After a long period of time sitting in traffic, we finally made it to the Denver Rescue Mission. As we walked in, I couldn’t help but notice the people sitting in the triangle in front of the DRM. When I walked in, the man who ran the building sat us down and asked us questions about why we were there, what we knew about the homeless, and what we expected from this experience. We talked for about 30 minutes, and then we took a tour of the building. I guess the guy thought it would be amusing for me make an announcement to the building that dinner was about to be served, which was somewhat bizarre, since it was so unexpected. After that, we went downstairs into a very busy kitchen, where we saw a Boy Scout troop peeling potatoes. Since the kitchen was so busy, we ended up rolling silverware for an hour and a half.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to interact with any people that were homeless, but we were able to help out, even if it felt like such a small thing. I expected to be able to maybe talk to the people that were homeless, be able to hear their stories and life experiences, so I was a little disappointed when we were put on silverware duty. After we rolled about 900 sporks, a man who was part of the rehab program at the DRM sat down to talk to us. He came down from working in the closet sorting clothes to talk to us about being a cocaine addict and the struggle he’s been going through. He talked to us about how he had been hooked on cocaine for about 18 years, since he was 15. He also told of his multiple tries of suicide while he was addicted to cocaine. He said, “I’m slowly starting to talk to my parents and some friends after about 10 years, where they cut their ties from me because of my addiction.” He told us that he was in prison because of his addiction, and that when he got out, he got help from a guard he had befriended who helped him find DRM, since a lot of rehab facilities were not willing to take him due to his felony. He’s been clean for 3 months, and has turned to Jesus for guidance and help. He’s able to now leave the facilities every few days, and sometimes he spends that time trying to preach the word of God. At that point, it made me think about people who have been struggling with life, that they have something to look to and have such a strong belief in. It made me want to have something that strong that I could believe in blindly and have a strong bond with, which I think could make some times in my life a lot easier if I had something to believe in and adhere to. I think that it’s so important to have faith in something once you’ve been to the bottom of the barrel so that you have something to hold on to when your life seems to be not going as well as you had hoped it would be. I was so moved by his story, that even though we were there for an hour more than we were supposed to be, I didn’t want to leave.
Through this experience, I learned that people really are able to change and that the past doesn’t have to rule the person you are today. It made me look at life in a more optimistic way, because I saw how lucky I really was to have friends and family that loved me, even though sometimes I feel like my life is just a little bit ridiculous due to issues that seems so trivial after having heard the struggle he has gone through in his life. I feel like I’ve really grown in my civic growth, because I’ve never been able to interact with people because I’ve only been able to do community service by performing my violin, so I feel that I’ve really grown as a person overall. I feel that after this experience, I will be more forward in helping the community and people who need help. My interacting with people has contributed to my civil growth because I see people for who they have turned out to be, with all their hardships and baggage that they might have or have left behind them. This has helped me open my eyes and to become a better person and be able to understand people who are very different from me.
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