Welcome To Atlanta!

Hello again everyone! I want to apologize for the length in between my posts. I have heard from different sources that people are waiting for a new post, so here goes. I am now settled in the Grant Park area of Atlanta living with six other housemates. In the “Grant Park House” other than myself live John, Emily and Leslie who are also YAV’s and Alan, Greg and Ed who are local Atlanta Dwellers.  The address here is:

 683 Grant St. Atlanta, GA 30315

Here is a picture of the Grant Park House:

I am always excited to get mail! Today I finished up my third week working at the Central Outreach & Advocacy Center (OAC) which is part of Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Atlanta. Here is a link which will direct you to the OAC newsletter in which I was introduced:

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/News-from-Central-OAC.html?soid=1101042538182&aid=ss6DEwaB8v8

 I absolutely love working at the OAC with all it has to offer. The OAC is a non-profit organization with the sole purpose of assisting the homeless population in Atlanta. Each morning (Monday-Friday) from 9:00am to 12:30pm we provide our guests with many different services. The most common being helping our guest get the needed paper work to get a valid Georgia ID. This usually means helping fill out a birth certificate application from the state in which they were born, and they come from all over! When they have the documents needed we provide the guest with an ID voucher to use free of charge at the Downtown DMV and they are able to get proper identification. What has already been very frustrating even in this short period of time working is how difficult the DMV makes it to recieve the ID. It is against the law not to have proper ID but the state makes it so hard for people such as our guest to obtain them. At the OAC we also help out our guests with clothing, food, shelter, and medical vouchers as well as reading glasses, homeless verification letters, snacks, and local transportation. Also other agencies come in on certain days to assist with food stamp assistance, SSI/SSDI application help, VA help, and insurance signup. So what I do each day at the OAC is work one on one with our guests. So to try and paint the picture for you, each morning the guest’s line up starting very early at the bottom of the stairs at our door and at 9:00am we let them in. They then wait to check in at the front desk which is usually run by one of the volunteers. After checking in they sit and wait in our waiting room until one of the Outreach Counselors (this is what I am) can assist them. I then call the guest back and go through and fill out about three pages of paperwork. When the paperwork is finished I try my best to assist the guest in any way that can be of assistance. You might be saying “that does not sound very interesting at all” and from the outside looking in I thought the exact same thing. Kimberly Parker who is the director of the OAC asked me after the first week, “what do you want to get out of this year working at the OAC?” I explained to her that not only do I want to help our guests get what they need from our center which might be an ID or a clothing voucher, but I want to connect to each and every guest on a personal level. I explained, if I make it only about giving our guest a tangible item then I am not doing all I can, and in return will not get anything back. So if I can be the only person that day that does not see the guest as a “homeless person” but as a child of God then I am giving something much more meaningful than a voucher. So I take that attitude into each and every encounter I have with my guests and 9 times out of 10 the response is a positive one. Each person I see has a different story and all ended up at the OAC for a different reason. Some are one step away from conquering homelessness and some have just begun. Some guests I have talked to are 17 years of age while other are nearing 70. Each and every day my guests tell me thier stories and I tell them mine. It is such a powerful experience to see how the guest walks into the office and then how they walk out. I have spent 5 minutes with some guests while other times I have almost spent 2 hours. Sometimes when a guest has left my office I have to take a second to put my thoughts back together because I feel like they have helped me more then I helped them. One very meaningful quote from a guest was “People everyday walk by like we are invisible, but then call themselves Christians. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jesus was sitting out in the waiting room this second.” They were right on with the quote, I bet you we have all walked right by Jesus and failed to even realize he existed. I certainly know that I have done that many times before. I will leave you with that today, but think about it harder the next time you encounter a homeless person, you never know where you will see the face of Jesus.

On a brighter note.. If you have not yet become a member of my blog please do so. If you already have a Gmail account all you have to do is join. If not it will only take a second to subscribe to the blog, it will help you follow me this year. Also please comment on my posts with any questions, comments, prayers, or just general information. I do want to thank everyone for all the positive feedback so far, it really does mean a lot. I miss you all and stay tuned for my next blog post where I will share my experiences about the week leading up to and the execution night of Troy Davis here in Atlanta. 

Thanks,

Thomas