Prompt: Describe a setting in which you have collaborated or interacted with people whose experiences and/or beliefs differ from yours. Address your initial feelings, and how those feelings were or were not changed by this experience.
For most of my life I have lived in the middle-class. The majority of my neighborhood, family, and friends have lived in the middle-class. Ever since I was a little kid, I had more than I needed and I assumed that everyone else had my good fortune. Everyone had enough money for two cars, a house, and a pool in their backyard. In my world, adults complained about people relying on government money to pay bills and buy food. After all, it was simple enough for them to have jobs-- why couldn't homeless people get them too? I remember distinctly when I asked a neighbor why he hated homeless people so much and he responded dryly, "Because they're all bums living off of my tax money."
My perspective was shifted when I went on a mission trip to San Antonio. During the mission trip, I had the unique opportunity to serve and interact with homeless people directly. My church group went down to serve these people dinner and share the gospel with them. I was ambivalent: I still felt like homeless people were lazy and mooching off of other people, but I was also excited to share the message of God's love with them. I kept asking myself, how can I love someone and call them lazy at the same time?
After serving drinks to about a hundred homeless men, women, and children, I joined a table and started talking with the people sitting there. I expected I was going to spread some light for them and show them a world they had never seen before, but instead the opposite happened. They talked to me about their lives and how they arrived where they were that day. Some of them had been fired for unfair reasons and couldn't get jobs because no one wanted to hire them. Some of them had medical issues that prevented them from getting jobs. Some of them couldn't afford nice enough clothes for job interviews. Through all of their stories, I learned that none of them wanted to live dependant on someone else's money. In an evening the looking-glass that I viewed the world through showed me something totally different than ever before.
My feelings toward people living off of government aid changed through this instance. I still believe that homeless people should make every effort to be self-sufficient, but I also believe that some people truly need financial assistance. After all, I was given the best opportunity in life. Why shouldn't everyone else be given the same?
For most of my life I have lived in the middle-class. The majority of my neighborhood, family, and friends have lived in the middle-class. Ever since I was a little kid, I had more than I needed and I assumed that everyone else had my good fortune. Everyone had enough money for two cars, a house, and a pool in their backyard. In my world, adults complained about people relying on government money to pay bills and buy food. After all, it was simple enough for them to have jobs-- why couldn't homeless people get them too? I remember distinctly when I asked a neighbor why he hated homeless people so much and he responded dryly, "Because they're all bums living off of my tax money."
My perspective was shifted when I went on a mission trip to San Antonio. During the mission trip, I had the unique opportunity to serve and interact with homeless people directly. My church group went down to serve these people dinner and share the gospel with them. I was ambivalent: I still felt like homeless people were lazy and mooching off of other people, but I was also excited to share the message of God's love with them. I kept asking myself, how can I love someone and call them lazy at the same time?
After serving drinks to about a hundred homeless men, women, and children, I joined a table and started talking with the people sitting there. I expected I was going to spread some light for them and show them a world they had never seen before, but instead the opposite happened. They talked to me about their lives and how they arrived where they were that day. Some of them had been fired for unfair reasons and couldn't get jobs because no one wanted to hire them. Some of them had medical issues that prevented them from getting jobs. Some of them couldn't afford nice enough clothes for job interviews. Through all of their stories, I learned that none of them wanted to live dependant on someone else's money. In an evening the looking-glass that I viewed the world through showed me something totally different than ever before.
My feelings toward people living off of government aid changed through this instance. I still believe that homeless people should make every effort to be self-sufficient, but I also believe that some people truly need financial assistance. After all, I was given the best opportunity in life. Why shouldn't everyone else be given the same?
