Thursday Morning

We got an early morning call today, I must admit that I faked sleep so that Heather would get it. I knew who it was just by the conversation, it was our friend S-------a. She is 16 and one of the brightest kids I have ever met. I love her and one of my dreams is to be at her High School and College Graduation.

S------a's falls into the most common category of homelessness; that is youth who have no permanent home. She floats from couch to floor to friends to hotel ... etc. Her most current bedroom is a sofa at an Aunts that she gets from 11pm until 5am, she has to be off by 5 because a man who pays some rent gets it then.

Her Mother is addicted to crack, alcohol and trafficking. The social dimensions of her life would be unthinkable if you were not born into oppression, but for her not eating for two days and being told that you are going to grow up to be a prostitute are constant.

This morning that guy who uses the couch after her was drunk and angry and struck her. She called this morning before 7am to tell us that she is never going back there (a.k.a home) again. I am so broken over this, mainly because she is only one out of thousands just in my city alone, but I am so blessed to share my life with her. She knows Jesus and loves his people, she longs to serve them in his name, and by her life poured out in worship right the wrongs in this world that she knows all too well. She belongs to Jesus and that is my only source of strength when I look her in the eyes tonight and say " you are going to be o.k."

'll leave out the details of my legal obligations, but this I know ...

2 Corinthians 4:7-11

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. Amen.

Now I have to go explain this to a kid, and help her find a home on earth.

Rob