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面对无家可归者
At the Bread 生命使命, Young 校友 Work to Restore Lives
"When you’re a tramp like me, you come up north in the summer 和 go south in the winter. I try to keep clean 和 shave because I learned the hard way what people think of 无家可归的人.”
 Fresh out of SPU, Michelle Allison 和 Will O’Brien work at Seattle’s Bread
生命使命. 这座19世纪的砖砌建筑，
曾经是妓院，现在是
为…提供庇护
无家可归的人.
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见到乔治, 31岁, 无家可归的人, but trying to get his life back at Seattle’s Bread 生命使命. This small sanctuary feeds approximately 200 men, 女性, 孩子们每天, Plus提供床位, 淋浴, 和
laundry facilities for 75 male clients each night. 为那些想摆脱无家可归的人准备的
cycle, the mission offers an ambitious rehabilitation
program that includes training in job 和 social skills.
Only five staffers run the mission, 和 two of them are 2004 Seattle
Pacific University graduates: Michelle Allison 和 Will O’Brien.
A communication 和 sociology major who now works as community
relations 导演 at Bread of Life, Allison spent four years of
her childhood in Brazil with her missionary parents. “I used to think poverty was a Third-World problem,她说。, 我想我会在海外工作, 太. 但在好的赌博软件推荐，我有自己的意识
赌博十大靠谱软件这里的贫困问题, 和 about social-justice issues that contribute to poverty 和 无家可归的人ness.”
奥布莱恩改变了他的一生
他自己的事件. 大二的时候, he joined Seattle Pacific’s Urban Plunge, a gritty five-day experience that gives students a taste of life on the streets. He even had a meal where he now works, 和 remembers
the week as a profound time that put a human face on 无家可归的人ness.
Faces are important because they can be deceiving. You’d never guess that George is 无家可归的人. Clean cut with a mild demeanor, he wears rimless
glasses 和 looks like a computer programmer. He once worked as a welder but spiraled out of control when his wife divorced him back in Pennsylvania 和 太k their two kids. 他承认犯了错误。
生活坎坷，成长在
“a violent home,” 和 running away as a boy. With his wife 和 children gone, George hit the road, traveling coast to coast 和 into Mexico.“
I learned about God there,” George recalls. “他救了我很多次. 我的一生
blamed God, but then he showed me he’s
不是个坏人.”
One day in a Seattle park, he heard about the Bread 生命使命. “当我走路的时候
进门，我就完了，”他说. “我厌倦了旅行.” Now in the mission’s long-term program, he works there as an evening cook 和 attends church.
“Most of the guys who come in here have a lot of different issues,” 说 O’Brien. “They need lots of services 和 social support. There’s not much out there that can offer all that, but the church does. It’s a natural place to plug these guys in.”
A business administration major at Seattle Pacific, O’Brien came to the mission as an intern. “The business school requires internships,
和 I wanted one in a small place where I could make a difference 和 where I wasn’t just making widgets.”
He found a niche doing market research for the mission’s new catering business, “英雄,” run by men in the program as a means to teach social 和 business skills. “就像跑步一样
一家初创公司，”奥布莱恩回忆道. “I was applying what I was learning — a perfect fit.”后,
they offered him his current job as administrative
导演.
The work Allison 和 O’Brien do is about as difficult as it gets, 尽管他们年轻, they seem to take the challenges with a balance of realism 和 faith. “When I see all the suffering, it can be hard,” Allison 说. “Sometimes I feel helpless, but then there are those people who do make it, 和 they give me hope.”
For inspiration, she goes back to the basics. “I look at how Jesus lived, 和 that helps,”
她说. “At SPU, we always talk about engaging
文化和改变世界，
但这到底是什么意思呢? You have to invest in it, get involved. 每天，威尔和
I engage 无家可归的人 culture 和 struggle to find better ways to help them.”
奥布莱恩补充道:“赌博十大靠谱软件会不知所措吗? 是啊，一直都是. We know the poor will always be with us. But we’re trying to help 无家可归的人 one at a time. 剩下的就让上帝来做吧.”
That works for some, if not all, the men. 乔治还是新人
to the program, but feels safe now that he’s been given another
机会. “It’s a great place if you want to get your life back,” he
说. “我确实这样做了。.”
——康妮·麦克杜格尔
-迈克·西格尔摄
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