This crazy, insane homeless challenge thing.

For as long as I have known Leon, he has wanted to spend a month living as if he were homeless, on the streets of downtown Dallas. Why, one might ask...because he has a hear to help all kinds of different people on all kinds of levels of struggle they may be facing. Leon has lived an interesting life, one which I will share a little about in a future entry, and that life of struggle has given him an ability to quickly understand anything someone might be struggling with, and then help them get through their struggle triumphantly. Sure, he has lived in a shelter periodically, as a child in a struggling family. And sure, he is well-versed in living at a very low income level all through his adolescent life. But he has never actually been homeless, and therefore has much to learn from this challenge he has set before himself.

Many people have “gone homeless” for a day, a week, maybe longer, but very few have tried it for an entire month. Leon has chosen a month because that will hopefully be enough time for him to learn the ropes, fight the insanity that tends to set in after a few days living on the street, and it will also allow him enough time to learn how to ask for money, get an ID if you have no identification, get a job, secure a residence, keep yourself clean, save money, and much more. In that time, there will be plenty of people Leon will probably meet along the way, who are in need of direction and vision for their lives. Hopefully, along the way, Leon will be able to help them take a step forward. During this journey, there will also be a number of struggles that Leon will face, and he will have to use his resourcefulness to get past them and find solutions, and hopefully he will find a way to move past the struggles. And I am sure there will be so much more to this journey than we can even imagine at this point, that it will be exciting, and for me, scary, to keep up with his month of homelessness. 

So at the core of this, we have a man, whom I admire, revere, and love, who is giving up his family, his friends, his job, his house, his security, for 30 days so that he can better serve and understand all kinds of people. It is a mission project for him...a way to live a life of service, and a way to live a more selfless life. I think we can all learn a little something from Leon...not to be homeless or do something dramatic like this, but on how we can make our life more about what we can give than what we can get out of it. I look forward to sharing my continued thoughts as we walk through this journey together, and as we move into the final stages of preparation!