Thoughts

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

--Mother Teresa

20% of children are born into poverty. The major cause of poverty is not lack of education, ignorance, or bad people--it is where you are born. Poverty is usually a cycle that is incredible difficult to escape. Of course, there are the few cases such as Michael Oher becoming an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick, but usually, children are born into poverty and live their entire lives merely making it by from day to day. People are suffering every single second of every day, and not enough people are doing anything to help. We've already spent a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq....think about how many mouths we could have fed with that money; how many children could have been more nourished, even if just for a day. They live a day at a time as it is, because they don't have the resources to plan ahead to what food or toiletries they may need a week down the road.
The crazy thing about the neighborhoods in which the other interns and I are serving is that they are sometimes so close to rich neighborhoods. We went to Taylor Park one day, which is an incredible impoverished and crime-ridden area, but once we had gotten out of the neighborhood and made it back to Government Street, mansions literally lined the street. Those people in those huge, beautiful, expensive homes may have absolutely no idea of what is occurring right behind them, and they may not care even if they do know. That is what is wrong with our world today--we ignore the things that are right under our noses. We hear reports on the news every day about people being murdered over drugs or gang problems, but we don't think about the people. Consider this: You are an impoverished male living in a tiny, run-down apartment with three children to raise, and the mother of the children is gone. You can't find work because you were caught with marijuana one time and sent to jail, so you can't find the money to feed your three young precious daughters. Then one day somebody says that you can make a lot of money selling drugs for them, and even though you've been caught for using before, you agree, because you can't stand to see your children suffer anymore. Does this make you a criminal or a bad person or a "thug"? Absolutely not. Only 10% of people in jails are actually criminals...that leaves 90% who are actually safe to still walk the streets. 90%. Try to tell me that this world doesn't have problems, and I will come up with a million reasons of how it does.
This is precisely why I am here, though. People at church freaked out when they heard that I would be living in Prichard, but guess what? I have now been door-to-door within the community to tell the people about our kids' day camp. God definitely put me at this site for a reason, and that reason is being revealed to me more and more each day. At first I was nervous about going to each door in this area, but after a while, I was more comfortable than I probably would have been in a rich neighborhood. What amazes me is how different neighborhoods are even when they are close together. RV Brown houses tons of children, while Magnolia Trace is rougher and houses mainly older people or teenagers. But let me tell you this: Anyone who has ever complained about having to swim in an above-ground pool has never witnessed 6 or 7 children having the time of their lives in a tiny kids' inflatable pool because that's all they have to beat the heat. Anyone who thinks that every black guy hanging around on a corner is trouble has never stopped to talk to that person or taken the time to understand his situation. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD CHILD--sure, there are bad circumstances and bad situations, but children are not bad. They are raised in environments that may not always be encouraging or loving or morally conscious, and they grow up living the best way they can for what they have.
I have already experienced a shift in my way of thinking. I've never really helped with things before because I'm always so busy with school and my determination to make all A's. Now I realize, though, that being able to attend school and receive an education at all is a true blessing. These kids that I'm meeting may never be able to attend college, but that does not make them ignorant or stupid. I know now that perfect grades aren't quite all they are cracked up to be, but helping the world and living as Christ did is the most important part of life. You cannot say that you walk in Christ's steps and express an unconditional love to all of God's children if you shy away from the poor, the meek, the hungry, the dirty, or the incarcerated. I can already tell that my life is going to be changed drastically after this summer, and I absolutely cannot wait for that change. I want God to shake me out of my comfort zone and to make me see the good in every single person, and I want to continue to help these people wherever I go.