The Vine & the Branches

by Heather Truex, Kaio Community Member

I love being part of Emmaus, but what we do is hard.

We’re only a handful of weeks in, but this new year has had a rough start. A couple of the men have lost their housing and are back on the street. One of the guys tried to throw himself under a car and ended up in the hospital. Another had a free ticket to rehab and decided not to take it.

In the midst of all of this it’s easy to get discouraged. Our work with the men here sometimes feels like three steps forward and two and a half steps back, and I often feel completely powerless to do anything to help them.

Oh wait. Maybe that’s because I am.

The thing about Emmaus, or any ministry really, is that it doesn’t depend on us. In John 15, Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

It isn’t just things with the guys that have made life at Emmaus hard lately. Staffing changes in the past six months have left us all stretched a little thinner than before, and right now we’re all feeling our weakness. There’s a lot to do and fewer of us to do it all; you should know that the staff here is absolutely incredible to keep things going as they have.

But even with a team like us, we’re still not enough. It takes the whole Church. God didn’t create us to go it alone; every branch on the vine is a necessary part of the whole plant. We need others, too. We need you—the people who pray for us, read our blog posts, and support us. Together we’re the Church, and we’re all bound to each other by the body and blood of Christ.

It takes Jesus. Every branch only finds its place in the vine; without him, there’s no reason for Emmaus to exist. He’s the one who changes the men. He’s the one who rescues. Emmaus is only one small twig.

We can’t do this on our own, and thanks be to God that we’ll never have to! Thank you for being in this with us.