April 24, 2006
God’s Blessing More Obvious to Teens
Canton Rep, Canton, OH
April 6, 2006
by Melissa Griffy Seeton
Nicole Hess will never underestimate the value of a pair of clean, dry socks again.
In fact, the 16-year-old paid a dollar for a pair when she found herself partly soaked as rain poured down on her Friday night. Hess, a Hoover High School sophomore, was homeless, wet and cold — a result of little doing on her own part. . . (Click link to read rest of article)
~Real Issue: Homelessness~
Several teens were excited about their youth group’s mystery trip, until they found out it was a Poverty Simulation Project. For three days they were cold, dug through dumpsters for aluminum cans, talked to the homeless to hear th
eir perspective, and slept outside in the rain.
It was a hard three days, but lifechanging.
Five years ago my daughter and two friends launched their own mystery trip. She’s a beautiful blonde, and the first thing that she noticed was that she became invisible. She had never had anyone walk by her as if she didn’t exist, or worse, walk across the street to avoid her presence.
It was the loss of human contact, of dignity and respect, that she missed more than the food.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in material things, relationship issues, or what we have or don’t have, and forget that some people struggle just to stay warm at night.
In a culture that sometimes (okay, often) glorifies the shallow end of humanity, I think it is amazing that teens are leading the way by talking about issues that are very, very, real.
