Bible Major Challenged at Colorado's Dale House Project
Chris Pepple |
Service: the occupation of a servant; work done for a master. Challenge: a demand for identification; a call or a dare to take part in something.
When Lipscomb senior Matt Oliver applied for an internship this past summer, he knew the Master he desired to serve and he was willing to answer the call to be identified as a servant up to a challenge. When he stepped onto the grounds of Colorado’s Dale House Project, he found himself in a role that dared him to serve and to love others in a bold new way. Oliver, a Bible major, unflinchingly accepted the task before him and worked for 2 ½ months in a setting that changed the lives of both those who walked through as a staff member and those who walked in as a client.
The Dale House Project, located in Colorado Springs, Colo., reaches out to hundreds of delinquent, neglected and abused young people who cannot return home. The project maintains four residences. Their facilities are used to teach the young people the skills necessary to live independently. The residents range in age from 16 to 21. Dale House opened in 1972 as a project with Young Life in response to the growing needs of youth due to broken homes, child abuse, teenage pregnancy, incest and drug and alcohol abuse. The Dale House Project now operates as a separate 501(c)(3) corporation. Many of the young people are referred to the Dale House Project by the Division of Youth Corrections or the Department of Human Services. Others are referred by families or friends. All are in need of housing, counseling and mentoring.
One of the strongest challenges during the internship came when those Oliver sought to reach out to often didn’t initially appear to want help. “At first the kids don’t seem to care anything at all about you or what you are trying to do. They cuss at you to your face over and over again,” Oliver states. “At first it was really hard for me, but that was their normal language.”
Oliver realized that he was being asked to love these young people unconditionally. “These kids needed to be loved despite their past, despite anything that comes out of their mouths in the present, despite their problems,” Oliver reflects. The Dale House Project works to build a Christian community of staff and residents who come together for meals, one-on-one talks, group counseling, Sunday night devotionals, work crews, recreation and fun outings. Oliver’s responsibilities included working with two males, one 18 years old and one 19 years old. Oliver lived two to five days a week in the house with the male residents and worked to gain the trust of the two clients assigned to him and the others in the residence.
“The most rewarding part of the work is when you reach that point in a relationship with the kids where they do trust you despite all that has gone on in their lives,” Oliver claims. “Then they share things with you that they can’t share with others. They really open up. These kids have been hurt, abused, abuse themselves. But when you step into a part of their reality and sleep in the same house with them and ride a bus with them and visit their families with them and pray with them, this changes things in them and in you. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of the work at Dale House. I could see God at work there.”
Oliver could have chosen a less strenuous internship, but he wanted to experience something different over the summer. “I felt like God was going to teach me a lot over the summer and I didn’t want to miss it,” Oliver adds. He did learn that loving as Jesus loves is the most important work we can do. His internship made him reflect upon the type of people Jesus “hung out with” and how Jesus put His love into action.
Matt Oliver came from his home in Michigan to study at Lipscomb because of a positive experience on campus during his youth at a Lipscomb basketball camp. This past summer, he willingly took on a challenge to reach out to young people that are often overlooked. He returned to Lipscomb with a new understanding of an old, simple truth: loving as Christ loved can change a lot in our world. If we take on a servant’s role and dare to be identified as one who loves as Christ loves, people such as the residents at the Dale House Project can face a much brighter future than their past.