Angels Outreach Ministry…

"Taking Flight for Christ"

By Ronald Landfair
Director, Black Catholic Ministry
Diocese of Lansing

At first glance, it does not seem to be a very pretty place. But beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. The building is not gleaming or fancy. It is old, weathered by years of use and existence. The people who bustle in and out of the North End Soup Kitchen are probably not the most well-heeled people you will ever meet. Not unlike the stable where our Lord was born, it is not an environment that screams of God - not the kind of glistening, polished towers that many 21st century Americans think of when they think of "The Holy." But there is a dignity and straightforwardness to the place that undergirds its spirituality. It is in fact, the perfect place to look for Christ.

In this morass of despair, some have chosen to flee, while others have chosen to fight. Angels Outreach Ministry (AOM) of Sacred Heart Parish in Flint is one of those fighters. Begun in 1987, the ministry celebrates 20 years of service to the city of Flint and surrounding communities. Faced with increases in street crime, family abuse, assaults and drug-related crimes, the ministry addresses the needs of the children living with this on a daily basis, as the youngest victims of poverty. Thousands of children in the city of Flint who are living with low income parents often are living without even the basics, in extremely vulnerable physical conditions.

Many adults are afraid of young people but Deacon Tony Verdun and his wife, Susan, are a little different. They are afraid for young people. "Many of our young people, not just in this community, but in all communities face some daunting challenges," he says. "Violence, drugs, apathy, abuse, abandonment, lack of hope, lack of opportunities - these cross racial and income lines all over our communities."

The Angels Outreach Ministry (AOM) is concerned about the weekends when children are at home in vulnerable situations and in the summer when school is not in session. To ensure kids have a safe place to play, Angels Outreach Ministry opens the gym two Saturdays a month for the children in the neighborhood to help keep them off the streets. The children enjoy Air Hockey, basketball, pool and foos ball. Realizing that he could not do it alone and, in his words, being "in the middle of a mud puddle," he expanded the ministry beyond just himself to include his wife and other volunteers to work as a ministry team. "I feel deeply, strongly that, when you do this type of ministry, you should never do it alone - both for the kids' sake as well as your own safety and protection. If a person is afraid of this ministry, they should be because this is not a joke."

What was once revered as the birth place of the automobile and the home of General Motors, Flint has now become one of the poorest cities in Michigan. Severe cutbacks in health, education and vital social services in our community have resulted in thousands of families struggling to make ends meet. Those that have been poor are only getting poorer in our community's declining economic situation. In the city of Flint, opportunities for those trying to work their way out of poverty are dwindling, leaving many residents with feelings of distrust, frustration and hopelessness. What then is to be said about the children of such a community? Who speaks for them? Who fights for them?

Part of the success of Angels Outreach Ministry is that it is collaborative ministry at its essence. Deacon Tony comments, "Without the input of the people in the parish as a whole, this ministry does not have roots. We have to come from the church and have people in the church to share what we do, in order to have it grow. Without that type of support it is just going to be a plant, sitting in the sun and the rain with no growth or care taking at all."

AOM plans annual Easter and Christmas parties for neighborhood youth. A special guest is invited to help celebrate the events. "Often, this is the only time the children are able to celebrate these holidays. This is involved ministry that includes the parents as well."

Tony adds, "We have to be collaborative in order for this thing to grow. The Catholic Church has always talked about evangelization and outreach and we have the key to that in evangelization in Outreach Ministry. This is the key… we have a lot of gyms in our parishes and schools that are empty and underutilized. If we can use this ministry as a base to carry on to other churches and get them to do what we are doing, to get them to utilize their gyms, we would have more effectiveness in every neighborhood."

"We would not only be able to give the children something positive, but we would be able to help the church to bring in more Christian people, maybe some who were Catholic and no longer are and maybe some who would like to see who we are and what we are about," Susan observes.

"Through catechesis," Deacon Tony notes, "we can give them some idea of what the Lord's Prayer is about. Many of them did not even know what Jesus was truly about. This ministry is very effective to parents as well as kids, but the Catholic Church has a thing about sitting in the pews, doing their ministry only inside the building of the church, and that is as far as they want to go."

The Word, and the Bread, and the Blood must flow out into the community. The Verduns believe that it cannot just be "us" talking to "us." Tony continues, "We really do not truly know what evangelization is. And it is no more than what we already have. The reason I believe that parishes closed down the way that they did in Flint and elsewhere is because we were not evangelizing enough.

"So sometimes God has to slap us in the face. By doing so at this Church - even before I was a deacon - it caused me to move outside the doors of the church, across the street and into the gym. My method was to take flyers to the north, south east and west of this neighborhood and go to each door, giving the people in the community the information that we are here, come and join us. I would pass out 100 flyers and get about fifty children. When I passed out 200, I would get 100 children. We even started a basketball team called "The Deacons", for boys in the neighborhood who otherwise were headed for big-time trouble."

In this case, the methodology was simple enough. The "hook" is basketball but the "juice" is Jesus!" Deacon Tony comments, "I did not teach them basketball. What I tried to teach these young men was to learn how to work together, to collaborate on a common mission. If you come into the gym, you will see a picture of Christ with a basketball, leaping towards the basket. I put that up to remind the kids that it is not about basketball, it is not about the game, it is about faith. You can win this… keep the faith and believe in Christ. These guys began not just to win, but to believe and I think without that faith a majority of them would have been in jail, instead of the opposite: only one of them ended up behind bars."

Through AOM, these children were able to experience the love of Jesus through this particular evangelization program. Deacon Tony states, "Biblically, they were taught life lessons, things they otherwise would not have gotten at home or at school. Since then, I have started another ministry called Camping out with Jesus. It consists of doing all the things you would normally do if you were camping out: hot dogs, pop corn, etc. We have a large TV screen and we show animated Biblical stories. We set up a tent inside the gym, with artificial fire and nature. The kids love it and they never forget it. Basically what we are teaching them are parts of the Bible, using animated cartoons. At the end of the cartoon, we talk about what they have seen. They might see a cartoon about Moses and I would ask them what it meant. We would then try to tie what they have seen into what is going on today in their world, in their lives. The kids pick it up and they keep it with them. What is interesting is that we have never had a fight in the gym - no arguments, no nothing!"

Susan suggests that the challenge of opening the doors to their gyms can be overcome. "Some non-Catholic churches open their gyms, but only to their own kids. They do not do evangelization to the entire community like we are doing here at Sacred Heart. We just reach out and whoever comes, comes. We invite them to Mass so they can learn what we are about. We have a Christmas party that brings about 200 people into our gym and parish. What a great opportunity to let them know who we are, what we do as Catholics and that we care about them as members of the community. That is evangelization; they will know we are Christians by the way that we love them."

As with any program, funding is a continuing concern. "We have received support from local unions, the Kiwanis and the Family Mini-Grant Program through Catholic Charities," Tony reports. "This program is not supported directly by the parish. When we first began, I would go broke because I had to use my own money. What we really need is financial backing from others. We have had to make sure that people understand that this is not Susan and Tony's program, but a program of the parish," concludes Tony.

The Verduns dismiss any notion that this is just about "having fun." According to them, "This is teaching young kids whose parents may have drug and/or alcoholism problems that are all messed up. Kids who are actually living on their own. Kids whose homes are nothing more than a square block of cement, with an open door."

If we truly are a sacramental Church, then God is incarnate throughout creation. Yet, while we often see Jesus in the faces of those who bring relief, we often fail to see Him in the faces of the impoverished, the troubled and even in our youth. We may find Him in rivers, trees and when we gaze out at the stars, but do we find him in the eyes of the poor? Do we find him in the soup lines and welfare offices of our world? The "What" is easy. Jesus leaves specific instructions in the Gospel of Matthew. What challenges us is the "How!" Through such programs like Angels Outreach Ministry, local missionaries and evangelists like Deacon Tony and his wife, Susan, live out the Gospel message to go forth and make disciples of all nations and show us the "How" by stretching themselves, their love and their faith in service to Christ and His Church.

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For more information, contact:
Deacon Tony and Susan Verdun
c/o Sacred Heart Parish
719 East Moore Street
Flint, Michigan 48505-3997
810-789-8579