“You Are Not Nobody.”

By Pastor Jane Buckley-Farlee

This post continues the Mission Table’s “Year of Partnership” highlighting the new and strategic ministries of the Minneapolis Area Synod. Trinity Lutheran Congregation is one of the strategic ministries and worships in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis.

Every first Friday night of the month a group from Trinity Lutheran Congregation stands on Cedar Avenue, between Palmers Bar and the Cedar Cultural Center, to hand out pizza and Somali tea. A few “first Fridays” ago it was cold, the temperature in the mid-teens with Cedar Avenue serving as a wind tunnel. Our paper plates and cups blew down Cedar, along with random cans and pieces of paper. We were out there, not because we enjoy the cold and the wind, but because we support an initiative in Cedar-Riverside called Daryeel Youth.

Every Friday night Abdirahman Muhktar is out there serving pizza and tea to the young adults most likely to overdose on drugs. Along with some of his volunteers, Abdi is out there because he knows that if they have some food in them on a Friday night, they are a little less likely to overdose. He knows all of the young people and has seen many die from opioid addiction over the years. He has spent years building relationships with them and when we help serve the pizza and tea, he can concentrate on talking with them and building relationships. When it’s cold out, like this Friday was, we also hand out jackets, hats, mittens, and socks.

After I had been handing out some tea and pizza for a while, a young man came up to me and said that he heard I was a pastor. I hadn’t met him before and learned that his name was Mohamed. Mohamed liked to talk about theology, Islam and Christianity to be exact, and he knew what he was talking about. Even though he did get some details about Christianity wrong, that was not important. Making the connection and listening was. When I told him that he really knew his stuff his he looked down and whispered,

“I take drugs.  I’m nobody.”

“You are not nobody.”

“Yes, I am.  I am nobody.”

“Mohamed, you are not nobody.”

Then, he walked away. I wanted to chase him and grab him and tell him again and again until he understood me, that he was not a nobody. Instead, he slowly disappeared behind Palmer’s Bar.

The next first Friday was cold again and Mohamed did not come for pizza and tea. Abdirahman assured me that he was still alive. I want to talk with him again, to try and let him know one more time that he is not nobody. The reality is that I may never see Mohamed again. I certainly don’t expect to see him on a Sunday morning.

This is one reason Trinity remains in Cedar-Riverside. There are too many like Mohamed who believe they are nobody in this thriving neighborhood. For too many people our neighborhood, Cedar-Riverside (aka Little Mogadishu) is just a scary place full of Muslims, criminals, and addicts.

Cedar-Riverside seems like the kind of place where Jesus might hang out. When the evening Adhan (Call to Prayer) calls out from Dar-Al- Hijrah, it’s a reminder to everyone that are all God’s people. We do what we can, handing out pizza and tea, building relationships, and hoping to be a glimpse of God’s love along the way.