Do What You Love
About 25 years ago I interviewed a dozen Christian leaders for a story I was writing. During the interview I asked each of them to tell me the best advice they ever received.

The response that stood out above all others—and the one I can easily remember without digging out the article and re-reading it—came from Tom McCabe, founder of KMA in Dallas, Texas. He said…

          “Do what you love, because that’s what you’ll do best.”

One of the people I have admired  and enjoyed watching over the years while he did what he loves most is Scott Dimock. Scott has been helping kids—lots of kids—most of his life.

I first heard about Scott when he was a Young Life leader at Annandale (Va.) High School. I met him later when he was the area director for Young Life in Northern Virginia. (I spent a year working with several others to start a Young Life group at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia.)

Scott left Young Life some time ago and co-founded the Southeast White House. The Southeast White House mentors and supports kids in a “forgotten quadrant” of Washington, DC, just a short drive from the other White House, according to a statement on their web site. The area has a limited number of social services where “the median income is $17,000 per year, 22% of the population live in public housing …  and 77% of the children live in single-parent families.”

SEWH is hosted by a staff of volunteers who serve those who come to the house in need of lifestyle changes, jobs, fellowship, volunteer opportunities, friendship, and love. It is a place of reconciliation—an environment where urban and suburban, rich and poor, black and white, and young and old can come together.

You’ll Do It Best
The Project on Lived Theology based in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia says that Scott and his team have truly found what they “do best.” Here’s an excerpt from the UVA report:

“To an unaccustomed outsider, the sight of poverty, restlessness and decay is frightening. Abandoned shops, Checks Cashed Here stations, and liquor stores serve as welcome signs to this ghetto of sorts. Directly off the avenue, upon a hill, stands the enigmatic inner-city community ministry, the Southeast White House, a historic turn of the century manor home dubbed by the neighbors the ‘Little White House’ because of its similar architecture and placement on the other Pennsylvania Avenue.”

In addition to their other services, the staff and volunteers hold biweekly gatherings at the Southeast White House ”on Mondays deemed the Reconciliation Luncheon and Wednesdays called the Family Luncheon, identical to each other in form and content. The guests, some here for the first time and others regular attendees, mingle in the parlor, kitchen, or living room. When lunch is served they abandon the off-white outer rooms for the brightly colored dining room… The table is set for a feast: fine china, lit candles, fresh flowers, and cloth napkins. Introductions and answers to an innocuous get-to-know-you question weave around the table following the prayer. The three-course meal has begun.

“The house is unique in that it brings individuals within the community together as well as uniting those from outside with the neighborhood. Moreover, those at the luncheon lack pretense. The luncheon does not only foster individual dignity, it also bolsters that of the community. When guests from outside of the neighborhood—Congressmen and their wives, influential businessmen and women, dignitaries of other countries, professional athletes, even the average suburbanite—come to the Southeast White House for a meal, they raise the neighborhood’s status in the eyes of the broader society.

“When the SEWH was first purchased, it was the most decrepit building in the neighborhood, and there was no financial base from which to draw for restoration, necessitating that the staff wait for resources. Volunteer church groups from all over the nation came for work projects, sharing home repair skills and supplies. The neighbors quickly recognized that the SEWH lacked wealth; rather, they “lived by faith,” or by unpredictable month to month donations. All that the house contains—including the luncheon food—as well as the means for its restoration, are gifts from individuals nationwide who want to serve the poor in the nation’s capitol and who believe in the SEWH’s mission.”

 Well Done
In essence, Scott and the Southeast White House team combine the Great Commandment to love God and your neighbor, with what they love to do—mentor kids. As a result, they do it very well.

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”   - Luke 14:12-14