Two blocks east of the “El” Train Red Line in Uptown Chicago, a lady named Susan limps over from under a covered bus stop.
“That’s my spot. I was here. I just had to sit down.”
She marks her spot by hanging two canvas bags on the fence where a dozen men and women are lined up outside Uptown Baptist Church.
“I was here. This weather is killing my arthritis.”
Her voice is husky but kind. She limps toward the bus stop, sits and takes a sip from something tightly wrapped in brown paper, looks over her shoulder again, then settles back against the glass enclosure.
As the line builds, she comes back.
Next Monday, she says, they’re giving out shoes.
“Could you help me with this?” asks Susan, holding up a kids’ Revenge of the Sith wristwatch six hours fast. “It’s a cheap watch. I don’t know how to fix it. It’s not a very nice watch.”
Every Monday around 4:30 p.m. the iron gate separating Uptown Baptist from the sidewalk creaks open and some 350 homeless men and women file into pews for a word from scripture then to the basement for a hot meal.
Shouldering computer bags and backpacks, a flock of Chicagoans scatter from the train and the buses toward home or an evening job in one of the city’s most diverse communities.
This is North American Mission Board missionary Michael Allen’s mission field.
“Uptown is one of the most diverse places in the Chicago area,” says Allen. “It's diverse in almost every way you can imagine -- ethnically, socio-economically, in gender and in age. It’s home to retirees, young couples, newborns, the brilliant and the mentally ill.”
Nearly 80 languages are represented in Uptown’s public schools. The neighborhood’s population includes government officials, college professors, business professionals and a sub-culture of “down-and-outs.”
Allen is one of more than 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®. He is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Allen.
Allen has worked with social ministries for years, beginning with his tenure at Moody Bible Church and continuing with leadership at homeless and recovery ministries throughout the city. His ability to interact across a broad spectrum has given the Jamaican-born pastor a voice among Chicago businessmen and politicians.
“One day I could be at a press conference with the mayor of Chicago and all the movers and shakers and be in a suit and tie, then later that day on the street talking to somebody who’s drunk and just gave his girlfriend AIDS,” says Allen. “It's a powerful thing. It's an amazing thing. It's God at work changing people's lives and I get to be used by Him to accomplish it.”
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