|
 When
the two of us decided to experience homelessness one weekend for a
cross-cultural assignment, the lifestyle that over 20 million
Americans experience every year, we were not ready for what we
encountered.
We thought it would be easy to find money or
food in exchange for work, and we were worried we wouldn’t even see
any homeless people, much less interview them. Instead, we were met
by people who wouldn’t look us in the eye, much less give us the
opportunity to work for them.
Finding a Place
Finally, we found some work doing
heavy lifting at Guzzardo’s, as well as some food and even a place
to stay for the night (we stayed in the storage area in the basement
of Guzzardo’s). I seriously doubt we would have lasted too long
outdoors that night in February, and even though basement was
flooded and infested, it felt like the greatest gift anyone could
have given us.
The next morning we walked out to
the edge of town where we met Nathan, a young homeless man who was
panhandling by Wal-Mart. He told us of some excellent places to
stay when one doesn’t have a home, and gave us some great insight
into the homeless lifestyle.
Lessons
We realized some important things.
This town, and this campus, may fail to see the homeless issue
around us. We often only get a cosmetic view of Lincoln- the one
homeless guy out by Aldi’s that we give change to. But if we choose
to look deeper we find an entire community that’s hurting and
waiting to be reached out to.
“If we choose to look deeper we
find an entire community that’s hurting and waiting to be reached
out to.”
Many are living in poverty,
or are on the verge of homelessness; some have lost jobs and stay
with their parents, or find the storage areas of department stores,
or open culverts, or get enough money together to stay a few nights
at a cheap hotel on the outskirts of town.
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Our weekend of homelessness and conversation with Nathan ultimately
taught that most of the homeless community wants to be loved and
cared for, and that hope is all that really gets them up each day.
We hope to try and reach out to
Nathan and the rest of the community again, and we pray that others
would step beyond their comfort zones and find the mission field,
which may be as near as a few hundred yards from our campus.
Statistics about homeless:
On any given night, 700,000 to 2 million people
are homeless in the US.
In December 2000, the
following percentages of people were homeless:
-Single men 40%
-Single women 13%
-Families with children 35%
-Unaccompanied
minors 7%
-African Americans 50%
-White 35%
-Hispanic 12%
-Native American 2%
--Asian 1%
[Marshal
Nelson & Jake Barrett]
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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