Hope

by Joel Brown, Kaio Community Member

A couple of months ago, Mary and I ran into Marshall on Outreach. We’ve seen Marshall on Outreach lots of times, but a couple days back he’d finally made it to the Ministry Center.

Marshall was bantering back and forth with several other guys, so we started to walk past to give him his space, supposing he wanted to continue his current conversation. But he called us over and introduced us to the group, then proceeded to expound at length about his recent visit to our Ministry Center.

“It’s a real crib over there!” Marshall marveled: we have a kitchen, TV room, games. He’d played a couple rounds of Scrabble and had really enjoyed the taco lunch.

As he went on and on, the group slowly dispersed, until it was just Marshall, Mary, and me. As the conversation wrapped up, Marshall took both of us by the hand and said, “You guys are really helping us! Thank you for what you do!”

It’s moments like these that I’ve learned about hope. Men are finding hope here. And it’s the Lord who gives hope that sustains each of the guys, and all of us, for the long journey into wholeness.

As we keep on in ministry, all the things that we hope for, ask for, and pray for with the guys in mind are only possible if we hold on to the abiding hope that we have in Christ. As we await Him and His transformation, we have to face that hope takes a long time! As Paul writes, “Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:24-25). We patiently wait for the Lord to do a marvelous thing in the lives of each of our guys.

Even beyond Emmaus, God calls us all to this patient love. Emmaus is just a piece of this picture, just a little snapshot of the kingdom of God. We are a small part of introducing God’s sustaining hope to the streets of Chicago.