Ministry in the Unexpected Places

Woke up this morning thinking about my job and the journey I’ve been on these last almost 7 years.

I was selling ads for a newspaper, just trying to make ends meet, coming off the cusp of Esther’s House closing, and still working on healing my heart when I saw an ad for a Youth Career Manager. I almost skimmed past it because the thought of working in a job where I had to help people didn’t interest me. I wasn’t really in the mood to help people.

But I remember thinking, “This has to be better than selling newspaper ads. This is miserable.” So, I sent in my resume and quickly got a call for an interview.

I don’t remember much about the interview, but I remember one question they asked me, and I knew it would make or break me getting the job. They asked me what I would do if a teenager came in who was homeless and hungry. Would I go against protocol and do more than help them find training?

I didn’t hesitate. I said something like, “I know this is probably not the right answer you want, but I would absolutely go against protocol. If I have the opportunity to feed a kid, I’m gonna do it, and I don’t really care what the consequences are.”

They offered me the job the next day.

When I started in May of 2018, my job was to help people ages 16-24 find training, job placement, job skills, AEL assistance, etc. It could be intense at times. I quickly knew why they asked if I would ever be willing to break protocol. I met some pretty broken people who, before they needed help finding a job, needed to know they mattered – and needed some food in their bellies.

A couple months later, I received a promotion. I would be going into the prisons and registering the inmates who needed our services before their release. The goal was to set them up for success before they came back out into the world, overwhelmed with everything they needed to do to get employed, probation, and all the things.

Honestly, at first, I wasn’t interested. “They’re in there doing their time. Why do they need my help? They can help themselves. There are people out there who really need help.”

But the Lord was about to do a thing in my heart I didn’t know needed to happen. I spent a week going back and forth to the Algoa Correctional Center as part of this personal and professional development class with about 10 inmates from all walks of life.

From day one, I’ve never been the same. It was an intense class. We really had to get to know one another, and I instantly realized how much of a judgmental jerk I was. I looked around at most of these guys and realized the only difference between them and me was that I’d never gotten caught. It was humbling.

I remember having what I thought was just a normal conversation about my life – about my dad’s absence, with a couple of guys. But that “normal” conversation turned into my weeping with a group of tattooed inmates who realized they still had an opportunity to make things right with their kids.

My story had done something in their hearts. I remember driving home that day weeping because I thought God was done with me. I had believed the lies the enemy and others had told me that I would never do ministry again. That I wasn’t fit to lead others.

And here I was… in a situation I NEVER planned to be in, giving men in prison hope. Just wow!

What started out as me just supposed to be going into the prisons and helping with some paperwork, case management, helping them with a resume, etc., morphed into something I never could have wrapped my head around.

I would sit with men who seemed pissed off at the world, and many made it clear they had no desire to talk to me. I was just another “suit” to them. They knew I didn’t care about them. The last thing they were interested in was creating a resume. I felt like I was hitting brick walls.

So I went to my boss one day and said, “We’re wasting our time. We’re wasting my time, their time, and taxpayers’ time. These men think they have no value. They think they have nothing to offer the world. They think they’re too messed up to do anything. And to top it off, they don’t trust me.”

She then asked me something along these lines… “What are you gonna do about it?”

“We need to teach them their value. We need to help them understand they don’t have to be defined by their past. If they know they still have something to offer first, then when it comes time to create a resume, they’ll actually want to do it.

The next thing I knew, I was writing a curriculum to help them do just that. And I took that curriculum into four different facilities, eventually working with women.

And I stopped dressing up. Instead, at the beginning of each new class, I would show up in a Johnny Cash t-shirt. It didn’t immediately make them trust me, but it created conversation. And it helped them put their guards down, realizing I wasn’t just another “suit” showing up to check things off the list.

I had the opportunity, on the government’s dime, to weave parts of my dad’s story in and out of the curriculum. It never failed that at least one man would weep, grasping the fact that he had a second chance to be a dad to his kiddos.

I was still doing ministry, just in a completely different way than I’d ever planned.

But if you think the enemy didn’t fight back, you’d be wrong. I faced opposition from the get-go.

I was almost fired or lost my job multiple times, but each time, God showed up and saved the day. It still blows my mind.

The first time was after I’d reached out and asked the Director of the Department of Corrections for coffee. I had no agenda. I had just learned from other mentors that you should invite those you admire for coffee and ask them questions. I liked what Anne Precythe was doing and wanted to learn from her.

One morning, we sat down for coffee, and she said, “I never do this. I never agree to have coffee with people I don’t know. I don’t have time. But I felt like I was supposed to.” I smiled inside, knowing God was on the move.

Well… apparently it’s looked down upon to invite those “superior” to you to have coffee. What I didn’t know then was that our organization was about to be in big trouble because of some deep stuff the leadership had been doing. They assumed I was meeting to “blow the whistle.” I didn’t even know there was a whistle to blow.

I had to provide emails proving that the only thing I’d done was invite her to coffee. So I did.

Job saved. Sheesh.

Then all hell broke loose. All of a sudden, we were out of money. Job Centers were shutting down. 25 people were laid off. I came to work every day wondering if that would be the last day.

An interim Director came in to “save the day” and started cleaning house, rightly so. We were in a mess, and I don’t have enough time to tell you about it. To say it was an intense season is an understatement.

So, I started praying. I went into the office on weekends, anointed the place with oil, and prayed. I staked claim for where I knew the Lord had me and wasn’t about to just hand it over.

God is in the details. On a Tuesday afternoon, the interim Director shared the news that I was losing my job. It was all over. I walked back to my desk, saddened, knowing that it wasn’t over quite yet. I just didn’t know how.

About three weeks earlier, I started working on this spreadsheet, tracking the success of our justice-involved clientele. I hate spreadsheets, so I knew there was a bigger reason for this. I spent weeks on it and had literally just finished it the week I was “let go.”

By the end of the day that Tuesday – the same day I’d been told it was over – I had my job back. What saved it? Well, we know God, but it was that “stupid” spreadsheet. Our recidivism rate was below 10%. These men and women had jobs and were contributing to society as taxpayers. It wasn’t just my words stating it – the proof was in the pudding.

“You just saved your job,” she said.

I knew in my knower that those hours I’d spent praying, decreeing, and declaring had paid off. Not only that, but I somehow got a raise during the biggest crisis in our organization.

It was the first time in years that I hadn’t had to decide between buying Christmas presents or paying for my medicine.

Job saved. Sheesh.

The bad news was that my boss had lost her job. So there I was, battling “survivor’s guilt,” still showing up to work every day with my co-workers, exhausted in this battle of wondering what was coming down the pike next.

In the meantime, my co-worker suddenly became my boss, and the enemy didn’t even give us a second to catch our breath.

She immediately turned on me and started digging in, looking for something to come after me at every corner. I didn’t understand why. I thought she was my friend. What had I done to her? And the accusations she was making had no merit, but I was so tired of fighting this battle that I didn’t know what to do.

So I kept praying. But that wasn’t enough.

God told me to love. “Perfect love casts out fear.” He would have to show me what that looked like because I had no idea what to do from here.

When she demanded I do something, I just did it. When she reprimanded me for something without merit, I would respectfully disagree. I didn’t allow her to treat me poorly, but I put my foot down respectfully. Then I would go home and cry and wonder what happened to my friend.

One day, I remembered Bob Goff’s story about buying cake pops for his enemies, so I pulled into Starbucks, bought some cake pops, and brought them to her. She was cordial about it, but that was about it.

Then the hammer came down again. I was called into a meeting with her and our Interim Director, where I was accused of saying and doing things to another employee. To say I was stunned was an understatement.

I remember I was struggling particularly hard that day with a migraine and was trying to remain calm. All I could say was, “None of those things are true. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

I drove home, realizing I’d probably just lost my job, and I honestly wasn’t sure why. The enemy loves to create chaos and confusion. He’d done a good job.

The next morning, though, I received a phone call from the Interim Director stating everything was fine. The employee who’d made the false claims literally packed up her desk in the middle of the day and left after being questioned about the accusations.

Luckily, another co-worker had been present to attest that I hadn’t been a part of anything I was accused of.

Job saved. Sheesh.

And then suddenly…

My boss, myself, and another co-worker had to ride together one day for a meeting.

We’d stopped for lunch on the way back, and everything was going fine. We had normal conversation. I think I even made her laugh a little. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, she was crying.

She looked at me and said, “I have treated you so horribly, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” I was stunned.

It turns out my former boss – the one I was feeling “survivor guilt” over had told her some lies before leaving. She was mad about losing her job and me keeping mine, so she went into destruction mode. And my new boss had believed those lies and wanted to punish me.

I’ll never forget that day. I looked right at her and said, “I forgive you.” We hugged. We cried. We finished our pizza, and the rest is history. From that day forward, God restored our working relationship AND our friendship.

Job saved. Sheesh.

Fast forward to the great toilet paper crisis of 2020. We had a new director in place. We were down to only a handful of employees on the board. I was still going into the prisons, but I could tell I needed a break. It was a fulfilling job but heavy.

One day, we got a phone call that the world shut down, which meant the prisons weren’t letting people in, and just like that – it was all over.

I sat in my pajamas, feeling relieved that I was getting a break from the mental heaviness that job held and also wondering what in the heck would happen next.

But I wasn’t worried. I’d seen God’s faithfulness in that job time and time again.

And then… our Assistant Director remembered that I’d built the new board a website during my time there because the old one was horrible, but nothing had ever been done with it. It was just sitting there. He told the new Director about it.

So, she met with me one day and realized I had a background in communications and marketing. Most other regions in the state didn’t have an updated website. They didn’t have someone with those skills. They didn’t have the budget they needed to hire.

But we did. And so, just like that, two weeks into sitting in my pajamas wondering what was coming next, I got a promotion and a raise.

We rebranded. We built a website. We created a social media presence. We created the first workforce podcast in the state, with yours truly as the host.

We banded together like never before as a team and brought our once-depleted organization, on the verge of being shut down, out of the ashes.

I know who really did it. Jehovah Jireh – the God who ALWAYS provides!

Job saved. Sheesh.

As I write this, I’m coming up on 7 years at my job with the Central Workforce Development Board. Man, we’ve been through some things.

And today, things are shaky. WIOA (our funding) hasn’t been reauthorized. We don’t know what the future holds with the way things are going in federal cuts.

Right now, I have a job through June. But I’m not worried. God is faithful. He’s Jehovah Jireh. He promises to never leave us.

And it’s interesting timing that He’s opening all these music doors and that we’ve set a goal together to make music full-time by 2026. But He’s never done anything “normal” in my life, so we’ll see how it plays out. It’s certainly gonna take a miracle, but it’s a good thing that’s His specialty.

Wherever you’re at, you have an opportunity to be in ministry. There are so many things I didn’t have time to share in this post – the people I got to love on. The people who helped soften my heart.

Whether you’re a teacher, a janitor, a CEO, a firefighter, an assistant, or a pastor, a stay-at-home mom, what you’re doing matters.

Let’s keep loving well. It’s changing people’s lives!