My Thanksgiving Adventure

If you're considering being homeless in Glasgow, forget it. It's a terrible idea. One of the worst you've had, I must say.

How do I know this? This past Thanksgiving, I had the privilege of learning what it means to be truly thankful.

This Thanksgiving began like any other. Well, by which I mean, it was actually completely different from any other, because I woke up on a sailing ship, in Scotland, which has never really happened to me before on thanksgiving. But it did begin like a normal day off here on board the Next Wave, and I hadn't the least suspicion of the insane day I was about to have.

All us DTS students all assembled as directed at 9:00 and found two lists on the whiteboard approximately as follows:

Sleeping bag            Phones
Warm clothes           Money
Bible                        iPods/iPads
Journal                     Computers
Pen

There was a big red X through the list on the right.

'What does this look like?' One of our leaders asked.

'A packing list.' We said.

'Yes' said our leader. 'You can't bring any of these things.' She said, pointing to the list on the right.

'You have ten minutes. Go!'

About twenty minutes later, just us students were walking away from the ship, the only additions from the original packing list being one guitar, one camera, and an envelope for each of us with a day and a time to open it written on the outside.

We proceeded to open the envelopes as the times written on them came. The next seven hours included tasks and activities like: picking up rubbish in the park (gross), inviting people to climb trees with us (awkward/hilarious), walking to the city centre (tiring), worshiping in the city centre with hundreds of people around us (scary), prayer walking (great), talking to homeless people (sad/humbling).

We also prayed that God would provide us with something to eat, because so far, none of the envelopes had any money in them, and we were getting hungry. It was a sobering thing to do, being how I previously didn't know what it was like to wonder where my next meal was coming from. And I was becoming increasingly aware that for a lot of people, that was a reality they faced every single day.

What I didn't mention earlier is it's been raining on and off all day, it's just above freezing, and it's windy. By 5 pm, the sun has long since set, we're all wet, freezing, hungry, and trying to figure out why this is happening to us. For us Americans in the group it was hard, imagining our families back home, without us, stuffing themselves with Thanksgiving Dinner. It was definitely a... very unique experience, and one I would do well to remember. 

Shortly thereafter we opened the envelope with the money. It was crazy amazing to see how one afternoon had changed how we viewed money. Some of us opted for McDonald's, some went to the store and got loaves of bread and such, and we all ate together in the food court area of an arcade (that's what malls are called here).

One of the oddest, yet beautiful, simple Thanksgiving Dinners ever.

To be together with each other, actually, truly, thankful that we were inside, relatively warm, and there was something in our stomachs.

We even had leftover money so we bought meals for several homeless people. One man named John was sitting huddled under a street light, reading a book. He told us he had been a heroin addict for 26 years before he finally overcame it a couple years ago. He'd been living on the streets for 12 years, and had to make £25 a day begging because if he went to the cheap hostels or homeless shelters, he would become addicted to heroin again, since so many people there are addicts.

He also mentioned that he had a degree in sociology.

Was he telling the truth? From the impression I got talking to him, I would say yes, he was.

We bought him a big meal at KFC.

Some others in our group talked to a homeless lady named Denise. She told them her precious baby boy had died when he was only three weeks old. She had a nervous breakdown and ended up living on the streets as a result.

Just let that bounce around your noggin for a bit. Imagine being Denise for a day. Now, I'm not trying to get you depressed. I'm attempting to recreate for you (if only in part,) the shift that began in my thinking. I was disgusted at how quickly during the day I had given in to self pity and by how much of the past hours I had spent thinking only of myself and what I was going through.

I've decided that a little dose of gritty reality is good occasionally, especially since we get so addicted to our comfort and security, we begin to take so many things for granted. I'm not pointing fingers or trying to make you feel guilty either. I want to try and share with you the amazing, beautiful freedom of true gratitude, because that's what I got to experience when I was confronted with something so outside my bubble of comprehension, and it's better than a breath of fresh air.

After that, it was getting late, and we didn't know where we were going to sleep that night, yet another new feeling. (I tell you what, there's a lot to learn in the phrase, 'You don't know what you've got until it's gone.')

To make a long story not as long, I ended up falling asleep at 2 something under a tarp on the deck of the Next Wave since that was deemed safer than sleeping under a bridge. It rained all night and I woke up stiff and wet, but with the realization that many people wake up this way, day after day, sometimes year after year. We weren't allowed back on the ship for another while, so we went and did a Bible study and talked about the weekend. Eventually we opened an envelope with a card that said COME HOME! So with sore feet, we walked back to the ship again, where we put on dry clothes, took showers, and talked with our leaders about how it went and processed our thoughts and feelings. (That's something we do A LOT.) Then we officially celebrated Thanksgiving on the Next Wave that evening, and it was everything that Thanksgiving should be: tons of delicious food, sincere gratitude for our countless blessings, and quality time with family, albeit a different family than the one I'm usually with on Thanksgiving.

A strange 24 hours, to be sure. Definitely the weirdest thanksgiving I've ever had; I'm sure it'll stand out in my memory. Not just for the important lessons learned in gratitude, but also for the good times we had as a team. 

So on second thought, maybe I would recommend being homeless in Glasgow for a little while. I certainly learned a lot from it. 

Do yourself a favor and be truly THANKFUL for what you have today.

UPDATE!

Hey everyone! Here's my blog, back from the dead by the necessity of things happening to me that you might actually want to know about.  So here it is, the long-expected update that you've all been patiently waiting for! (Or not patiently, as the case may be.) I do apologize for my tardiness, but in my defense, a DTS is not called "intensive" for nothing. (You should see the stack of homework I should be doing right now instead of writing, but no matter!) 

Life is smashingly good. You know when something really excites you, but you forget about it and then suddenly remember? Well, a couple of times every day, I do this double take thing: "Wait, I actually *live* on a sailing ship! I'm actually in Europe! This is actual tea and crumpets I'm having!" (Sweet goodness, have you ever had an actual crumpet? If not, go put that on your bucket list right now.)

Ok, so a Discipleship Training School. Without exception, it's the most awesome thing that has ever happened to me. In one way, it's weird to think it's been over a month since I said good-bye to everything familiar, and yet, it's harder to believe that it's *only* been just over a month on this amazing ship; time is quite wibbly-wobbly here. What I do know is that it's been the most amazing month of my life. God has somehow managed to create an experience that seamlessly combines everything I love, which is really quite extraordinary, considering the bizarre variety of my loves and interests.   

One of the things I love is community. I could talk for hours about the benefits of community. That was one of the things that really excited me about the possibility of doing this DTS; the small, close-knit togetherness that happens automatically when you have more than twenty people living in a place where you can never be more than 30 metres away from anyone. (And that would only happen if everyone crowded together on one end of the ship and you were on the other, so that never happens.) I knew within 10 minutes of coming aboard that I was home. I had stepped out of one amazing family and into another, I felt so immediately welcome. Maybe it seems like I've been here for longer than I have because I've already reached a level of closeness to these people that usually takes many times longer. God knew what He was doing when He directed me here for sure. 

I'd love to keep going; I've haven't even scratched the surface of the incredible things that are happening to and inside of me. I could write pages about amazing and crazy experiences, and hopefully I will, but for now, if I actually want to post this, I'll have to stop. Expect many more updates, some short, some long, hopefully fairly often. Have a joy-filled day!