HALO

Homelessness Awareness Lock Out

Remember lock ins from days in the youth group? The whole youth group comes together at the church Friday night, eats way too much pizza, and plays hide and seek in the dark all around the church all night. Then there was usually a pancake breakfast the next morning before everyone went home and was in bed by 8am Saturday morning sleeping the day away. They were so much fun!

This weekend we did a lock out to help with homelessness awareness; students got to experience a day in the life of a homeless person. Burke County has been doing this event for over 15 years and I think it gave students a new perspective and a new sense of appreciation for all they have.

Since I volunteered had no choice to spend the night with the students, Stephen let me have the day and meet up with them later that afternoon. So, I bundled up and jumped in for the long haul.

 

All of the students met at 8:30 Saturday morning and then divided out around the city to work on service projects for the bulk of the day.

Our students helped with our wood cutting ministry. We have some men in the church who prepare wood for people to use in the winter to warm their homes.

Students split, chopped, and stacked wood all day.

They stopped mid day to have a lunch of turkey sandwiches, chips, apple, candy bar, and water. Then, they went back to work until about 3 pm.

The first real eye opener for them was when they had to use the bathroom. There were no bathrooms at the work site so they drove to the nearest gas station. On the door it said "No Public Restrooms." For the first trip, Stephen brought them by our house, but it was a great lesson that homeless people don't have easy access to restrooms.

They met back at the church after their service project was complete and debriefed before having dinner at the local soup kitchen.

 

We had grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and bananas at 4pm for dinner.

Then, we watched a presentation on drug and alcohol prevention. Another great reminder to students that bad decisions can quickly spiral out of control if we aren't careful.

After that, we all walked to the square downtown and set up camp for the night. By 6pm, I had one more layer left to add on. I did a terrible job of having a happy heart and positive attitude towards this event. Cold, hungry, and tired = grumpy Erin.

We had devotions every 30 minutes, and each church took turns collecting canned food downtown for the homeless people in Burke County.

Collecting the canned food was another great humbling experience for students because they got to feel what it felt like to have someone ride by and completely ignore you. They were so excited to stand there and ask for donations and canned food and appalled at how many people ignored them.

Later in the night we did a scavenger hunt where we had to find and take pictures of these things.

I was pretty grumpy by this point. When she called all the youth leaders to tell us about the scavenger hunt, I was sure the meeting was going to be telling us we were getting to go inside...the fact that it wasn't added to the disappointment and the "how in the world are we going to find these things" mindset.

(our famous person...the statue of a senator in the town square)

When we debriefed about the scavenger hunt, it was eye opening to learn that there are only two public water fountains in downtown Morganton and only one public restroom that is sometimes locked and always nasty. Since it was later in the evening, we really understood the importance of shoes, hats, heat sources, food, and blankets!

Even though there was a schedule for the evening and a general routine, there was still a lot of down town and unknowns about what was coming next. We discussed the next morning the purpose behind this: homeless people have a lot of down time, which often leads to boredom like our kids were experiencing. (They were missing their devices so much!) As a teacher, I understand the importance of structure and keeping students occupied. When there is down time, students (people in general) find a way to fill that time and it often leads to poor decisions. Even though the OCD, planner in me did not like the unknown of the evening, once the lady who was organizing it explained that that was intentional, it made a lot of sense. And I think it helped the students understand better what life is like for homeless people.

In between events, we built our shelter for the evening out of card boxes. Man, was that a mess! The adults sat back and let the kids come up with a plan for our shelter. We had to build one shelter for our whole group (21 people). It was a great team building activity, but getting the team to work together as a team was tough.

Eventually we had to go out and get more cardboard because what we had just wasn't working. The adults stepped in and another church was kind enough to let us connect to their shelter because we still didn't have enough.

 

Watching this whole thing unfold, realizing the likelihood of us having a shelter for the evening was slim to none, all the while getting colder and colder and more tired, my attitude was declining quickly. I knew I needed to get it together, suck it up and serve well, but it was tough.

The students were getting tired, cold, and hungry as well. So the whining was in full force and I may or may not have been the main one whining to Stephen. ;) Several of the boys were just sure they were not going to make it if they didn't get food in their belly ASAP. I'm happy to say, despite their confidence they would not make it, everyone survived the evening even if they did have to go to bed with chapped lips and an empty belly.

Thankfully at 10:30, the temperature dropped to below freezing and they sent us all inside to the rec center. We stayed in the basement where they open up the doors for homeless people to sleep when the shelters get full on nights when it is legit too cold to sleep outside. A few degrees below freezing is not that dangerous, but we had told parents we would go inside if it got below freezing. So, just the HALO people were in the rec center. The heat was not on, but being in a building with that many people, it was MUCH warmer than being outside.

 

We finished our last few devotions and got in our sleeping bags at midnight.

 

I still had all of my layers on and was bundled up in my sleeping bag like it was a cocoon. My breath warmed it up enough to where I wasn't cold anymore, but the snoring in the room was so loud, it was tough to sleep. Our kids were the last ones to settle down and go to sleep around 1:30 and that was only because Mrs. Snyder came out and made them be quiet. I eventually drifted off to sleep around 2:30am. It got cold enough in the room that the adults in charge went looking for the heat switch. Around 4 am, I woke up hot and stripped down to my base layer. I slept on and off for another 2 hours before we got up and out.

This was my pile of clothes around me when I got up the next morning.

Our church has a Come As You Are Sunday School class every Sunday that is open for anyone to attend. They serve a hot breakfast every Sunday morning to whoever comes and have Bible Study together. So, we joined them for breakfast before going back up to the youth room for our own Bible Study time.

We had students reflect on what they have a new found appreciation for and how that is going to affect the way they lived their lives. The biggest thing we all took away, adults included, was an appreciation for the small things like chap stick and tissues. We also talked about how grateful we are for clothes, heat, and our beds. It was a great reminder of how much we take for granted on a daily basis and feel entitled to have.

Stephen released me to go home around 9:30 am. I came home, put dinner in the crock pot, took a shower, and crawled in bed with the rest warmer on and the fan blowing and slept until 3:30. Then, I got up, ate a little snack, finished getting things ready for the week, went to the grocery store, ate dinner, and am about to head back to bed even though it's only 7 pm.

I've never been a fan of staying up late, much less in the cold. In middle school, I put myself to bed at 9pm. Every party has a pooper and I'm usually the party pooper and proud of it. Staying up all night is rough on a girl. However, I, just like the boys who went to bed hungry, survived the evening and walked away with a greater appreciation for all of the many blessings we have!

I think this was a great event and a great experience for students. I'd be okay not having to be a leader for it again, but I think it is very beneficial for students. And, our students had a great time! Yes, they whined some, but several who had plans to be picked up as soon as it was over, told their parents they wanted to stay for Sunday School and church!

And let me tell you, Stephen was the all star leader with this one. The adults who worked the first part of the day left at 3 and new adults came in for the evening shift. Stephen was with them all day yesterday and was at church all day today. He got a short nap this afternoon and was back for youth Sunday night. Talk about leading by example, he wasn't thrilled about sleeping in the cold under card board boxes either, but you didn't hear him complain. The majority of our group was made up of young middle schoolers...aka kids FULL of hyper energy...the kind of energy that when you're tired is super annoying. He handled them like a champ! There is no doubt God has called and equipped him for youth ministry. He never ceases to amaze me with the way he serves and does his job so well. I'm proud to call him mine and have a lot to learn from him about having a positive attitude in crappy situations. (PS don't feel too bad for him, he gets tomorrow off ;)