Street roots., October 05, 2018, Page 9, Image 9

Street Roots • Oct. 5-11, 2018
Community
Page 10
Kitchen volunteers assemble meals at Rahab’s Sisters in Portland. Director Anneliese Davis, right, is the organization’s first staff member; it has always relied on volunteer power.
RADICAL HOSPITALITY
Rahab’s Sisters gives sanctuary to women with a range o f needs, but it
faces challenges in the wake o f protests over a nearby needle exchange
BY HELEN HILL
avenue, offering them cups of hot coffee on
cold nights. They began placing lights in the
windows when there was a meal available
astel tablecloths are flung over large
inside. Soon, a weekly dinner evolved. There
round tables. Flowers are arranged in
was
no outreach: News of the hot meal spread
vases. A team of volunteers in the
from woman to woman. And there was no
kitchen is creating 100 hot meals out of
judgment, no sermonizing, no attempt to
random food donations. There are stacked
cartons of fried chicken from a school down the convert or rehabilitate. Just simple, radical
hospitality.
road, trays of potato salad, bowls of fruit from
Fifteen years later, Rahab’s Sisters is still
visiting neighbors and orange-iced Halloween
going strong.
cookies.
Rahab’s gives sanctuary to women who are
Soon a steady stream of women begin
housed and unhoused, some are mentally ill,
arriving. It’s Friday night at Rahab’s Sisters.
some are living in cars or tents in nearby
Time for some “radical hospitality.”
parks. There are women who are past or
Rahab’s Sisters takes its name from the
present victims of abuse and assault Some
biblical story of Rahab, a prostitute from
arrive on the bus or train from downtown
Jericho, the Promised Land. Her beauty,
shelters across the river. There are women
generosity and kindness were legendary. When
who suffer from substance abuse disorder and
she aided the Israelites in the fall of Jericho,
others who work in the sex trade. Some are
she went from harlot to heroine. And in the
elderly, some are young. Some are in recovery,
eyes of the volunteers at Rahab’s Sisters, all
some are not
the women who come through their doors are
“It is the most grass-roots gender justice
heroines.
work I’ve ever seen,” Director Anneliese Davis
said. Davis was hired last year as the first-ever
staff member. Rahab’s existed on the strength
ahab’s Sisters began 15 years ago when the
of volunteers alone for 14 years.
female clergy at Saints Peter and Paul
Davis values Rahab’s as “a way of being
Episcopal Church, on Southeast 82nd Avenue
present to women however they are coming in,
just off Burnside, began reaching out to women
without this agenda of, well let’s check these
workmg'in the sex trade up and down the
boxes and get yqu taken care of, move you on
STAFF WRITER
P
R
down the path to something else,” she said. “It
is purely this presence and love and this space
where women can be vulnerable and let go of
some of the stuff they are carrying without any
expectation that anyone is able to fix i t If I had
superpowers, I couldn’t fix what has happened
to some of our guests, but I can hear it and I
can say you did not deserve that, and you are
an incredibly strong person for coming through
that and I’m so glad you are here.”
In addition to providing a sit-down dinner,
Rahab’s also provides craft workshops, foot
bath clinics, hygiene items and clothing.
onight there are 100 pounds of fleece
blankets and quilts to distribute, and Reed
Scott-Schwallbach, a teacher from Centennial
High School, has brought in a large bag of
donated clothing collected by her students.
“I really appreciate that Rahab’s is part of
our community,” Scott-Schwallbach said. “I
have students who are concerned about human
trafficking, so we’ve been working here now for
three or four years. It’s just the girls who can
come, but the boys can gather the donations
too.”
Only those who identify as women are
allowed at Rahab’s Sisters. A security guard
a
See RAHAB'S SISTERS, page 11