This week has been an awesome week! We had an all boys group come in from San Antonio, Texas. They were super fun and very compassionate. My favorite thing about the group was that they had a great sense of humor. They were are really cool group. This week JoAnna and Trevor both turned 20! We had fun celebrations on both of their birthday's. This is my third full week- time flies! So many good things happened this week; I will highlight two.
1. Zach, one of the staff members, is a multi talented person, and one of his talents is music. He played at a coffee house in the area and all of the interns went to hear him play. It was a really cool night because I felt so close to all of the other interns. All thanks to God, I have met some of the coolest people here. While I was at the coffee house a sense of overwhelming love for the interns and the others there hit me, and I am so thankful.
2. Going along with the theme of relational closeness, I have made some really cool friendships with some of the street kids. When I first came to Denver, I feared that I would not become close to any street kids because I am not truly able to empathize with their situations. I was afraid that everyone would look at me and think, "Silly white suburban kid, you have no idea what it is like to be in my shoes. Go back to where you came from." And while it is true that I do not have any idea what it is like to live their lives, I do know that I love them. There are so many awesome people who live on the streets of Denver, whether it be because of abuse, mental illness, or one of the other 1000 reasons. I have so much love for the street kids because they are humans who are just as worthy of the death of Christ as I am. As Robbie so often says, they have unsurpassable worth too. I am starting to slowly understand what love truly is. It is such a big thing to grasp, and I am not fully there by any means. I have learned that loving someone is not just doing something nice for them, it is loving them and valuing them forever. Unconditional love means that you love someone no matter what they do to you. No matter if they stand you up, cuss you out, steal from you, etc. I am just now starting to understand that this is what Christianity is. This is what changes people's lives. There is one guy who used to live on the streets who came and spoke to us interns. He talked about a lot of stuff, but particularly he spoke about how Dry Bones changed his life. He said they changed his life because they were the first people in his life that ever showed him unconditional love. He is doing great things for God now and he is getting the Dry Bones illustration tattooed on his back. God truly loves EVERYONE and so should I.