Meandering Ministry and Holistic Community: The Story of Patchwork Central with Amy and John Rich (Part 1)

Phillip Amerson [00:00:02]:

Greetings, everyone. This is Phil Amerson with the To Be and Do podcast. And today we're going to talk with folks that I don't get to spend enough time with, but I admire from a distance. Well, it's about 120 miles from where I am right now. Amy and John Rich are co directors at Patchwork Central in Evansville, Indiana, a wonderful, wonderful outreach initiative there. And I'm delighted to have this opportunity to visit with them and to learn what's happening at Patchwork these days. So, Amy and John, welcome. It's good to have you here.

Amy Rich [00:00:49]:

Hi.

Phillip Amerson [00:00:50]:

Good to be here.

John Rich [00:00:50]:

Thanks so much.

Phillip Amerson [00:00:52]:

Great, great. Okay, so I read your vision, and it says all people can change the world for the better if they surround themselves with others who believe in honor, create and nurture community from the local neighborhood to the world. So what do you wake up in the morning thinking about to do that vision?

Amy Rich [00:01:23]:

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, Pat works vision pretty much could include anything intentionally and. And always has, I think.

John Rich [00:01:38]:

So.

Phillip Amerson [00:01:40]:

Go ahead, John.

John Rich [00:01:41]:

Oh, just to say, waking up, you know, you try to guess what's going to happen, and you're never right. It's always been a surprise and always something unexpected you're walking into each day.

Phillip Amerson [00:01:58]:

So I think many people will know this, but Elaine and I were part of Patchwork years and years ago. And I'll never forget Jim Wallace of Sojourners magazine and Sojourners Community came to visit, and after he'd been there about a day, he said, I've got it figured out. Patchwork means you've got more ministries than people.

John Rich [00:02:26]:

It's still true.

Phillip Amerson [00:02:29]:

Well, tell us on the website. There are six that are highlighted, but I know there are many other things. So tell us a little bit about some of those ministries.

Amy Rich [00:02:42]:

Sure.

Phillip Amerson [00:02:42]:

And what goes on every day at Patchwork.

Amy Rich [00:02:47]:

Yeah. And. And we haven't sort of divided into. Into kind of distinct ministries, but. But yeah, it all kind of works together and creates one bigger thing. So the, the people who come. Come here say. Say they're coming to Patchwork and, and not coming for, I think, a specific.

Amy Rich [00:03:14]:

Any specific thing. But that's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So they're coming to Patchwork, and so Monday through Thursday in the mornings, we're open to the public. A lot of the people who come in are low income. A lot are homeless. But anybody, really, anybody can come in.

Amy Rich [00:03:37]:

And we've got coffee and snacks that we call. It's part of what we call hospitality. And then we also have showers so people can take showers, people can get hygiene supplies. People can. We have a food pantry so people can get a little bit of food if they're just needing a little bit of food for assistance, they. Two days a week we have guys here working on bikes. So they repair bikes every so often when. When they've got enough put together, we give away bikes to people who.

Amy Rich [00:04:18]:

Who need transportation. Does a health ministry that There's a health advocacy program, I guess is the. The absolute shortest way to say what it is. And then people just come through and they need to use the phone. They need to ask a question. They're just looking for where to start. And at this point, Patchwork has been around for long enough in this neighborhood that people just kind of know that if they're looking for something, they should just try Patchwork. That's the mornings, and then in the afternoons, everything just switches 180 degrees.

Amy Rich [00:05:04]:

And we have after school children's programs that have an emphasis on the arts. Have been going for a long time. We have generations of families have come and participated in those programs, which is pretty. Pretty cool, too.

Phillip Amerson [00:05:20]:

Well, it's terrific hearing. What I love about your sharing. What Patchwork does, or a little bit of it is that it's not any one thing. It is seeing the whole. It is inviting people. Inviting people as whole people, not just as something we're going. Pardon me, John. Not just something we're going to treat as a health issue or a sickness issue instead of a health issue.

Phillip Amerson [00:05:53]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what, what. It's interesting that you talk about the shift from mornings to afternoon, and then I know that you have other events. What is it? Fourth Friday or. Or third Friday or Friday. Okay, and tell me about that.

Amy Rich [00:06:22]:

Yeah, so that's actually. In the last, actually 10 years, there's been a lot of work on Haney's Corner and kind of changing Haney's Corner quite a bit from what patch. What it was when patchwork work started. And so one of the things is they have the Haney's Corner first Fridays, and patchwork has been part of that. And actually there's a. There's a group in the community who works to make sure that patchwork stays part of it. But we have musicians here at Patchwork, and then there's musicians down at. At Haney's Corner, and people can walk around.

Amy Rich [00:07:10]:

There's artists everywhere. And it's also just an opportunity to have Patchwork open for the community.

John Rich [00:07:19]:

Phil, maybe you can say a little more about what Haney's Corner was like when you were here.

Phillip Amerson [00:07:26]:

Well, Haney's Corner. Early. I was. Elaine and I were at patchwork from 1977 to 1985, 5 or 86. And there was an ice cream shop on Haney's Corner. But there was also a tragedy, and I believe someone was murdered there at the corner. They were just beginning neighborhood associations, and so there was the Goosetown Neighborhood association. And what was the one up on First Street? I've.

Phillip Amerson [00:08:02]:

I've forgotten. But. But it was. It was a place that even then was beginning to show signs of gentrification, especially in those big old homes toward the river. But. But there was also a lot of poverty. Actually, the corner. We.

Phillip Amerson [00:08:32]:

We. I was there when we purchased the synagogue that was at that corner. And one of the things that. Great story I. I've got to tell a fellow lived across the street is that 6th street that comes up there. I'm trying to remember.

Amy Rich [00:08:54]:

Yeah.

John Rich [00:08:54]:

Sixth Street.

Phillip Amerson [00:08:55]:

So at the sixth and Washington across the street was a wonderful gentleman. I wish I could remember his name. He taught chemistry at Bossy High School. And he was. He was a Quaker and was very discouraged by the fact that johns would come and pick up women prostitutes at that corner. And this gentleman decided it was his ministry to go out as those women were being picked up and take down the license plate of the car just in case anything happened to these women who he really wanted to protect and respect.

Amy Rich [00:09:42]:

Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:09:43]:

And one day. I've forgotten who witnessed this. It may have been Calvin Kimbrough, but the man was writing down the license plate, and the fella got out of his car and started. Started with Jesus Christ. And the dear man. The dear. What are you doing? And the dear man across who was taking down the license plate said, no, just his humble servant. But.

Phillip Amerson [00:10:20]:

So the neighborhood was. Was in flux. And there are other. There were other events that. It was tough. Yeah, there were. There were people struggling just to survive. Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:10:36]:

So. But. But the theme is gentrification and the changes in. In institutions. You all have seen that much more than. Than I did. You've had some real shifts in terms of nearby institutions. It hasn't.

Phillip Amerson [00:11:00]:

What's happened to Wellbourne Hospital?

Amy Rich [00:11:02]:

Oh, so it's been gone for quite a while now. Yeah. So. So now there's offices in what used to be the. The hospital building, although everyone still knows that that's where Wilburn Hospital is, because there's. There's a couple agencies that we need to tell people where to go to get to them. And. And it's.

Amy Rich [00:11:29]:

Yeah. Still the direction is to go to the old Wellbourne Hospital building. Yeah. And like in the neighborhood directly around Patchwork, a lot of, A lot of the older houses have been torn down. So a lot of the spaces that used to have the old houses are. A lot of them are still empty. There's. Yeah, there's not the same amount of like it sounds like, sounds like at one point, you know, there were lots of families and lots of kids and kind of all around the area.

Amy Rich [00:12:07]:

And, and there's not as much of that now, at least right around Patchwork, although I think the neighborhoods around us are still a real mixture. And, and there's still. Most of the people who come to Patchwork in the mornings particularly, I think are, are walking, walking over from somewhere. And some of them walk several blocks, but. But it's still, still people walking over.

Phillip Amerson [00:12:35]:

So tell us about yourselves. How did you get there? Where did you meet? Why are you doing this?

Amy Rich [00:12:44]:

All right, all right. Do you want to.

John Rich [00:12:48]:

Okay, so. Yeah. Sort of long or short version.

Phillip Amerson [00:12:54]:

So time.

John Rich [00:12:55]:

Yeah, I'll say. So I grew. I say I grew up in the blindness civil rights movement. So, so my parents, the vast majority of their adult lives, they worked for civil rights for blind people. They are not themselves blind, they're sighted. They adopted my. They met through the National Federation of the Blind and adopted my brother, who is legally blind. He's Korean.

John Rich [00:13:18]:

And so I've always grown up with this sense of social justice and civil rights and doing this kind of community work. And then I, at 17, I got a call to the ministry or an experience that led me to think, you know, I need to be a minister, Christian minister. And so I went to college for ancient studies, learned about the world of the Bible and things like that, and then decided, well, before I go on to get my master Divinity degree, I want to do something that's not school, that's not just staying in academia. And so I joined up with AmeriCorps. I became an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. And again, long story short, I just end up in Evansville, Indiana. I don't know anybody here. I've never been here before.

John Rich [00:14:08]:

I was actually, I didn't know what this Patchwork Central was. I had signed up to work in a program called the Neighborhood Economic Development center, which was being run by Alan Winslow and would help low income entrepreneurs with education and funding. And so I said, okay, I'll. I'll help with that. But I called Alan on the phone and I said, you know, I don't know anybody there. I'M going to be getting this AmeriCorps stipend check. That's literally the definition of poverty for the area. Is there anybody there that can help me find a place to.

John Rich [00:14:41]:

Place to live? And he said, oh, well, right across the parking lot, we have this Mennonite Voluntary Service Unit that has its own house, and the volunteers live there and, you know, sort of share resources and so forth. And I'll bet they would rent a room to you for a pretty reasonable rate. He said, let me talk to him. And so, of course they did. And they were, you know, very nice and offered me very reasonable rent to be an associate member of the Mennonite Voluntary Service Unit. I didn't know hardly anything about Mennonites. I just knew the sort of. The caricatures of.

John Rich [00:15:13]:

They're basically Amish adjacent, right? And so when my dad drove me. So I was going to. Yeah, so I was in Baltimore, my dad drove out with me to move me to Evansville. And we pulled up in that parking lot, and we're about to bring my stuff into the big old white Victorian house. And on the front lawn of Patchwork Central, I see this woman kind of noticing that. That I've. I've arrived, and I'm like, huh? I'd been told that there was going to be one other Mennonite Voluntary Service volunteer who lived in the house and that it was going to be a woman. And.

John Rich [00:15:52]:

And I was told in no uncertain terms that she was in charge, that if I crossed any boundaries, I was out on the street. And so I better watch. Watch myself and behave. And so I said, okay, so I need to make a good impression on this person. And so I moved in. And of course, that woman was Amy here. And so without ever having talked or met each other at all, we became housemates. We moved in together.

Phillip Amerson [00:16:21]:

And she was. This is called Anabaptist evangelism. Exactly.

John Rich [00:16:30]:

So that's how I came to Patchwork. I worked in the neighborhood economic development center for two years. I got involved in other parts of Patchwork. I was a volunteer tutor here. I got involved in the worship community. And because the worship community, as my understanding was, when you started out, it was designed to have no single pastor or leader. You know, it was priesthood of all believers and so forth. And so we took turns leading worship.

John Rich [00:16:54]:

And eventually I started taking turns leading worship and doing some crazy stuff. And they didn't kick me out. So I said, oh, okay, this is. This is great. You know, have. Have peanut butter sandwiches and milk for communion. Or I did A, I did a. I did a.

John Rich [00:17:10]:

I did a 1930s style radio play that I got a bunch of people to read the parts for that was that they were. It was a theological starship, you know, exploring the galaxy. So anyway, so all kinds of crazy stuff and had a lot of fun and obviously got to know Amy a lot better as we lived together. And then about a year after I moved into the house, we started dating. And then eventually we can talk more about the rest of the story. But eventually ended up together and ended up back here.

Phillip Amerson [00:17:43]:

So, Amy, what about you?

Amy Rich [00:17:45]:

All right. So, yeah, I had been, meanwhile, I had been here at Patchwork. I had graduated from college with art and English degrees and, and had had like this vague vision that I was going to somehow use it in community and applied to the Mennonite Voluntary Service. And this placement at Patchwork was like the coolest option being an artist in residence in the community. So I worked in the children's program teaching art and, and just kind of was. Was here at Patchwork. So, yeah, I'd been here a couple of years before John came and then, yeah, we had, we had both been here through the different volunteer programs and then both of us went to do different things for a little bit and then ended up coming back.

Phillip Amerson [00:18:54]:

So you've devoted big hunk of your lives to Patchwork. Why.

Amy Rich [00:19:04]:

It's, I think it's just a really interesting organization, like, especially at the, like when we first came, the worship community was much larger than it is now, partly just because everyone has died, which is a.

Phillip Amerson [00:19:24]:

Wait a minute.

Amy Rich [00:19:28]:

There are a lot of, you know, a lot of the people who were here when we first came. So the community is smaller, but it's still, still some of the same people we met when we first came. And so, you know, they're interesting people doing interesting things. I think I always have found the things that Patchwork's doing interesting and interesting to be involved with. And for myself, I really have enjoyed how much it's open ended and kind of moves around according to what's happening, what people are here, what needs you see. And it kind of meanders around what we're doing every day. And it's always. So then it's always interesting because it's always a little bit different, always interesting people who are involved.

Amy Rich [00:20:33]:

So that's one thing I've really liked about it.

Phillip Amerson [00:20:37]:

I really love the word meandering.

Amy Rich [00:20:39]:

Yeah, that's terrific.

Phillip Amerson [00:20:42]:

That's a wonderful, wonderful way of seeing it. Yeah.

John Rich [00:20:49]:

So for me, yeah, for me, going back to my ministry journey and my experience that led me to, toward ministry. So sort of going a little more in depth on that. At the end of the, my undergraduate, I again knew that I felt like I should be a Christian minister and I knew that I wanted to go on to seminary and get my Master of Divinity. But I, in addition to just not wanting to be in school so much, I was also really looking for a vision or a model of the kind of congregation I could serve. Because when I first got that, you know, the quote unquote call to ministry, I was actually angry with God over that. I was, I was pretty, I was pissed at God for months for, for that, you know, I did not want to, you know, go and have to deal with a bunch of hypocritical self righteous Christians and, you know, sort of be their errand boy and, and make that my career. That, that did not appeal to me. So I was looking for these alternative visions and models.

John Rich [00:21:57]:

And when I came to Patchwork again, Alan Winslow had told me all this crazy stuff about the different programs and how it was linked to this weird worship community, but I didn't really understand the description. I don't think anybody ever does. But I, I walked into the worship community and I saw this worship community that was a vision and was a model. And I was immediately taken by that. And I was immediately taken by the fact that it was all of a piece. There was this holistic integration of worship and service and community and living in the neighborhood and being of the neighborhood and being true neighbors to other people, not just, you know, they are objects of pity and charity. That we're in this together, it's solidarity, right? So that was a revelation for me in the true sense of the word. And once we left, once I left patchwork as an AmeriCorps VISTA, I went to University of Chicago for my Master of Divinity.

John Rich [00:22:58]:

And my classmates to this day sort of rid me about how much I talked about Patchwork in my grad school days. And at the time I didn't think at all that I would be coming back to Patchwork. I assumed that my career would be serving different congregations, you know, throughout the United States, maybe Canada, maybe abroad. And that didn't turn out to be the case. We ended up coming back. But yeah, for me, Patchwork is that vision of holistic unified. It's, it's a glimpse of the realm of God, the commonwealth. I know some people say Kingdom.

John Rich [00:23:37]:

I'm, I don't like that language as much. Kingdom is a good one anyway. So a vision of that kind of reality is what we do here. And then further, it allowed, once I got the calling, to become a nurse, coming here allowed me to create a program that combined my pastoral training and my nursing training and to create the Sozo Health Ministry. And I can talk more about that at some point if you want. So for. Yeah, so this has been all a God thing for me.

Phillip Amerson [00:24:07]:

So let's do that right now. Tell. Talk a little bit about Sozo Health ministry. Sure.

John Rich [00:24:13]:

So again, going back to. So after Chicago, Amy moved down to Cincinnati to get her master's degree at University of Cincinnati. And I moved following her and I started serving this Little Disciples congregation. Oh, I'm Christian Church, Disciples of Christ Ordained.

Phillip Amerson [00:24:32]:

Right.

John Rich [00:24:32]:

So I started serving this Little Disciples congregation across the river in Northern Kentucky. And it was a great little congregation, lovely people. It was a really good congregation for a first time pastor. And. But it was. There was a sort of a season in the congregation's life that a lot of people were getting sick and hospitalized and some of them were dying. So I was making a lot of hospital visits and I was really struck by what I was seeing from the nursing staff especially. I was seeing the care and the compassion and the knowledge and kind of that holistic, combining medicine with emotional care and support and sometimes even spiritual care and support of the patients.

John Rich [00:25:18]:

And so I was really impressed by that. And at the same time in my preaching, I was doing a sermon series on healing stories, mainly from the Gospels. And so as I was really digging into interpreting these healing stories in the Gospels and then seeing in real life what these nurses were doing, I started feeling this pull of, oh, I need, I should get some training, I should be trained as a nurse, and I should somehow find a way to combine nursing and ministry. And so that was right around the time that Patchwork was looking for an executive director. And so Amy and I talked and we decided we'll apply as co directors. And Patchwork said, yes, that's what we want. Come be co directors. And so as we did that, I was going back to nursing school.

John Rich [00:26:07]:

So I went to the University of Southern Indiana Nursing School and got my nursing degree and then eventually was able to start the Sozo Health Ministry, which I kind of describe it as. I'm a cross between the neighborhood nurse and a street chaplain. And so I It's not a clinic. We don't diagnose anything, we don't prescribe anything. I'm not a nurse practitioner. We don't have any doctors working here. What I can do though, is because we have this hospitality because we have this place that is implicitly trusted by the neighbors in the neighborhood, is seen and felt as a safe space and a trusted space that they can walk in. It's non institutional.

John Rich [00:26:50]:

They know people care about them. And then I can come up and say, hi, I'm John, I'm a nurse here. Do you have any questions? And I can answer questions. I can take blood pressure checks, dress minor wounds. I hand out free over the counter medicine. So if someone has a headache, I can give them some ibuprofen or if they need some. Some kind of ointment, I usually have some available. I can do foot soaks.

John Rich [00:27:13]:

A lot of our folks have really tired feet and so I can do Epsom salt foot soak. So I do kind of that caring level nursing care. But then I also do advocacy and accompaniment. So if people are having trouble in the health care system, I can get on the phone and help them make phone calls or I can actually take them to appointments. I've had multiple patients that have been dropped from different practices because of hitting their doctors and so physically hitting their doctors. And so I. And so my job is to go into the appointment with them and keep them from hitting their doctor so that they get a. You know, that's the kind of thing, that's the kind of thing that's needed to kind of keep people in the system.

John Rich [00:27:53]:

Because it's not. The system's not designed especially for marginalized people, to keep them in the system. It's designed to kick them out of the system. Right, right. And so that's. Yeah, so I get. And again, I can say a lot more about that, but I'll leave it at that now. Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:28:08]:

So my next doctor's appointment is in October. Could I get you to come with me? And we would. Well, I think, I think we're going to call this the end of the first recording. But I just want to let you know that what you've done is a perfect match to what we're trying to do on this podcast. And it's to be and to do.

John Rich [00:28:34]:

Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:28:35]:

And it's a meandering kind of discipleship. And it's a discipleship that always seeks to be holistic. And I want to thank both of you for that. And we're going to talk in the next podcast about the future and maybe about some symbols or signs that you can think of that represent how you are encouraged day to day. So thank you, Amy and John Rich, on this episode of To Be and To Do. Thank you much.