Finding Humility and Compassion at Tent City

Monday night my husband and I went to serve dinner at Tent City in Kirkland. Like most Eastsiders, I didn’t really want to go. I was apprehensive about what my experience might be like. As ambitious people, we tend to overlook the needs of others, and sometimes think people get what they deserve in life. I didn’t know much about Tent City. Was it a place where people go to just hang out and not participate in life, taking handouts from others, content to live on the edge of society where they can smoke weed and laugh at the rest of the world slaving away in this rough economy and take advantage of the kindness of others?

That was the image I had in my head. I think of poverty like some kind of social disease I might catch. But the facts are much different than what is inside my head and my wicked heart. In truth, the Lord tells us in

Ecclesiastes 8:11-12

11 “I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.
12 Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare,
so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them”.

The facts are that most Tent City residents have jobs, are only there for six weeks, and most likely want to be anywhere else. The camp looks like something out of an episode of “LOST”. The few possessions left to these people are scraped together in a makeshift shelter. This is what is left of their life to call their own. Far from being proud and laughing at society, most people had to be encouraged to take second helpings and didn’t make eye contact. Some had formal educations and found it difficult to accept their circumstance. The camp doesn’t allow any drugs or alcohol on the premises and will promptly kick members out for violating strict living standards to maintain order and dignity. Their courage is humbling. I don’t know if I could take a bus to work and then come “home” to a tent. Many couples decide to transition through Tent City because they would be split up if they went to a shelter. I couldn’t imagine facing one of the worst crises of my life not sleeping next to my husband and holding each other through the long nights. No one harassed me, everyone was grateful. These are not the desperate, strung out people you might think.

In the end, we had plenty of food and just enough volunteers, but two women had to do most of the food prep and only a handful of people showed up to help serve at the last minute. God was gracious but I couldn’t help but feel that it revealed some ugly truths about what we believe and the particular sins that we are prone to on the Eastside.

We are going to be studying the poor in the gospel of Luke. As a rule, we don’t want to acknowledge the uglier side of life on the Eastside. And yet Christ tells us that the poor will always be with us (John 12:18), even if it is rare on this side of the Lake. Tent City will be moving to a different area of the Eastside in just another month, but it will still be here, among us. Will we, as the people who say we belong to Christ, care about what he cares about, and take the rare opportunity to serve the poor on the Eastside?

After all, in light of who God is, we are all residents of Tent City. Our best deeds are rags (Isa. 64:6) and we have nothing to offer him that could possibly tempt Him. In light of that truth, will we allow Christ to transform us into His image and do the work He has put before us with humility and compassion?