The first day was fantastic. The students went on a "Learning Tour" - they were split up into groups of 3 or 4 and walked around to different locations in the city to learn about they myriad issues going on in the city: community living, gangs, child prostitution, how shelters work. They were also challenged to invite someone out for coffee and chat with them. I'm not gonna lie, I was rather jealous - having never worked in an inner city situation before, I too wanted to learn about these issues first hand. But this year is not about me, and as a staff member I sat at a shelter downtown from 11:30 til 5:00 signing in students. This actually turned out to be a blast.
Not 10 minutes after sitting down, I had made two friends - their bantering just had me in stitches all day long. Those hours just flew by. It was incredible how my expectations for the day were turned completely upside-down. My ideas about the homeless at the beginning of the day were rather stereotypical - those sad, down-on-their-luck characters we see on tv. I expected to bring a smile and maybe even a bit of joy into the lives of the people I talked to that day. Instead Ray and Keith spent the whole day making me laugh - an that made them happy. The entire shelter was filled with laughter and jokes - the sense of camaraderie there blew me away.
I left that day marvelling at the brightness of the human spirit. The following day rocked me to my very core.
That evening, the pastor of the church we were staying in brought in a woman who was so drunk, that she couldn't even walk straight. She had fallen over on the sidewalk, and he wanted to make sure that she was ok, maybe offer her a place at the church to crash for the night. I was there as he was talking to her and it broke my heart. For, as we chatted, we learned that she was also 9 weeks pregnant and in an abusive relationship that she was afraid to leave because her boyfriend was threatening to kill her. So many things in that just left me reeling. Here was a woman who was so desperate to escape the pain in her life she was drinking while pregnant - and might not even know that was a bad idea. She also came from a situation where a pastor had to explain that he wasn't hitting on her, he was just trying to love her as a brother; he wanted to make sure she wasn't getting beaten, or was going to sleep on a sidewalk. Here was a woman who had so little love in her life. I was crying so hard at this point in time that I had to leave the office (luckily my colleague had joined us in comforting this woman, which left me free to leave). I ended up sitting on the floor, sobbing, and crying out "why?!" over and over again. How could something like this exist? How could I reconcile that sort of pain with the loving God I believe in?
Luckily - and I truly mean that - I was surrounded by a group of people who were all too willing to carry me when I was broken. I had people to give me a hug, to cry to on the phone to, to bring me a plate of dinner because I just needed to sit in silence and to pray for me. It seems a little ridiculous, but the hardest part of my night was being brought a plate of food from one of my students - he had put extra cheese on it because he remembered how much I love cheese. It was such a little thing, but after meeting someone who had probably never seen kindness like that before, it meant the world to me. I'm not gonna lie, I burst into tears again when it happened.
That night was one of the most challenging nights of my life. And yet, I am so thankful that it happened. One of my friends even went so far as to say she was excited that I went through it. It sounds funny, but I agree. I had my eyes opened to the reality of what goes on in our world - just how broken it can sometimes be. I had my heart broken for the pain some people feel. But I know that I will heal stronger than ever before - I know that I will never again be able to turn my face away from the people who need me. I know that God is shaping me through all the experiences He's throwing my way this year.
And the best part of it all? After all this craziness went down, I woke up the following morning to watch our 32 students go out into the city to bring love to those who need it. They volunteered in shelters, handed out food hampers, baked cookies for a community and played with children who just wanted a friend. I watched them go out and change the world and I knew that the situation wasn't hopeless.
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| making thank-you cards |
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| serving lunch at the shelter |
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| baking cookies for the community |
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