Learning through CARITAS
CARITAS is an event at my church that I’m forever counting down the days until it comes. I love to get involved and hang out with all of the amazing people I get to meet and befriend. These men who come to my church for two weeks in February are homeless. They all have different stories, but the one issue they all have in common is that they need help and friends. One of the terrible aspects of being homeless, besides not having a home, is the snowball effect that comes with it. Once a person is homeless, often they don’t have money for food, it is extremely hard to get a job, they don’t have any family or either they were disowned, and the list keeps going and the snowball grows bigger and bigger until it’s an avalanche of misfortune. Many consider anyone who is homeless to be a “bad person” or a “convict” because how else could they end up homeless? Well, this is absolutely wrong. By working through CARITAS, I have experienced the most extraordinary people who helped me look into myself and change.
Last February while volunteering at my church, I met someone who inadvertently impacted my life. His name was Rodney and while I don’t know how he actually became homeless, I know enough. Rodney was searching long and hard to find a good, providing job because he needed to get his little girl through college. Every time he spoke about her, he would just light up as bright as the sun and a wistful look would flash across his face: a mixture of hope and faith. He had me pleading with my parents to go to church almost every night for the two weeks he was there just so I could play games with him and listen to all the wisdom he had to share with me. He became my friend and had me wanting to change the way I lived my life, because how could this man who did not have a home, food, money, or a job have so much more life and spark than me, who has all of those things?
I am not the only one who has experienced this eye-opening experience from a homeless person. Wendy, one of the leaders of Embrace Richmond, has encountered a very similar situation. She graciously came to Thomas Dale and told us her story of Stephanie, which sounded like Rodney. These remarkable people are the ones Embrace Richmond, the Red Cross Efforts in Japan and now the musicians in Thomas Dale’s own Rock4Life concert are trying to help! Even through their struggles, the Rodneys and Stephanies in the world are the ones who show the most faith, hope, love and gratitude. Let us reach out to our friends and help pull them back up. They deserve more, and with our help they can finally have the life they’ve been dreaming of.
~Kaleigh W.
