The waiting is over – the action is about to begin. Today I’m off to Las Vegas, NV (is there any other?) Sin capital of the world or so they say, and I guess it is or could be. This trip is not to gamble, yet, I am taking a huge gamble in my life – this is a trip about “love” and breaking the hold of “sin.” This trip is about showing “God’s Love.”
You see, I will not only get to see and visit my Mother, Sister and Brother, but I will also get to visit my 2 nephews, both of whom are in different confinements, legally, city jail and PDR Boot Camp. We will all get together this weekend during a few visiting hours and remember what family is about. Love – and support and more love.
My one nephew is serving a year in a juvenile boot camp, again. Why, why- you might ask? One reason is that he stole another car and went “joy riding” with his friends, while they were all high on drugs, again. Key word here is - Again. His life has been living on the streets of Vegas for a major part of his life, at least solid for the past five (5) years. Now that doesn’t sound so bad until you realize he is only eighteen (18). He has been on the move and out of school most of his life, since the 3rd grade. Maybe a total of 30 days a year, but different schools, always moving, each year, year after year. He and his brother and his Mother living on the streets, from flop to flop, from cardboard box to empty field to somebody’s car, to oversized gargabe bins to mattress in the shade. Shade if they could find it in the hot summers and walking all nights up and down the streets when a place wasn’t available, because they had no place to lay down. Working the streets and just surviving. Always just surviving has been their lives for all these years. A little kid – lost in the cracks of life. Learning to use life to survive. I have watched on the sidelines – helpless – until now.
Have you ever thought how hard it is to go to school or get a job when you don’t have a home or a place to take a shower – or a phone for the employer to call you to come to work – or a place to hang your clothes or a place to wash your clothes, or even to know where you left your clothes? Where did you slept last night, if you slept. Think about that and then you might look at homeless person with more compassion. You might also think, with compassion “there but for the grace of God – go I.”
Have you ever said – I wish I could do something and “help” that person? Well – I am going to do just that (God and I have been talking) - this weekend - I will let you know how it goes when I get back this Sunday. Please pray for success and most of all – Please pray for God’s Love to be around all of us. Amen
