San Francisco

On Saturday, at around 5:30 p.m., I returned home from a week-long missions trip to San Francisco. Most of you who read my blog are my friends, and you already know that, so I don't know why I bothered saying it. But here's the real news:



San Francisco was, easily, the most difficult, exhuasting, draining, and emotional missions trip I have ever been on. Because, after my faith's dry spell of a few months, after completely pulling myself away from any shred of spiritual discipline I had managed before that, I made the stupid mistake of thinking that throwing myself into the trip unprepared would be a good idea.

I thought, again, stupidly, that this trip was what I needed to snap me back into my routine with God. I was wrong.

What I discovered was that I had really taken for granted all of the preparation that James has us do every year before a trip. I discovered that going from nearly no communication with God to a daily devotion, and then singing, and praying, and singing, and praying, and bible lesson time, and singing, and praying, and so on, was a big jump. And, not only was my mind whirling from the sudden activity, but I felt like an imposter. I felt like I didn't belong in that group of people, devotedly connecting with God. Like I didn't belong in San Francisco, showing people the love of a God that I wasn't sure I believed in just weeks before.

It was hard. It was really hard. And, on top of that confusion was the frustration with the organization of my time. I felt, after working all day, every day, in New Orleans and Compton the two years before, that I was doing absolutely nothing. I was unbelievably frustrated with the large amounts of free time, when I felt like I should still be packing food, or listening to a homeless man tell his stories.

Those two things alone made the trip almost unbearably difficult for me. But that was hardly all.

I knew going into the trip that it was going to be an emotional one. Working at a homeless shelter in Vancouver, B.C., was my first missions trip, and it created a soft spot, to say the least, for impoverished people. San Francisco, I knew, would confront me with the same urban city poverty that I dealt with in Vancouver. And I was absolutely right. The people and their situations were absolutely heartbreaking, and my frustration with my own lack of work left me all the more torn between the need I saw and the ability I had to do anything about it.

My first breakdown was Tuesday night. I remember talking to Cassie after group time, and we were both complaining that we thought that we would last, at least, halfway through the week before we had to deal with our emotions. But we didn't. We came to the conclusion that God is inconvenient. We did, however, end up talking to Heather until about one in the morning. And, for me at least, that really helped. I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to jump back into work.

Wednesday, I shed a few tears. But, overall, it was a fairly calm, if cold, evening. I spent a somewhat numb day at work.

But Thursday. Thursday was hard. At the church where I worked in the afternoon and talked with homeless people, I felt that leaving might be simpler than I had anticipated, because I hadn't really deeply connected with anyone. But then I found myself talking one-on-one with Kevin, a man there who was eager to tell anyone his stories. And what struck me was his genuine interest in my life. So many homeless people that you meet are so eager to just have someone listening to them. But Kevin, right off the bat, asked me things about myself.

He asked what grade I was in, and where I was going to college, and what my major was going to be. And then, when I told him I was going to be a Creative Writing major, he launched into a discussion about literature with me. And, any of you who know me know that if you want me to talk, get me started on books. And that's just what he did. Rather than allowing me to simply listen to his stories, he challenged me to engage in conversation with him.

We talked about our favorite authors, American first, and then moved on to other things. I almost envied him when he told me that he used to have a collection of over fifty thousand books, because he was a college professor, he said. What awed me, though, was his content with his current situation. He went from an army man who traveled the world, to a college professor with an enviable collection of books, to a man living on the streets of San Francisco. And he was happy.

He made me promise to send him the first copy of my book once I'm published.

But the expression on his face when Joel came over and told me it was time to leave... He was crestfallen. The night before, Evan and I had had a conversation about how the constant coming and going of people was probably harder on the kids than the adults, because the adults were used to it. The look on Kevin's face when he discovered that I wouldn't be coming back completely threw that theory out the window. And right then, at that moment, it took all the strength I had to not start crying.

As I finally pried myself away, a man, who later introduced himself as "My name is Duane, but if you ever forget that, what's man's best friend? Dog," came over to me, shook my hand, and said "You don't really want to leave, do you? Why don't you just tell them you're staying for awhile." He laughed as he spoke, but his expression was the same as Kevin's.

I nearly lost it. But, for five more minutes, I had to keep it in while Duane insisted that we take a picture with him, and that we come back soon. Even as we were half a block away, walking toward our bus, he yelled out, "Y'all come back now, you hear?"

Thursday night was the worst. During our group time, I completely broke down. I think I cried until I was physically unable to cry any more. And then this sort of hysteric happiness set in, as if my mind was trying so hard to ignore the fact that I was abandoning those people that I suddenly found everything funny. Or maybe that final cry had simply lifted some of the weight, and I was able to laugh for awhile.

What I find unbearably ironic, though, is that Friday, our calm-down day, our tourist day, our happy day, was, aside from Thurday night, the hardest day for me. On top of the fact that I was tired and sore, I knew that, even though I was still in San Francisco, my work was done. It was that awkward, awful feeling, where you feel like you should be doing something, doing more, but that you just can't. And not only did I know that I was simply useless that day, but I missed my story.

That was definitely an odd realization. I might seem like a lunatic from this point on, but I honestly just wanted to go home so that I could write. I don't mean I wanted to come home and blog. I wasn't ready to talk about San Francisco yet, and I was honestly dreading all the questions that I knew would be thrown at me as soon as I stepped out of the van in the church parking lot. I still needed time to process everything that had happened.

But I wanted to come home and write. I'm working on a story. A novel - a trilogy - really. And I really missed writing it. I missed the characters in my silly little book like you miss a real person. I missed being able to sit down, put on my Coldplay, and just let the problems of someone else, in some other world, take me away and absorb my attention.

And with the up and coming Writer's Conference, that some of you know about that that I'll blog about later, less than a month away, I really feel like writing is a very, very important part of my day. And I'm trying to prepare and figure things out, and it's crazy. But on Friday, all I wanted to do was go home and write.

And, as I said earlier, I didn't want to talk, or blog. So much had happened during this trip that I hadn't had time to think it all over yet. I needed time to just let it sink in and register. I missed Kainos the night after we got home. We were supposed to go and tell the people about our trip. And I missed it, partly because I fell asleep, but I think partly because I really didn't want to go and talk to people about my trip yet. I wasn't ready. Even now, it's hard to say everything. I've been writing this post for three days now, and I'm just finishing.

But San Francisco was amazing. And, once I'm hydrated enough to be able to cry again, I probably will. And if you want to ask me about it, I want to tell you. Just give me another day or so. I'm almost there.