The Nighttime Jesus Young Minister Reaches Out To Spokane Street Kids

God talks to Mark Terrell. Terrell talks to the homeless teenagers who prowl Spokane’s streets at night.

Terrell, 25, is a street preacher. He walks downtown and tells teens he meets about Jesus. His work is much like that of the original apostles, who wandered the world in pairs, spreading the message of Christianity.

During one night this month, Terrell spent 45 minutes discussing Scripture with two teens on BMX bikes in front of the downtown bus Plaza.

A thin boy, about 16 years old with orange hair, listened while his older pal chattered about the death of Jesus.

“I’m like really fascinated with that, you know, like the idea of crucifixion,” the teen says. “Do you think that’s weird?”

No, Terrell says. “Maybe Jesus is trying to talk to you.”

They talk about the resurrection and Jesus’ claim to be the son of God. Terrell suggests a few Bible passages.

As the boys speed off to get free food when a nearby pizza shop closes, the older teen says, “You know, I like talking to you, because you always make me feel better. You listen to what I have to say.”

Soccer his first calling

Terrell came to Spokane from Longview, Wash., to attend Whitworth College. He chose the private Presbyterian school not for religious studies, but because he won a soccer scholarship.

Soccer was his reason for life. Kathy Terrell’s only child came home from first grade 20 years ago and told his parents to sign him up for soccer.

“He had never even played before,” his mom says. “But he knew that was his calling. And it was his ticket to college.”

But like a story out of the Old Testament, Terrell says God asked him to give up his life’s love.

Terrell became a born-again Christian his freshman year at Whitworth after two friends died in a car accident. He was torn over whether he could continue playing soccer and still be devoted to religion.

“I told God, ‘If you want me to quit, hurt me so I can’t play,”’ Terrell says.

He went the entire season without injury or incident. Then, during a practice, another player stole the ball from him. Enraged, Terrell instinctively leveled a low blow at his teammate.

“I apologized, took off my shoes, walked over to the

coach and said, ‘I am quitting,”’ Terrell recalls. Soccer, he decided, was interfering with his relationship with Christ.

He joined a student service group that takes meals to the residents of the low-income hotels downtown. He then spent a summer working at a group home for teenagers convicted of crimes.

It was among the outcast and downtrodden that Terrell felt a religious calling. He completed his psychology degree last year and landed a great job - chaplain at a San Francisco group home. It provided a paycheck and benefits, as well as an opportunity to live his religious convictions.

But after six months, he quit. God called him back to Spokane, he says.

He lived on savings and wandered Spokane’s streets, meeting kids and trying to help them. And he prayed.

Soon, doors began to open.

The Rev. Rich Lang, the founder of Lay Ministries Northwest, an organization that helps new ministries get started, took Terrell under his wing. He introduced Terrell to dozens of pastors, welcomed him into a group of other ministers and advised him on starting a non-profit charity.

Donations began trickling in.

The pastor at Central United Methodist church, at Third and Howard, heard about Terrell and offered him free space for an office and clothing bank to collect clothes for the homeless.

A volunteer coordinator at Whitworth then called and asked if he needed help. Terrell soon had a handful of volunteers to canvass with him.

Now, he brings in enough in donations to pay himself about $1,000 a month in salary and to cover ministry expenses.

“It’s all God. He wanted me to do this so He made it possible,” Terrell says.

Each night, with a volunteer, Terrell begins his patrols with a prayer.

Often they bring people back to their office to give them donated clothes and blankets.

Chilly nights, warm garments

“Pillows, cool. I haven’t slept on a pillow in more than a year,” says a 17-year-old boy, who came with a friend to rummage through Terrell’s clothing bank. “Even when I sleep at someone’s house, they don’t give me a pillow.”

The boy has lived on the streets for more than a year. He says his parents want to lock him in a mental institution because he does not follow their religious beliefs.

After the first cool September nights set in, he and a fellow runaway, a girl, came looking for warmer clothes and blankets.

Terrell and his volunteer of the night, Jill Haley, watch with smiles as the teenagers tear through the racks of clothes.

The kids linger in the office talking. The boy admits he shaved his dreadlocks after they got infested with lice.

Both kids were sleeping in a Peaceful Valley park one night when the sprinklers came on, soaking their belongings. Now they live in the attic of an abandoned house.

After an hour, they reluctantly return to the night, thanking Terrell and Hawley for the clothes.

“Thank Jesus,” Terrell tells them. “He’s the one who brings us all this stuff.”

Cool water for parched souls

Terrell calls his ministry a Cup of Cool Water. The name, he says, came from God. It was a suggestion of a friend, but Terrell was ambivalent.

While praying about it, he opened his Bible to Psalms 107:35: “He turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs.”

“Every time you give someone a cup of cool water, it’s like you are giving it to Jesus,” he says.

During his nightly patrols he has met hundreds of kids, some as young as 12 years old. While many street kids are eager to see him, they occasionally scoff or mock him.

“We really don’t take it personally,” says volunteer Jenny Jackson. “It is abundantly clear that it’s totally God down there at work, not us. We just have to show up.”

But even that is hard. Terrell spends as much time on office work as he does walking the streets.

There is a volunteer handbook to write, thank-you notes to send for donations, presentations to make and training sessions to organize.

“It’s amazing, the results he gets and the peace with which he moves through this stuff,” says Doug Spruance, a lawyer providing the ministry with free advice. “You see what he is doing all by himself, he brings tears to my eyes.”

Lang, of Lay Ministries Northwest, marvels at Terrell’s ability to dedicate himself to an unconventional lifestyle.

“This isn’t exactly the predicted trajectory for a 25-year-old college grad,” Lang says. “The key will be if he can find a way to train and mentor people, otherwise he will burn out.”

Prayers to end the night

Every night, Terrell and his volunteer end the day with a prayer. They close the office door and become quiet, waiting for the air of chaos that surrounds street kids to dissipate.

They beg God to protect the children they have seen.

“May they feel your loving arms as they pull those clothes around them and your tender touch as they lay their heads on those pillows,” Haley prays.

Locking the office door for the night, Terrell tries to minimize his role in the ministry.

“I can’t help doing it, it’s something Jesus told me to do. I’m just a 25-year-old brat in love with Jesus.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos