were all separated, with no mobiles, iPods or wallets. It was a simulation of what it would be like to live on the streets. Wednesday was a massive day and we were all massively challenged by what we saw on this day.

Conclusion

As you can see, STUMP involved many things.  Some much stuff happened within this short week that, at times and due to lack of sleep, it was hard to process.  I didn't realise the impact that it had on me until I got home and started recalling the things that had happened. So many challenging points. Here are a few of what I consider the most life changing and barrier breaking things that happened to me.

- STUMP opened my eyes to the injustice that is within our own city of Sydney, Australia. Even though Sydney is one of the wealthiest and well off cities in one of the most developed countries, there is still this injustice that happens.It blew me away that so many people are living on the streets, a lot of them using substances to cope. How can people be so ignorant? I know I used to walk past people passed out and judge them. Now I look to see if they are okay. Who knows, they could be dead or unconscious and no one would care ...

- Another change was that a few barriers were broken down.For example, when we were cleaning the house this fully challenged me. I am messy but I am clean. This house was so dirty, but apparently it wasn't even that bad. This challenged me, and also humbled me. We are called to do these things to love people, but until we actually do them, we don't realise how impacting they are.This definitely broke down a barrier for me.

- Just talking with people. I was able to open up with community members.Living with seven other people for a week was, at sometimes, a challenge. Luckily we all got along really well. Same heart, same vision, bad sentence structure. I also got to connect with a guy I used to go to school with.I know this is a simple thing, but my total approach to people and hanging out with people has changed.

I hope this has somewhat encouraged and challenged you.  To really understand what happened though, you have to have done STUMP for yourself.

Tags: homelessness, house, impact, injustice, justice, mission, salvation-army