Ron Ruthruff - Closer to the Edge: Walking with Jesus for the Worlds Sake

CLOSER

TO THE

EDGE

Through concrete detail, current statistics, and insights from more than 25 years living among and ministering globally to youth mired in tough and dangerous street life, Ron Ruthruff provides a tried model for serving not only troubled youth but others as well.

His stories compel us to reach the least, the last, and the lost, and to appreciate what they can teach us as well. Readers will hear the voice of Job from the hospital bed of a heroin addict, read the story of Mark 5 from the perspective of an untouchable in an orphanage in Bombay, India, and discover that the children who sit on our city streets around the world are not just a problem to be solved, but have the potential to become some of our greatest teachers in both their depravity and their dependence on God.

The Least of These

Lessons Learned from Kids on the Street

RON RUTHRUFF

ISBN-13: 978-1-59669-272-5
N104135 $19.99

To learn more, visit NewHopePublishers.com .

WALKING WITH JESUS
FOR THE WORLDS
SAKE

RON RUTHRUFF

New Hope Publishers

P. O. Box 12065

Birmingham, AL 35202-2065

NewHopePublishers.com

New Hope Publishers is a division of WMU.

2015 by Ron Ruthruff

All rights reserved. First printing 2015.

Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

New Hope Publishers serves its authors as they express their views, which may not express the views of the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951047

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1-59669-441-6

ISBN-13: 978-1-59669-441-5

N154119 1215 2M1

This work is dedicated to my sons, Ben and Clayton. Your questions, your challenges, your unwillingness to accept a spirituality that is not lived out has helped shape my thinking for this work.

Julie Mullins, my dear friend and first reader on this project: thank you for your editorial wisdom and your amazing ability to hear my voice through all my attempts to write this book.

The Street Psalms Community, in which I am ordained to serve, my brothers and sisters who constantly live the stories that I tell: you put the practical in practical theology! The story of God you proclaim it is truly good news in hard places.

Tuesday night church, some of you call me Pastor, others Pops, and to some I am Doc: you have been the most intimate community I have ever broken bread with. You taught me how to set a bigger table.

The 98118 zip code that has been our home for 26 years: I have seen the face of God in your faces.

The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology faculty, staff, and students: you have given me a place to give away all that I have been given.

And my friends at New Hope Publishers for letting me push the theological envelope for the worlds sake.

To my best friend Linda, who loves me enough, after 29 years of marriage, to continue to call me to live all I teach.

When I was young, I lived in my imagination. My mother raised me by herself and she was wonderful. I lived in my imagination because my playmates were few and infrequent. This led to many imaginary friends, like Pete and Frank. They were two of my closest buddies and were willing to reenact Civil War battles, in which we would fight for the Union cause of freedom, and Vietnam skirmishes that would always end in our being saved or saving the buddy next to us. Frank and Pete were always faithful, brave friends, and I could not have imagined any better.

My mother was a courageous, strong woman who was terrified that something would happen to her only son, the only living memory of her husband, my father, who died too early and left his wife to protect her little boy. I was three years old and my sisters were grown when this crisis hit my family. Its also when I started living in my imagination because risk was to be avoided at all cost. My mother worked a lot, and fear became a guiding force that babysat me in her absence.

When I was probably five or six, my mothers sister Erma and her husband Frank visited us from Michigan. My Aunt Erma was beautiful in a 1940s Midwest sort of way, and Uncle Frank was big and strong and kind, like you would expect a man from Iowa to be. We took a few day trips, one to Diablo Dam. I still remember it was a beautiful spring Washington day. I remember what I wore because it was what I always wore: a gray felt cowboy hat, blue jean jacket and jeans, a two-gun toy belt, and suede cowboy boots. My Uncle Bill always called me Tex because little Ronnie always wore six-guns and boots. I wore those boots until I wore a hole in the sole the size of a 50-cent piece.

The moment that stands out in my mind that day happened in the parking lot, or maybe at a viewpoint near the dam. I was being pretty squirrely. The two-hour drive in the back of my mothers 1968 Dodge Dart had almost paralyzed me, and the minute I stepped out of the car, I needed to get the wiggles out. With a burst of energy, I ran toward the lake that lay below the dam overshadowing the parking lot. As I galloped to the edge of the overhang, my big Uncle Frank reached out and grabbed my jacket with a kind but cautious be careful, Tex grab. I dont know if I was in imminent danger. I dont know how far the drop or how deep the water was, and I dont know how many times my mother told the story afterward, but it was enough that I soon lost count.

According to her, the drop was deadly and the white water tumultuous, and as the gravel kicked away from my boot, it tumbled over the edge like feathers being dumped from a pillow. My life had been miraculously spared that day, and my mother was spared the horror of losing both men in her life. She never mentioned my Uncle Frank as she retold me the story, the strong hand that caught me regardless of how rambunctious I happened to be. My mother felt it was her job to keep me safe and vigilant and on the straight and narrow, by any means necessary. Lesson learned. Do not get too close to the edge. To my mom, this was the principle directing her life and experience of faith: getting it right, staying away from the edge and as far away from the world as possible. In many ways, if I am honest with myself, much of my wounding and my strength is tied to this story. It is also the catalyst for writing this book.