According to the National Weather Service, there is no record of a tornado named Tillie. The meteorologists obviously have never been to Arlington, Texas. Since 1986, there have been daily sightings around Arlington of a whirlwind of ministry, led by Tillie Burgin, former schoolteacher and Korean missionary. What she is doing for her hometown, as an insurance agent might put it, is an act of God.
Tillie leads Mission Arlington, which provides food, clothing, medical care, and the good news about Jesus to needy people across the sprawling city. Headquartered in a former drive-up bank, she and her 600 volunteers reach out to the city’s be neighborhoods containing thousands of people who probably would never enter a traditional church.
A smelly start
The mission got started when Tillie and her husband were forced to return home to Arlington from Korea due to family illness. First Baptist Church put her to work as minister of home missions.
But, she recalls, her first day on the job “was the loneliest and longest Friday of my life, in a closetlike office, wondering what church staff people did all day.”
Late in the afternoon, the custodian stopped by with a piece of paper. “There’s nobody else here,” he said to Tillie, “and this person says she needs help. Here’s her name and address.” it was a part of town that Tillie had never ventured into before. But climbing the steps of the run-down apartment building deeply touched the heart of this Texan.
Tillie knocked on the door. A woman answered, and before Tillie could greet her, the woman said: “I need my electricity paid.” Replied Tillie, “I’ll get back to you.”
Halfway back to First Baptist, Tillie realized she had not even invited the woman to church. Then, even worse, she suddenly realized that this woman probably would not fit in at all if she did come. So she decided to try an invitation to a more casual, Sunday-night service.
With confidence building, Tillie made a second trip back up the stairs. The woman was gone, but her 20-year-old son, Ken, answered the door. “Would you go to church with me on Sunday night?” Tillie blurted.
“Yeah.”
“You will?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll come get you at 6:45.”
Two nights later, Tillie found Ken waiting “with big cowboy hat, big boots, holes in his jeans, and smelling bad,” but with genuine excitement about going to church. So Tillie rolled down the windows, and off they drove.
“It was clear to me no one wanted to sit by us, so I found a place in the back. Before I knew it, Ken was responding to an evangelistic message and was walking to the front.”
Needed: A new language
Ken sought Tillie’s help to start his own Bible study. Now, more than 140 Bible-study groups later, the Bible-study network keeps growing.
They have met in motels, apartments, and shelters for battered women and the homeless. Until recently, the “Westwood Village Church” met in the clubhouse area of the Westwood Apartments. This summer the fast-growing congregation moved into the main ministry’s warehouse.
In the front room of another apartment in a different part of Arlington, four Hispanic adults with Bibles open get comfortable on sagging couches. A Mission Arlington volunteer herds ten children into another room for their Sunday-school lesson.
A larger group meets regularly at the Peach Street Community Church next to a sports bar. On Sunday mornings, the bright and spacious Christian store-front area sees all the action.
As Tillie explains, most of the people involved with these groups are survivors of the same inner-city conditions. “When we say ‘testimony’ to these folks, most of them think we’re going to court. We have to learn a new language.”
Always willing to find new sources of volunteers, Tillie is beefing up her volunteer staff with 200 prisoners on probation or parole. They can count the hours given to Mission Arlington as community service. The police laud Tillie’s efforts most of the time.
“I did report our van stolen one day,” she says. “One of our paroled volunteers had taken off with it.” The policeman gently chided her for reporting a van stolen when she gave the person the keys. But that’s how much trust Tillie puts in her workers. A quick prayer and a few tips later, her group found the missing vehicle before the police did.
Signs of Life
The OK Motel in Arlington is not listed in tourist books. Most people want to check out of the weary, ranch-style building rather than check in. Yet, there are signs of life. Children’s voices, singing loudly, are coming from a small, shedlike structure. The service is under way at the OK Chapel.
Following a guitar’s lead, a crowd of mostly children becomes more animated with each gospel chorus. A painted mural, a heavenly scene with Jesus, a dove, and three crosses, covers one wall.
“This used to be a place where transients had nothing to look forward to except the stench of poverty,” Tillie says. “Now, not only do we have our separate chapel, but most of these people have turned their lives around because they met Jesus. They’ve gotten off food stamps; they’ve gotten jobs.”
Police records show that where one of Tillies Bible studies moves in, crime moves out. That is dramatically demonstrated at the Kensington Motor Lodge. The tan buildings are expressionless, like the OK Motel. Everyone knows that the surrounding area has a reputation for street crime. It was not a place John Dowdy, a lawyer, really wanted to spend time every week.
“She twisted my arm,” Dowdy says. Now you couldn’t keep Dowdy away as he shares the faith in an apartment overlooking the cracked, waterless swimming pool. “It’s hard to believe that I’m doing this. I had offered to do free legal work for Tillie, not realizing how involved I was going to get.”
Back at mission central in downtown Arlington, there are jobs for all volunteers: clothes need to be sorted; the health clinic is looking for helping hands; the dental clinic cannot keep up with all the patients; the counseling center is keeping 60 therapists busy; stacks of bread and fruit pies must be replenished in the food pantry. With all the work, one would think discouragement would slow them down.
“We don’t have time to be discouraged,” says Tillie. “God energizes us.” The founder of Mission Arlington hopes to establish 3,000 individual Bible-study groups if she can. And despite several civic citations and honors displayed on her office wall, Tillie considers herself an ordinary person who prayed for God to let her love people.
But realistically, how ordinary can a tornado be?
By Bonne Steffen, editor of THE CHRISTIAN READER.
