I met a Cowboy

The last two days in the life of Tara have been somewhat unexciting. We spent all day yesterday going around town, visiting important places and meeting important people.

Started off with a meeting with McKenzie who runs the Street Camp for kids. We went over logistics that wouldn't interest you.
We ate lunch at the Gospel Cafe which is a ministry of CrossTies Church. CrossTies Church is an interesting church. They have really strict requirements in order to become a member and even though the church has existed since the nineties, they only have six members. The church has a full service on Sundays but only six are members. The members have to adhere to strict observance of Sabbaths, including taking the entire month of July off. They also have to spend a year as an "intern" of the church to learn and invest in the church. It's an interesting viewpoint. Anyway, they run this cafe that is in an old crack-house that was 100 years old and they fixed up. People come in and pay what they can for a good lunch, whether is a quarter or 5 dollars. We got to sit and talk with a lot of the people in the poor in the community because the place was packed.
Afterwards, we went to the Talitha Koum (check this website out and watch the video. it explains everything.) It's a therapeutic nursery that takes babies up to 6 year olds and teaches them basic abilities that children from broken, chaotic homes do not naturally attain like the ability to rest, to solve conflict without violence, and to prepare them for the demands of school. The director that we met told us that it was common to hear a two year old who is just learning language to say "F*** you, b****" over and over again because its the most common saying they know. I couldn't believe that. Maybe at 5 or 6, but 2? The nursery feeds the children all their meals and even washes their clothes because the public housing the kids come from doesn't permit washers and dryers so clean clothes are rare.
We left there and went to City Hall and met with the Homeless Administrator for Waco. She was really cool because she didn't just sit behind a desk and fight homelessness from there but went out in the city, knew the people by name, and made tangible changes to help homeless people and families find homes and federal aid.
THEN we went to meet Carlton the Director of the Meyer's Center which is the homeless shelter office and the place where meals are served. I'll be serving there some and teaching GED classes. We got a tour and a little briefing.
Then by far the highlight of our evening was going to a two-hour food safety class. It was ridiculous. All we did the whole time was write down some of the ridiculous things the teacher said. For example, when explaining how you can't allow food to just cool down naturally, he said "it's not like we're in North America or something"...I'll stop there. I'll just say I didn't enjoy it.
Afterwards, though, me and some interns took advantage of the free rootbeer floats at Sonic. It was SOOOO good and free.

Today was not anymore thrilling but I had my weekly meeting this morning with our intern Director to talk about the goals I have for the Summer. We sat in on the Staff Meeting with all the people involved in MW and introduced ourselves. We then had our "Friday Forum" (even though its Thursday...we're too busy tomorrow) with Jimmy, the director of MW, over lunch on "Understanding Evil". It was SO interesting. I know I'm going to love these. He taught us how our different religious backgrounds affect the way we view evil and how we intend to change it. Everyone here is from so many different traditions and religious backgrounds. We've got a Buddhist background, Eastern orthodox, Presbyterian, Baptist (of course), Agnostic background, Menonite, Wesleyan, Lutheran. It's cool to hear everyone's point-of-views and opinions.
Then I had a meeting with the Work Groups coordinator and we learned about our job and what was coming up. We start SUNDAY with the first groups coming in from Austin!!! So excited!
Our last thing for the day was a class on "How to prepare a devotional for inner city youth, homeless, etc" and basically, all that was was to get on their level, use their language, and respect their culture.

By far the coolest thing I've done in the last two days happened a few hours ago. So "The Church Under the Bridge" that MW kind of partners with and participates in was having a party for a guy nicknamed Cowboy. Cowboy used to be an alcoholic, started going to the Church under the Bridge and got saved there, and married there. Then he was diagnosed with cancer within the last year and it's at stage 4. He's probably in his 40's and they had a picture there of what he used to look like and he used to look like this huge muscle biker guy. Now he's in a wheelchair and very skinny. So the church threw him a party in celebration of his life. It was this huge cookout and a ton of people from all walks of life showed up. They took time to let the people there tell him what he meant to their life and how much they would miss him. I cried probably 90% of the time. They had music and played that country song "Live like you were dying" and he and his wife danced (as his friends supported him to stand) and when his wife started to cry, I lost it and had to take a walk. It was beautiful. It was a celebration of his life and the excitement of the next one to come. It was so confusing because you don't know whether to be sad that this life is ending or rejoice in the fulfillment of God's promise of eternity and the wholeness and health he will have. It was one of the coolest parties I've ever been to...ever.

I have to now finish my book reflection and get out of this coffee shop.

Thanks for reading. peace to you.