Chasing Heaven by Crystal McVea & Alex Tresniowski

Author:Crystal McVea & Alex Tresniowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

In my time at the shelter, I met a lot of people who were broken down. Beaten down physically, mentally, and spiritually. They were living lives that were just impossibly hard. What we tried to do at the shelter was give them at least a few of the tools they needed to get back on their feet. We offered people a room to stay in. We gave them supplies like shampoo, toothpaste, toilet paper, baby wipes, and diapers. We connected people with caseworkers who helped prepare them for job interviews.

Seeing all these people really hurt my heart, but it also changed the way I looked at them—and at myself. All along I’d been thinking of myself as a missionary. But that’s not what I was at all.

No—I was a neighbor.

Eventually I stopped thinking of the Third Ward as a dangerous place, and I began thinking of it as a community. A community I was part of. And the people I was meeting weren’t charity cases or lost souls—they were my friends.

About a week before Thanksgiving, I had a one-on-one meeting with my Mission Year director. We met in a coffee shop not far from the shelter. We talked for about an hour, and then, around 6:30 p.m., I got on my bicycle and started riding the two miles back to my house on Beulah Street. The bike path ran across a highway and through a pretty rough neighborhood. We weren’t supposed to go out on our own at night, but that evening was unusual because of my meeting. I started pedaling down the bike path and got nearly all the way to McGowen Street, about ten blocks from where I lived.

Then, up ahead, I saw a group of teenagers, six in all, walking on the bike path. They were blocking my way, and I thought about turning around, but where was I going to go? I had already passed the road and had two ditches on either side of me. All I could do was slow down and bike toward the group. At the last second they parted and let me pass.

I’m okay, I thought. Nothing to worry about.

But before I made it all the way by them, I saw something out of the corner of my left eye. It was a hand balled into a fist. The fist hit me in the face, hard. Somehow I stayed on my bike, and I started pedaling faster, but the grass slowed me down. I felt someone punch me in the face again. I fell off the bike and landed in the grass alongside the bike path. I was ready to use all the boxing moves my dad taught me, but two or three of the teenagers jumped on top of me, while the others punched and kicked me from above. One of them kicked me hard in the face.

My first instinct was to get up, defend myself, and fight them off. I was ready to go down fighting. But then, suddenly, I felt nothing but calm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.