BLIND Part I
Part One:
This Took Place January the week before school started for us.
Well...this past week five LCU students had a chance to meet the most amazing people, the homeless. Our group's training session for our Spring break Pilgrimages was to be homeless from Wednesday to Saturday. I can honestly say I will never fully know or experience what it truly means to be homeless, but I did experience the loneliness and worthlessness that one feels. WHICH GOT ME THINKING!
Before our training began, our training leader did not let us know what we will be doing for training, but he did let us know to dress warmly and to not bring anything, but just a pen, your bible, and the clothes that you had on, and of course what ever you had in your pocket. I knew in a way we were going to be homeless for one night, but I had no idea we were going to do this till Saturday. So when I arrived. I arrived with a two layer shirt, and a nice thick hoodie with jeans. To tell you the truth I was nervous when he told us how long we were going to do this. The first thought came to my head was " Are we going to sleep outside when it is really cold, and great I am already sick." That was the first thought that came to my head. I was a little nervous to tell my mom, so I just called my sister to let her know what we were going to be doing and that I will not be back until Saturday. The good news is we did not sleep outside but at St. John's Methodist Church. They have a program there that helps homeless families. Before we began our day we had one a LCU professor start us off on the meaning of pilgrimage and how it means to began on a journey with nothing and allowing God to provide for us along the way. Then we ended with a prayer to prepare us for our journey.
The first thing that our trainer, Kyle provided us with was a bus pass. I can honestly say I never rode on the Lubbock citi bus before nor did the others. So this was a experience trying to find the next bus stop and finding out the times and routes. Our first meeting point was to arrive at the community health center in Lubbock before 5:00pm. Our starting point was Lubbock Christian University and so we began walking and had no idea where there was a bus stop that is heading east toward downtown. We saw two girls walking our way carrying grocery bags and we asked them if there was a bus stop down there. They began to say that they think there is one, we just need to keep walking. We began walking and no luck, but we did see a bus stop on the opposite side of the road heading west, and so as a group we decided to take that chance to at least get on a bus. Well luck happened and a bus finally came, and we all jumped into the bus handing our bus tickets like little children clueless and excited. I sat by this elderly woman her name was Rosemary Perez. The weird thing was she born in Odem, and both my grandparents were born in Odem. My Grandpa's Last name is also Perez. She could be long lost family member. It took 90 minutes for us to arrive to downtown at the bus station and we walked six more blocks to where we finally arrived at the community health center. The community health center already new about our group and about our training session so they welcomed us. The woman at the desk began writing out vouchers for a hygiene kit and for blankets. She began to ask us for personal identification which I did not have. I did not bring anything with me, so I was a little nervous that she will not give us anything, but she did. I was very relieved. However the place where we got the hygiene kits from had no idea who were were and what we were doing. The woman at the desk also have us a voucher for some clothes at two places far from the community health center. So here we go with our blankets heading toward the center to retrieve our hygiene kits.
End of Part One:
posted by Crystal @ 6:46 PM
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