Vision

Hi everybody-

I thought I’d take a minute this holiday season to share a little of my vision for this blog and the people it’s about. The purpose of sharing this is not only to let you know what my plans are but to give you the opportunity to share your thoughts about what we might do together to give people like these youth a second chance – or first chance, depending on how you look at it.

Before I get into my vision, let me tell you a problem I have. I have been interviewing these young people for years. Almost without exception I come up with questions that I would have liked to have asked after we have already parted ways. But once we say goodbye they’re gone and I have no way to get in touch with them again. In some cases it’s even worse. In instances like Sarah from L.A. and Anthony R. from Portland (you haven’t met him yet) for instance, I am absolutely haunted by some of their responses, by their revelations to me. In those most powerful and touching interviews I wonder for weeks and even months about how I could have helped them. They really become a part of me. You may remember how at the end of my interview with Sarah I told her she could do what she described, have a normal life one day. You weren’t there, but you should have seen the thanksgiving in her eyes and heard the tone in her voice as she expressed thanks for someone giving her a message that was positive. This heroin-addicted fugitive of the law, this nineteen-year old girl who had been homeless for almost half her life was so grateful for a kind word! In the end it was apparent to me that she was not as hard as she looked. That revelation to me, particularly in retrospect as I have transcribed and replayed and reconsidered the interview, makes me long to help her much more than I was able. I have come to realize that if I had something in place when I interviewed these young people I might be able to do something lasting for them. This blog is the result of a suggestion by one of my “kids”. Ultimately it might be one way they could contact me to allow me to at least follow up with them. A good friend of our family’s in California suggested that I take information with me about local shelters, services and the like and give them out to anyone interested, but particularly my kids. I am open to your thoughts as well – please leave them as comments on this blog. Maybe we can all feed off one another’s thoughts and come up with some really great ideas.

So far, however, here’s where I am as far as my vision goes. My good friends Denny and Leslie in Seattle run Mammas Hands, a very special shelter for women and children. Please check out their site when you get a second. It’s http://www.mammashands.com/. Anyway, one of the cool things Denny does is run his “phone bus”. He actually allows homeless folks to use his phones to call someone back home to reconnect. Often these are runaways that are ready to go home. If someone on the other end of the line is actually a guardian and will take them home, Denny finds a way to send them. I absolutely have to do this one day – it’s part of my vision. Someone like Sarah who doesn’t have a family she feels she could contact and who has some more serious problems might need more hands-on help. In her instance, she felt she needed to get to San Francisco so she could serve out her prison sentence and get on free methadone which would help her and her boyfriend get off heroin and get them a new start. Wouldn’t it be great if our group could send her and her boyfriend up to San Francisco by bus? We would arrange for someone who operates a shelter to meet them at the bus stop and help them along. I realize this is idealistic and full of holes right now and that early on there might be those that would try to take advantage of our generosity. But so what? Haven’t we all taken advantage of God’s kindness at times – taken it for granted at the very least? Besides, I know we could help some of them; we could get some of them off the street! If we get taken advantage of here and there at first before we perfect our screening, we do. We’ll learn as we go. Of course we get as much knowledge as we can from those that have done similar things, but we don’t worry about a failure here and there. In the end, each small failure helps our group be more effective at our mission – to raise awareness of the young homeless and assist them in their lives.

Well, thanks for reading and for your great comments. It’s so encouraging to hear your, well… encouragement! I hope to hear some more ideas now, too. Best wishes for a Merry Christmas! The next interview will be posted sometime before December 15.

Eric

PS. If you are iTunes compatible, I stongly urge you to purchase Sarah McLachlan's video for "World On Fire" from iTunes or a similar legal service. It's touching to me every time I see it - it's my favorite video. I've been in contact with her management to get permission to use it on my site to no avail ... so far!

Eric