The Way I see it

I thank God for my roommate.

For those of you who don't know, back in September a friend and I moved into inner city Rochester. We were individually convicted of God's overwhelming love for the people that far too often get ignored; the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the poor. We realized that living where we go to school (the suburbs of Rochester), we don't come into contact with these people which makes it extremely hard to love them as God calls us to. After much prayer and discussion, we decided to move into one of the rough neighbourhoods of Rochester, build relationships and try our best to intentionally live out God's instructions to us.

It's been hard at times. People are confused why we're here. We've been told multiple times that two young white guys don't belong where we are, but here we are. We've been able to develop a few relationships and we treasure every one. As we get to know people more, the more my heart breaks for them and the situations middle and upper class America has abandoned these brothers and sisters to.

Just yesterday, one of our friends stopped by while my roommate was here. They hung out for a while and were just chatting. This guy is 19 years old, dropped out of high school when he was in tenth grade due to family problems and works hard to get by at a variety of jobs. In conversation, it came up that he can't read. It absolutely blows my mind that someone can make it through the tenth grade without knowing this seemingly basic life skill! This guy knows all the streets names around here, he knows every shop, every corner and he does it all by memory. He's a smart kid, but no one ever took the time to make sure he knew how to string letters together. Kids that struggle in school just get passed along for someone else to deal with and no one ever does! He made it to tenth grade like this! And it wasn't even because of this that he dropped out! Either way, my roommate was able to convince him to let us help him learn how to read. We have no clue how to teach someone to read, but the kid is smart and we've got resources to help.

I thank God for my roommate and I thank God for the opportunities He sends our way.