Yesterday i got back from Little Rock, Arkansas. I went up there with a group of about 35 people from my social group, ΦKA. I was so inspired by going on this trip. We worked with a place called River City Ministry. The River City Ministry was made solely for the homeless people in Little Rock. The RCM has opened my eyes to things that i would have never thought about on a regular basis. I never knew how many people in the city needed our help. I think it is a great thing what they do at RCM. When you live in the little bubble called Freed-Hardeman, your eyes don’t see all of the people that do need your help that are right under your nose. You hear about all these groups going to Haiti, Panama, Dominican, and Mexico but you don’t realize that the people that we can get to everyday are the ones that need the most help. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing that people go to other countries to evangelize, but if you look around in the big cities and see all the homeless people that have to beg for money or food just to get by. In my opinion, they are the ones that need the help the most. The homeless are the ones that need God to know that they can’t get by and without Him they are nothing.
The two men that i got to know on this mission trip were Robert and Don. They were the head of the construction team for the houses. Robert owns a carpentry business that works on houses everywhere. He basically told me that his in his construction business they go out and build houses and the profit from doing that goes into the Second Chance Homes that they also build. So pretty much whatever he earns building houses he put that into making homes for the homeless people. That is the most selfless thing i have ever heard of. I got a chance to work in a couple of the Second Chance houses, or Hope Houses, while i was in Arkansas. What Don and Robert do is buy old abandoned houses and strips everything inside of them and builds them back up. They do this for the homeless that have no where to go. It is really a second chance for the homeless. They get them off the streets and rents them out a room for only $100 dollars a month and helps them find and job. These houses are also sober houses. The people that get to live in these houses gets to stay there for only a year. During that year, they find jobs and hopefully get back on their feet while living sober and making money so they can eventually move out and get their own place. Robert was actually a success story from the RCM. He told us his story and how somewhere he lost himself in drugs and if it wasn’t for the RCM he probably wouldn’t be here. They helped him get back on his feet and now he is one of the major people in RCM.
We also got a chance to work with some of the kids in the inner city. These kids were the most precious things you could ever know. It really brightens your day when you see all the kids come out to play. We went to a housing project and just set up on the playground and watched them come one by one. At this stage in the kids life, they are as pure as can be and willing to learn anything. We did a VBS for the kids and they just loved it! The part they loved the most was the singing of the VBS songs. I loved watching them sing and move along with the songs! It broke my heart having to tell the kids that we were leaving everyday, and it broke it more when i had to tell them we were leaving on Wednesday. All these kids needed was attention, attention that they were not getting in their own homes. Most of the kids lived with their grandparents or aunts. Some of them would even tell you that they didn’t know their mom or they didn’t know their dad. But by us being there it got their minds off of it.
If i had a chance to go back to Little Rock tomorrow, i would go. I thought it was so great helping out these people. While we were there tho, people would always look surprised when we told them that we were on our spring break. They would always say “you came to do this on your spring break when you could be on the beach or at home resting”. They acted so surprised when we would just say that this was how we wanted to spend our spring break. We don’t have to go to the beach we could just help other people out. I’m so glad i went on this trip. It really opened my eyes to see how unfortunate some people are that you don’t think about every day.
