With each day comes a new challenge

I have never considered myself to be particularly sheltered. I have always thought of myself as being fairly open and aware of what is going on in the world. Each day I am here i realize how little I truly know. Each day is a new, frightening challenge where my faith is questioned and tested. I am constantly called upon to answer for my beliefs. You think you know so much when you get out of school, but in reality you know so little.

And the realities of so many of the situations here are heart breaking. Not everyone who stays in the hostels are rich young students on a gap year. So many of them are people who ahve scrimped together enough money for a night out of the cold. There are people here who literally have no where else to go. The hostel has become home. At the same you build relationships wiht these people and suddenly poverty has a face. You grow to care about them and want to save them the hardship of going back on the streets. It's also so hard to watch people you have grown to care for do things you know are wrong. Almost every one of the people I have met at the hostel who are not on staff spend time at the coffeeshoppes (shops that sell soft drugs- marjuana, mushrooms, special brownies). Sometimes it is surreal to sit having a deep conversation with someone and then when you say goodbye for the night you realize they are off to a coffeeshop or the red light district. You stop seeing them as these horribly, immoral people. They are your friends and you cry out for them. The brokeness of this world has never been more visible to me.

Please pray for the people here. And please pray for my strength as I am called to answer many things I don't even understand.