The Renewal Center

We recently got booted out of the place we’ve been renting for the Renewal Center for two years because our landlord sold the property. It’s okay. He’s been a great landlord and we’ve had in the back of our minds a move . . . now that we’ve been there a few years there are some things we’ve learned we would do different if we had a new place (like put the controls of the shower fans and lights outside of the showers so guests won’t mess with them!).

So we found a new place in time to keep our services going with only a few weeks interruption but experienced a little local opposition. That’s okay, too. The thinking “We like what you’re doing, just don’t do it here” is something projects like ours are going to run into every now and again anywhere in the world.

The guests of course understand all of this as well, but the interruption of our basic services of a shower and change of clean clothes has been more frustrating than I predicted. We’ve been able to keep our mentoring and jobs programs online through this, and we’ve even used the opportunity the additional free time in our schedules this has created to start our English program (aimed at complementing our jobs program) and I had grown to consider these important programs “the core” of our work. This, I thought, is where we can really make a difference in the lives of our clients; but, now I’m beginning to reconsider that. The simple stuff is just as important.

When we had to tell the guys that the new place we found wasn’t going to work out, they of course understood, but it was a little heartbreaking telling them the news. After I explained the situation to Zhang Lin, a regular for more than a year, he confirmed, “So there are no showers today?”

“That’s right, no showers.” I apologized and resummarized the situation.

And again he asked, “So there are no showers today?” Like all of our regulars he’s come to depend on us for his weekly routine of a shower and change of clothes. And while the mentoring and jobs programs are developing well, most of our guests simply aren’t ready for them. Significant life changes occur slowly, and through our basic services we’re able to check in with our clients once a week, see what they’re up to, give them a little nudge or drop a simple question to diagnose where they are in relation to improving themselves and their situations.

The Renewal Center has also become an important part of their community. I happened to be outside our new site (that didn’t work out) one Wednesday evening and an old guest showed up that I hadn’t seen in months. He’d seen the map on the door of the old place and came looking for the new place. He said he’d been working for the last few months and hadn’t heard about the move. People come to the Renewal Center to reconnect and kick back with friends. It wasn’t unusual for guys to come on our service nights asking around for friends they hadn’t seen in a while.

Even the guys in the mentoring and jobs programs that we maintain contact with have had their routines thrown off. The guys living downstairs (in the jobs program) from me are starting to stink and don’t have a place to change their clothes. Ankang left a pile of dirt (like Pigpen) where he was sitting during the English program because he hasn’t showered in so long. (We’re finally beginning to figure these things out. The guys are washing clothes at my house now and can shower at Phuong’s house during the English program.)

But we’ve got to get the showers and laundry back online! It’s a simple service but I’ve really developed a renewed sense of this as the true core of the Renewal Center.

(We’ve found a new site we really like that might work. But we’re discussing some important issues with the landlord now that will be key in our consideration of the suitability of the place.)

Ziggy was one of our more unspectacular guests. Polite, patient, he came on Sunday nights to shower at the Renewal Center … I hardly noticed him. Then one day he began asking each week for help finding a job. This put him on my radar. He had an ID card so he was at least eligible to work at Azteca. He is clean-cut and friendly so I thought he’d interview well. So I just kept my eye on him for a while.

He kept asking me every Sunday night about a job. His consistency pushed him over the cliff and I invited him to join our Saturday mentoring program – Saturday mentoring is for the guys we’re prepping for jobs. They do chores together with select star volunteers on Saturdays, then discuss something provoking like “life goals,” then share lunch. This is all Brandon’s responsibility, but I subbed for him one Saturday and cleaned the showers with Ziggy. He did a good job – better than me and I can clean. The other guys in the mentoring program liked him immediately. Ziggy has a simple, good heart. Ideally I’d like guys to be in the Saturday mentoring program a few months before we recommend them to employers. But Azteca was ready for a new trainee and I felt good about Ziggy.

So I christened Ziggy, “Ziggy,” and took him to Azteca Monday afternoon for his interview with Rob. First I helped him fill out his application. His qualifications: He’s completed elementary school and he worked a few years in a factory in Guangdong province. Rob asked him what work he’s been doing in Shanghai. Ziggy looked at me before he answered – I told him he could tell Rob honestly. He did: “collecting bottles.”

Rob liked Ziggy and asked him to start as a bus boy the next day so we were off to Carrefour to acquire black shoes, pants and bedding. I don’t like people fussing about the price of stuff when I’m buying things. “Oh, this is too expensive, I don’t need a blanket,” etc. Ziggy didn’t fuss at all. He just contently pushed the cart as I absentmindedly overfilled it like a rich mom. (Li Feng and Yang Mao also needed winter bedding and I picked up some supplies for the Renewal Center as well.)

Although we’ve had three other Renewal Center guests start at Azteca before Ziggy, I think Rob has taken special interest in Ziggy because he’s working as a bus boy instead of in the kitchen. I think Rob is more directly responsible for the servers. Rob called after Ziggy’s first day at work and said he did a great job. Then yesterday Rob cc’ed me on an email he sent to what seems to be several of his friends and some of the management of Azteca. He shared a story about how the night before after work in the very cold rain Ziggy offered Rob his umbrella (willing himself to walk home in the rain).

Xudong has taken Ziggy under his wing as well. Xudong fears Ziggy’s roommates, Yang Mao and Li Feng (all living in the apartment I rented below mine), might take advantage of his kind heart so Xudong occasionally gives him advice on how to handle them: “When you get off work tonight – it doesn’t matter how late it is – you wake them up and you say, ‘WHOSE STINKY SOCKS ARE THESE BY MY BED? TAKE CARE OF THESE STINKY SOCKS!’”

I like it also that Ziggy feels free to come up to my apartment anytime. One night late after he got off work (I was in bed of course) he knocked on my door asking if I had any shower shoes. (??!!) And he’ll come up and just chat anytime. It’s nice.

Ziggy has a girlfriend anxiously waiting for him to come back home. When he does he’ll be a catch with life goals under his wings and experience at one of the best Western restaurants in Shanghai.