Entering the New Year

By Jeevan Mathew

Episcopal Service Corps – Maryland

Reflections on Entering the New Year and Project Plase

My time working at Project Plase as part of the Episcopal Service Corps – Maryland has been a rewarding, yet challenging experience so far. I am blessed to be part of a program that provides nurturing spiritual directors and advisors, and a housing environment that gives me the space to learn more about what it means to live in intentional community with wonderful housemates seeking to learn, discern, and serve this year.

Before proceeding, I would like to provide a brief overview of what my responsibilities as an intern with Episcopal Service Corps – Maryland involved with Project Plase entails:

I am serving in the Episcopal Service Corps working for Project Plase in Baltimore. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people in need of ample shelter and employment. Episcopal Service Corps invites men and women in their 20s to work for justice, live in Christian community, grow in leadership, discern life calling, and deepen their faith life.  Project Plase is a housing shelter that offers both transitional housing, and helps clients access permanent housing. We bring hope, restore dignity, and strive end the cycle of homelessness for clients and their families. Our work is a communal effort. My service fellowship is for a year. The program is affiliated with AmeriCorps. My duty is to serve as a housing counselor at Project Plase. I am responsible for conducting room checks, working with clients on their housing needs (whether transitional or permanent), ensuring that I am doing everything in my ability to meet the basic needs of the clients, and helping them access services like employment searches, public benefits, Baltimore housing options, etc., offered by the program.

Furthermore, something that I have been wrestling with this year is what it means to truly serve God and discern my life calling in the context of this service fellowship. To be clear, I have been blessed with all of the resources I need to have a productive and meaningful year. But something I need to work on is to not allow the hecticness of my work, duties at the house, and preparations for next year, interfere with my discernment and spiritual well-being.

As one of my favorite passages of Scripture reads,

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,  they will walk and not be faint.” — Isaiah 40:31

This is a theme that I hope, with God’s help, to be more true to throughout the rest of this service program. Incidentally, it also a meaningful theme for this New Year.

I would like to conclude my reflections by presenting a spiritual challenge that I have encountered as my service work has progressed. Serving at Project Plase has brought into clear focus the sad fact that a great number of people in the city of Baltimore struggle to get by with the basic necessities in life. How can I be a positive influence in this environment, asides from trying my best at my responsibilites? I understand that my first and foremost responsibility is to take care of my Project Plase assignments. But I hope that through my clients’ interactions with me, they can draw strength, inspiration, and hope in situations that are often seemingly overwhelming and miserable.

When thinking about this the other day, the hymn, “There Is a Balm in Gilead” (which is incidentally a theme for this service year) came to mind. In part, it reads,

Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain,

But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again…

Don’t ever feel discouraged, for Jesus is your friend;

And if you lack for knowledge, He’ll never refuse to lend.

There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;

There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.”

As someone who seeks to deepen his understanding of what it means to be a Christian, through my reflections, I have found that one of the great themes of the Scriptures is that God identifies with suffering. I am father to the fatherless. I am the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep. I think that these passages suggest that God connects His heart so closely with suffering people that He sees any action against them as an offense to Him. Working with underprivileged people this year has also helped me to see that through the cross, to  those who are suffering, is offered the great promise of God knowing too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. The cross is an empowering sign of what it means to live amidst suffering. Through the hope that Christ offers to the world through his death and resurrection, I hope and pray that I can continue in strength to have a meaningful service year with Episcopal Service Corps.