A Ministry of Presence: Funshine Daycare and Preschool – Tara Spuhler McCabe

I admit, I am biased about how much I love Funshine Daycare and Preschool. Our children have been raised there. When I stopped working full time with a congregation, the co-directors, Paige Neal and Beth McMichael, approached me to consider coming on staff. They were interested in extending what they see as the ministry of Funshine in the community. They also recognized an opportunity in supporting parents, as a daycare parent. What I was drawn to was learning from two women who are single mothers and own their own business. I also was so excited to be back in a mix of inter-faith relationships among Muslim and Christian women.

The ministry of Funshine is a phrase from Beth and Paige I was intrigued to hear. As co-directors, they would never state this nor do they need to as one might come in inquiring about the daycare. The reality is because of where Funshine is located; the needs are profound not only with who walks into the building but who is around the building. The Presbyterian Church they rent space from is located on a main intersection of urban realities just outside of Washington, D.C.

On “the Pike”, as we call it, there are varieties of restaurants spanning from Turkey, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Thailand. There are several mom and pop stores, a vintage dinner movie theater, auto garages, and our favorite, Super Pollo with a laundry mat. In the past 8 years, back to what Jody Manning was referring to in her interview, there are also brand new apartment complexes and condos rising up to meet the density needs of Arlington. The community is in discernment/disagreements over a future Trolley. The shifts and changes are a reality and a direct correlation to why Funshine has the longest waitlist they have ever had in the 15 years of owning the business.

The shifts also reveal an increase in the growing gaps of our metropolitan community. The ministry of Funshine has increased as teachers arrive at 6:45am and encounter people sleeping in the corners outside of the building. I thought the coffee in teachers hands were always for them. I now know they arrive with two cups, gently nudge the person in the corner and hand them a cup of coffee reminding them that they need to wake up and move on. Teachers have been asking what can we do?

Most of the teachers at Funshine have been employees for over eight years, several for 15 or more. Funshine could be considered a modest United Nations. The staff comes from Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Russia, Virginia and Maryland. For many of the women, devout Orthodox Christians and Muslims, to see such desolation and poverty at the door of their work is heart wrenching, of course. For them, their faith tells them something must be done. I have known Beth or Paige to meet with people who come to the door of the church and sit and pray with them. I have seen the staff activate a power house of spiritual and religious support around young mothers being diagnosed with stage three or four breast cancer while a father is awaiting a kidney transplant. Our daughter, about to “graduate” from pre-school, celebrated with of Funshine’s teachers as the class worked with her on preparing for her citizenship tests. She made it!

From outside to inside and back out again this is a community that offers support and care in our society. Like many organizations around our churches as well as within. Funshine is a body of staff that I know prays deeply for hope, reconciliation, love, and healing for the families of the daycare as well as the community around them. Like our congregations. Here is the nudge/question that I have for us organized church folk. Can mini community centers like Funshine, who serve out of personal faith and pray out of brokenness, be missions of our congregations? And be missions that are not asking for more money but desire relationships for the crises that are part of their lives?

I am not trying to be silly in this question. I know all the variables. I am offering for us in congregational organizations an opportunity to look at creative ways toward harnessing the power of mini communities that are thriving in Christ’s ministries. While serving at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, part of my job was Chaplain to Community Club, a High School, one-to-one tutoring program. Over 100 students are matched individually with a tutor. Very rarely, during my 12 years there, did we receive membership from the high school students. Some tutors do join and that is wonderful but most do not. The majority of the volunteers are there to serve and grow in a relationship that they most likely would never have in their life. In these relationships, life happens. A student’s family member has died. A Tutor’s parent is deathly ill. A student accomplishes an amazing feet. Two tutors fall in love and want to get married. In moments like these and others, as a Chaplain, I, New York Avenue, and Community Club, we are their church family. They turn to the building and faith community they know best.

There can be profound pride in having or even being an extension of people’s lives. These are daily or weekly relationships. Not just monthly service relationships. These are people who for whatever the baggage is, just cannot be there on a Sunday morning…yet! But these folks: students, tutors, daycare staff, and young families, they need all the reconciling prayer power that they can get. The spiritual brokenness going on in just these lives is a reality that communities of faith need to be a part of. And we offer this in respectful ways…tried and true…a ministry of presence. We offer the relationship not out of desperation but out of abundance in Christ. We are present with them not because we need them in our pews but because they might need the strength of Christ in us to be standing with them.

Consider the skills for the face of organized Christianity to be: agility and flexibility. They are actually an amazing part of the Christian tradition. Scripture professes this to us over and over again: “they are hungry!” “You give them something to eat, now!”, break apart the roof, “even the dogs eat the crumbs from the table”. Agility and flexibility are only possible because there is a strong foundation to stand and bounce off of (yes, we are all steeped in the Olympics). I continue to be excited in the flexibility of my ministry skills and the ministry of places like Funshine. We, church folk, are needed because of the foundation of the relationship with the one who saves us. We, congregations, are able to be agile in our relationships of prayer and care because of the foundation of abundance. For those who can or for those who need to, it is time to risk some flexibility and agility in our relationships to others outside of our membership but probably right outside our doors. They may even be opening the doors of the church at 6:45 in the morning.

Rev. Tara Spuhler McCabe is a Minister Member at Large in the National Capitol Presbytery (metro Washington DC area). She served at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, first as a Christian Educator and then as the Associate Pastor for twelve years.