April 11th, 2010

Last year, she journeyed down an unfamiliar road in downtown Los Angeles caring for the city's homeless and addicted. But she couldn't get enough, so now she's going back.

Many people at Brentwood Baptist know who Kyla Conlee is. That's because she's been heavily involved in this church family and Kairos for many years.

Raised in Jackson, Missisippi, in a solid Christian home, she's the second of five children who developed her love for serving others as a child. Age eight years old, she accepted Christ, but later moved into an intimate relationship and began following Him at age 14.

In 1997, she moved to Nashville after her high school graduation to pursue new dreams, taking a job as a nanny, living with several local families before settling down, and beginning her search for a church. Finally, she stumbled upon Brentwood Baptist and immediately jumped into what she's always done best— serving others.

"I hopped around to different places, but nothing really stuck," she said. "I worked with kids and youth and sang in the choir, but I was a square peg in a round hold. I had kind of helped start Kairos too, so I got on the leadership team. Cathy Patterson [Kairos Minister] asked me to do hospitality, but I'm the people person. I kind of laughed and said, 'It'll be two weeks—max. You give me tasks to do and I'll fail.'"

Six years later, she's one of two people from the original leadership team serving in hospitality on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Kairos.

"I thank Cathy now for placing me in that role because it's stretched me," she said. "I would've never learned to lead a team of volunteers or engage people in new ways. A lot of people come in to Kairos lonely and hurting or scared and nervous and they've never met anyone in the church. I can say, 'Do you want a bottle of water or cup of coffee? And I can introduce them to people and make them feel comfortable.'"

Kyla doesn't just serve those who are hurting in the church. In her current day-to-day job she fits traumatized women who have breast cancer for prosthesis and mastectomy items. According to her, it's harder than she ever imagined to work with people who are dying, whose time is limited.

After taking the PLACE class at Brentwood Baptist, she now knows the spiritual gifts God has given her—mercy and exhortation—are what wires her to do what she does well and love it.

She said, "It's an interesting mix of gifts. The mercy side is compassionate and feels for you, but the exhortation side says, 'I'll stick with you until we get somewhere else and on to the next thing.'"

Where she's going now to use those gifts all began in June 2006 one Sunday while sitting by herself in a hallway at church in between services. Kyla remembers she prayed and surrendered to Him in a different way.

"I said, 'I'm doing all this stuff for you, but I don't even know if you're a part of it.' I told Him I wanted to be His hands and feet, and I wanted Him to be specific and intentional in my life. My life has been very different since that moment. He removed a lot of things that were distractions and offensive to Him. It's been a painful process, but I wouldn't trade it for the world because of the outcome. It's taken me from being a busy Christian to having this deeper, more intimate relationship with the Lord and actually walking with Him."

In July 2009, Kyla joined a Kairos IMPACT team who traveled on a mission journey for a week to downtown Los Angeles to work with a small church called Set Free, also a Brentwood Baptist missions partner. The church ministers to the homeless, addicted, prostitutes, and others living on Skid Row. And, according to Kyla, the city street, which is what life is for them, always looks like a state of emergency.

"It was so life-changing for me. Anytime you go on a mission trip, you think you're going to do someone else some good. But we got there and those people, who had nothing, did more for us than I could ever even explain. Their raw, bare lifestyles, and the fact they have nothing, makes their spiritual lives so much richer than ours because they don't have anything standing in between them and the Lord—materially, family, emotionally."

One of the first people she met at Set Free was 37-year-old, 6'5" Donald who "looked like Kobe Bryant", but is mentally and emotionally at the age of a 7-year-old.

"I walked in and found the coffee pot—because that's what I do. I was pouring myself a cup of coffee and this guy walks up and I asked him if he wanted a cup. He said yes, so I poured it and handed it to him. He said, 'You like to love, don't you?' I was like, 'Yes, I do.' I thought it was interesting that by pouring him a cup of coffee, he thought that was love. But that's how raw everything is there. It's life or death. It's good or evil. Love is love to them."

A cocaine addict who suffered from years of abuse as a child, Donald formed a special bond with Kyla and she was able to plant some spiritual seeds in his life.

She said, "At the end of the week, we brought some bagels and food to help feed everybody. I stood at the table behind Donald and cried because I felt like I was abandoning a 7-year-old, helpless boy. One of the disciples said, 'He's really different this week. Don't worry, I'll water it.'"

On Skid Row, the Kairos team fed, clothed, and hugged him and the others who walked through the doors of the church.

Kyla said, "You can't fix people, but love changes them. For a week, he had a place where someone knew his name and recognized his face. I find that similar to my own walk with God. He loves me well and it changes me. I want to share that with other people. Donald was different at the end of the week, but I was different too."

Amidst the good and bad on Skid Row—building lifelong friendships Set Free disciples, watching people shoot heroin in broad daylight outside the doors of the church, praying over those suffering from withdrawls from their addictions, and more—Kyla said there's another experience that moved her.

"During our first service at Set Free, they passed the offering plate and it was overflowing. There was a tissue, a yo-yo, money—whatever they had in their pockets, they gave. That was one of the most beautiful pictures to me while I was there. These people, who had nothing, gave everything," she said.

God used her experience at Set Free as a springboard to launch her into her next assignment. Long before He told her where, God began wooing her in a new direction and helping her transition. When she got back from Set Free, she knew something was going to happen, but she didn't know what.

Soon she learned about the Dream Center in Los Angeles—a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week church that has 270 ministry and outreach programs. It offers a drug rehab program, rescues women out of human trafficking, houses homeless people, offers support for teen moms, helps addicts, and much more. Using a former hospital, they house thousands of people they minister to each day.

Kyla filled out an application the day she found out about it. After months of preparation and paperwork, Kyla has been accepted into their intern program and she'll be living at the hospital in the middle of ministry. Walking on blind faith, she'll receive her ministry assignment when she arrives on their doorstep this month.

But the journey to this decision didn't come as easy as it looks.

"I wrestled with it for a couple of months," she said. "Once you start thinking about things, it doesn't make sense to sell your car and your stuff, to put everything in storage, to quit your job. You start asking questions: 'Hows it even possible for me to live if I'm giving my life and time away to others? How am I going to pay for insurance and food and clothes?' My mind got in the way of what the Lord was telling me to do."

So she "took her place on her face." She went to bed praying on her face and woke up the same way. She asked the Lord to give and take away—and He did.

One Saturday last October, she decided it made the most sense to go to the Dream Center for just a month. The next day at church, Mike preached a sermon from Exodus 14 and 15 and God told her something different.

"Exodus 14:14 is one of my favorite verses when Moses tells the people: 'The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still,'" she said. "But, in the next verse, God says to Moses, 'Why are you crying out to me? Move on.' As soon as Mike read that Scripture, I knew in my soul that was what God was telling me to do. I knew I needed to give it all up and move on."

After that moment, the switch flipped. She sold her car and her belongings and resigned from her job. Even lacking in financial support, she's trust God will continue to provide during the six months she's there.

"I don't know what's on the other side of this for me, but I'm going because He said to. We can't just settle for being 'members' of a church. There's so much more for us than just coming to church once a week. There are people in the world who need us. If we do that, then everything will change."

To follow Kyla's story as she serves the hopeless, lost, and dejected at the Dream Center in Los Angeles, go to feathersfireandfaith.blogspot.com. If you'd like to support Kyla, write your check out to Brentwood Baptist Church and mark "Kyla Conlee" in the memo line.

« More News