This weekend was to say the least a "Cross Cultural Experience". Being in Cross Cultural Psychology, we have to experience the semester things that are "cross cultural" to us. One of these experiences is going down to Atlanta, Georgia with the class and professor in order to work with a ministry who work with the homeless. We also go and see the National Historic Site for Martin Luther King Jr. Now I decided to go on this trip this past weekend, and to say the least it was major cultural experience for me.
We left Friday afternoon and drove the 5 hours to right outside of Atlanta. We were told ahead of time that we would be staying at a cabin...and this was a cabin. It was not too bad, but for this girl it was roughing it a bit. We met with the ladies who run "Get Real Ministries". They gave us the low down on their ministry and what we would be doing the next day in down town Atlanta.
The next morning we woke up early and left for down town. When we got there we parked near where many homeless people were. We all got out of the vans and went to go talk to the people. We had gloves, hats, t-shirts, food, and toiletries to hand out to them as well. For those of you who know me well, you know that this is way out of my comfort zone. But soon I got into things and started meeting some pretty interesting people.
One of the first men a friend and I walked up to was named Price. Now Price was one very interesting man. He has a heart for the Lord and knows what is going on. He was so excited to share with us that he has a grandchild on the way and that he was working towards earning enough money to make it down to New Orleans to see his daughter and grandchild. Now this man had one of the best personalities! For the rest of the time we were there, he would come up to me by yelling my name down the street and be like "Mosby! I have a joke for you. What do you call a cow with no legs?" And these went on and on. I can honestly say I'm glad I met Price and got to know his story, and was able to bless him with the things he needs to help turn his life around.
Now there were a couple people I met who broke my heart into pieces. The first was Jasmine, a 2 year old little girl who was out on the street with her mother. Seeing a child out there tore me to pieces. It was all I could do to not cry. All Jasmine wanted was to be played with, and for that short amount of time I was with her thats what we did. She was a happy baby, and had the best smile in the world. We hugged on her and loved on her just to make two hours of her day better. I pray that that little girl will one day be able to overcome all of this and be the kind of person I know she can be.
Another woman I met also broke my heart. Her name is Crystal. When we saw her we knew we had to walk up to her. You could tell immediately that Crystal has had a hard life, especially recently. She had a huge black eye and looked extremely skinny. We sat down to talk to her and she was very open with telling us her story. She started with going back to 8 years ago when she had a baby. She named her baby Audrey Grace. Now she loved this child more than you could know, and that could be seen just through her eyes. When Audrey Grace was 3 months old Crystal decided to leave her child with her mother because she did not want to impress her lifestyle onto Audrey Grace. She didn't want her problems to become Audrey Grace's problems. She has not seen her daughter since then. She says she is trying to get her life back together, and God willing will one day see her daughter again. You could tell this woman loved God, but some of her viewpoints were really messed up. She told us she had been raped, beaten, had her throat slit, and many other things, but it was ok she was doing it for God. She said she could take a beating from someone if need be because she knew there was a chance she could show them God. Love her heart, but this is so not right. God does not want us to go through all of that. We tried to tell her this but she insisted it was ok. Please be praying hard for Crystal and her daughter. She has been on my heart everyday since I met her. And I pray that one day this life of torture will be over or her, and she will get to be with her daughter again.
Many many other events occurred this weekend that were seriously amazing. God works in awesome ways and I will one day share those with you all. But for now that was my Cross Cultural experience.
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