More than 10,000 people are homeless in Atlanta on any given night, and I was given the opportunity to go and help them. A year and a half ago I went up, from my lovely suburban hometown in Orlando, Florida, to the urban hub of Atlanta, Georgia with my local church’s youth group to help out with the homeless epidemic.
Being a veteran of mission trips, I was prepared to help out people who needed help and let the kindness of God move through me like a beacon of love, but I was never prepared for all of it to change the way I viewed life. Morals inculcated in me on that trip still affect my decisions to this day. Morals such as being selfless, having patience, and having empathy profoundly define me as a person because of this trip. Going out to handing out lunches, that we made, and sitting down to pray alongside people who haven’t eaten in days evokes a certain emotion in you that you never want to stop experiencing. By the end of …show more content…
The director enlisted us with the job to go and talk with some of the homeless individuals who were there. I sat down with a young man named Arnold and talked with him. We talked for 4 ½ hours until we all had to leave. The stories of the things Arnold has gone through in his life was unforgettable. He explained to me just how being homeless made him feel and how he would turn to God in his time of needs and truly plead for help. He explained how lonely the nights would get. How painful the coldness was when he had nothing warm to wear on a winter night. How he would never settle down for too long because he never felt accepted. How he was mistreated as a homeless person. All the conversations that Arnold and I had showed me that we must have Empathy in our lives. I display empathy in my actions in everyday life because you never know what may be going on in someone else’s
Being a veteran of mission trips, I was prepared to help out people who needed help and let the kindness of God move through me like a beacon of love, but I was never prepared for all of it to change the way I viewed life. Morals inculcated in me on that trip still affect my decisions to this day. Morals such as being selfless, having patience, and having empathy profoundly define me as a person because of this trip. Going out to handing out lunches, that we made, and sitting down to pray alongside people who haven’t eaten in days evokes a certain emotion in you that you never want to stop experiencing. By the end of …show more content…
The director enlisted us with the job to go and talk with some of the homeless individuals who were there. I sat down with a young man named Arnold and talked with him. We talked for 4 ½ hours until we all had to leave. The stories of the things Arnold has gone through in his life was unforgettable. He explained to me just how being homeless made him feel and how he would turn to God in his time of needs and truly plead for help. He explained how lonely the nights would get. How painful the coldness was when he had nothing warm to wear on a winter night. How he would never settle down for too long because he never felt accepted. How he was mistreated as a homeless person. All the conversations that Arnold and I had showed me that we must have Empathy in our lives. I display empathy in my actions in everyday life because you never know what may be going on in someone else’s