Schedule

So I was asked to give a basic schedule of what a day looks like while I am here in Denver and what it is exactly that we do to show love everyday. The answer to that question is not quite as easy as it may sound because the truth is, we don't always do the same things. But here is what a basic week long schedule looks like.

Monday- On Mondays, the other interns and myself go to Lakewood Church of Christ to meet the youth group that is coming for the week and to help them pack for their trip up to the mountains. Mondays are pretty cool days for a few reasons, the first being that we get to meet some pretty cool, and often times, very interesting kids who have come to share life with us. Another reason is because we get the afternoon off. I know that sounds a little strange, but having only Sunday completely off means that all the other days we are living in relationship with people, which is a little tiring.

Tuesday- We (the interns) meet the staff at the office downtown in the morning for a small devotional. The devotional can be a Bible study or just a thought provoking conversation about something that may have happened recently. We then may do various chores around the office to keep it clean and tidy. In the afternoons, we walk around downtown trying to find some of our friends or people we don't know to just talk with them and find out how they are doing.

Wednesday- Wednesdays are very similar in form to Tuesdays. Really the only difference is that for lunch, we have lunch at the office with some of our friends from the streets and have a devotional afterword.

Thursday- On Thursdays the youth group that arrived on Monday comes down from the mountain and back into the city. So Thursday mornings we prepare the rooms where they will stay at the church for them. When they arrive, we help them unpack, clean their tents, and turn in their gear. After all the gear is unpacked and turned in and after we eat lunch, we take them on what we call Turf Tours. Basically, we show them an area of downtown where a lot of our friends live life and what happens in those areas. After that we go bowling with a bunch of our friends. (Bowling is a pretty sweet way to meet and get to know some people, by the way.) After bowling, we serve a meal and talk with whoever shows up for food.

Friday- On Fridays, we take the youth group downtown to go on an Urban Plunge with two of our friends, Tonya and Mickey. An Urban Plunge is basically where the group has to spend a few hours living out a certain scenario. For instance, they are new in town, have no money, but one of their friends is in jail and they need to try to bail him out. Then they have to find a place to stay and food, all without having money or knowing anyone in town. After the Urban Plunge, half of the group will go to the movies with a few of our friends, while the other half goes to a park downtown and has a picnic with anyone who shows up. We make sandwiches and have conversations with everyone who comes.

Saturday- Saturday is a similar to Friday. In the morning the youth groups will split up into groups and walk downtown to have conversations with the older homeless population. In the afternoon the groups switch and the group that went to the movie goes to the picnic and vice versa. After the picnic, we go out to eat. When we finish eating, we take the youth group to a park where we have a final devotional. At the devotional, they write letters to themselves about what they saw and learned during the week. These letters then get mailed back to them in six months so that they will remember this week. Then we send them on their way home to love the people in their communities and neighborhoods.

This is a loose schedule of what happens during the week and what we do to show love to others, and obviously there is much more that goes on than what I have said here. I hope this helps to understand what we do and are trying to do for the marginilized here in Denver.

Homeless?

So it has been a great couple weeks since my last post. Since then a youth group from Pryor, Oklahoma has come and spent a week with us and our friends on the streets. They were a good group of kids and really seemed to enjoy their time here. They spent three days on the mountain with Zach, Cole, Matt, and Nikki and learned about the beauty of God's creation. Then they came and spent three days in the city with the rest of the interns and staff. We took them on turf tours through a park in the city, they helped us with picnics, movies, and bowling.

This week another group has come from Temple, Texas. They seem like a good group too and are on the mountain with Zach, Cole, and Ben until tomorrow. I think that my favorite part about having the youth groups come so far is the fact that they recognize the beauty of nature while they hike, and then they come to the city and see what really is beautiful to God, his people.

I have really been enjoying my time here. The people that I have met and that are a part of Dry Bones are incredible people. Even though I came here thinking the people I would meet would be cool, I have really started to understand that I had no idea how cool they actually are. I am learning a lot from the people that I talk to. Learning that mainly, life is hard. It's a lot harder than what I've grown up thinking. I was dealt a good hand and I am grateful, but it is difficult to understand the bad hands that some of the people here have had. It makes the situations in my life seem a whole lot less dramatic.

For instance, for the next two weeks, Ben and I's host family is having company stay with them and so we are couch surfing a bit with the other interns until we can move back into the Ribble's house. Also, they sold their house yesterday and so are now looking for a place to move to. I guess this makes Ben and I 'homeless' in a sense. But in all reality, all the interns and staff as well as the Ribble's have made it perfectly clear that we will have a place to stay. I'm not worrying about it because I know that they mean that. I also know that Jesus meant what he said when he told his followers not to worry about clothes or food or the next day because God wants to take care of us.

God has done some amazing things in the lives of many people here. We have heard story after story of people finding the Lord in their despair. But God is also not done yet. There are still many people here who need a friend.

If there was one thing I could ask you to do in the next week, it would be to remember that some are having a tough time, and to be thankful for the easy times. Be in prayer for the people here and know that God wants to take care of his people.

In the Dark and Bleeding Places

Today was Ben and I's first official day working in the actual city of Denver. And it was a long day. But even though it was a long day, it was still a great day.

We started by meeting together at Lakewood Church of Christ (the church that supports Dry Bones and allows them to use the building). After we met, we were told that we would be going on an 'Urban Plunge.' Basically what that means is that we will be experiencing a few hours of the day with the resources that a street kid or homeless youth would have. In other words, we had nothing but the clothes on our backs and a few bucks.

We took the bus to get downtown and then spent two hours asking for directions from complete strangers or street kids as we tried to find our way to certain locations. Trust me, finding your way around a new city with no previous knowledge of streets or buildings is not easy.

We found that it wasn't all that easy to spend the morning on the streets with nothing. The streets are packed with busy people who are going to and from places, and help is not easy to find.

In the afternoon, we went on a 'Turf Tour' through a park in downtown Denver. This wasn't my first time to go on one, but it was still definitely just as enlightening. We saw some of the dark and bleeding places in Denver and had our eyes opened by the things we saw (including a near encounter with two men involved in sexual activities).

One thing that definitely showed the contrast of the living conditions here was that the park was situated near some new and developing areas where some fairly nice apartments had been built. Matt Wallace and Reb Duke (two of the staff of Dry Bones) told us that the chances that the people living in these apartments knowing about the squats that were basically right below their buildings was extremely small. The people living there don't even know about the life happening right below them! Makes me wonder about what life I have missed all around me.

As we continued on our tour, we heard stories about street kids living and sleeping in different places and saw drug paraphernalia and other basic living commodities. One story we heard was that of Trent. Trent was a heroine addict who lived on the streets for many years trying to feed his addiction by any means possible. For a few years, Trent lived in a stairwell looking across into the afore mentioned apartments. He could see some of the things that went on inside and realized that while he wasn't happy living on the streets and being addicted to drugs, the people living in much better conditions just across the way weren't all that happy either. Trent realized that while there are things in this world that can certainly make life easier on a person, these things do not make life worth living.

After our tour ended for the day, we went to a bowling alley and met up with 25 or so street kids. We bowled for two hours and I met some pretty awesome people like Steve, Hoss, Undertaker, Karen, Cassi, Leprechaun, and Don. We bowled and just had fun with some new friends. After bowling, we had dinner with these new friends and continued to get to know them.

So all in all, today was very eventful. The stories of some of the youth were really quite difficult to digest. But what was truly great about today was not only meeting some of the people the world has deemed unlovable, but also getting to see them through God's eyes: human beings who have a hard time being able to do almost anything because of the way the world has been set up, people who struggle with very real drug addictions, and yet, people who are very real and have very real hearts and emotions.

Also, in case you were wondering about how Trent is now, he has been in prison for the past three years (serving time for all the tickets and warrants that he had failed to pay and take care of). He is currently clean and sober and very joyful in his situation. And best of all, he is seeking God with all his heart, trying to remain clean and sober through his release from jail in November and beyond in order to be an example of the change that God has helped him to find in his own life.

Mountains

Let me start by giving some background information about myself. I grew up most of my life in the Hills of North Richland. Now, this name is a bit misleading because there are no real hills in this city. It is almost completely flat but for a few 'hills,' if you could even call them that. And even after that, in Abilene it is also nearly completely flatlands also.

So on Monday, the staff of Dry Bones, the other interns for the summer, and myself headed up the mountain to have a few days to get to know one another and go over some expectations and rules for the interns. I have never really done any serious hiking before so I was rather excited about this, as well as meeting and getting to know other interns/staff.

So we set out to hike this mountain. As we were climbing, we got high enough onto the mountain that we began to be hiking in the snow. Now for someone like me who has lived in Texas almost his whole life and hasn't ever really seen snow much, this was a pretty awesome experience. Especially since it is now June!

We reached the cabin that we were going to be staying in and had a pretty incredible view of the other snow peaked mountains. It was really a great couple of days getting to know the people that I will be working with this summer.

Being in the mountains and in the snow (in June! I still can't get over that) was just another reminder of how awesome the creation is. God really knew what he was doing when he made the earth, and I am glad that I get to experience it in a small way here in Denver this summer.