A New Viewpoint

Monday I had the opportunity to speak about The Salvation Army to a group of 30 teenagers at a transitional living program, along with about 15 of their teachers. Even though I spoke for a whole 45 minutes, the students miraculously stayed focused the whole time! They asked so many great questions and even guessed correctly that The Salvation Army was started "back in the 1800s" (1865 to be exact).

The next day, the students and teachers joined me at our Salvation Army facility on West 7th in St. Paul, St. Paul Citadel Worship and Community center, for a tour to see first-hand what I had talked about in their classroom. We saw kids playing soccer in the gym, seniors playing card games in the cafeteria, people taking bread off of the free bread cart in the entry-way, and so much more.

While we were standing in the gym, listening to the Child Development Center Director talk about the kids who were at that time running wildly around the gym, one of the teenagers on the tour leaned over to me and whispered sarcastically, "Hey, those homeless people look a lot like kids to me." My confused look prompted her to continue: "I thought we came here to see homeless people, not some day care." This gave me a great opportunity to talk to her about why giving these kids a place to come kick a soccer ball around a gym can be life-changing to both the kids and their families. Without a safe place for their children to go, many parents can't keep their jobs or even try to get a job in the first place. Without the after-school program and the emphasis on literacy in the Child Development center, many of these kids might fail out of school, and that might take away the chance for them to provide for their own families some day. Without a place to go during the day or after school, who knows what danger they might be in or the wrong crowds they could fall into.

I gently told the girl, "If you want to see poverty, come back here any day of the week around 7:00am and you'll see 200-300 people coming here to get breakfast, which might be the only meal they eat all day. But if these kids aren't given an equal chance to be helped, in 10 years they might be the ones coming through the line for breakfast. Do you understand why it's all important?"

Her eyes filled with tears, and all she could say was, "I had no idea."

I saw myself in this girl because I was about her age when I had the same eye-opening experience (incidentally, mine also occurred while witnessing a Salvation Army youth program for the first time), and realized that the need is so much greater than I had ever recognized. What a privilege it is to not only expand people's ideas of who needs help in the world and here in the Twin Cities, but to also spread hope that The Salvation Army is working hard to eradicate that need from all angles.