Shoes under bridges.

Every morning I wake up with barely enough time to make it to class. I'm terrible at getting up in the morning and this is mostly due to the handy little "snooze" button on my alarm clock which lets me think I can actually afford to sleep another five minutes four times.

I wouldn't consider myself very "high maintenance" by any means, but I do like to look fairly presentable most days. This usually is not a hard trick to pull off, but I am always stuck when it comes to matching shoes with what I'm wearing. This morning, I made it late to class by a few minutes simply because I couldn't decide what shoes I was going to wear. And after my class was over, I came back to my room and changed shoes! Ridiculous, I know.

Without a doubt my favorite thing about ACC is the people here: faculty, professors, and students. I went out to a rougher part of Atlanta tonight with a few peers and we gave out some pizza, water and toiletries to some of the homeless people in the area. They were obviously very appreciative of this act of kindness, but they were more touched by our willingness to open up and talk to them, to share life and love with them. It was my first time going, and a lot of the people who went along have been doing this for months so they've built relationships with a lot of the people there, but it was such an incredible and humbling experience.

I often think that missions work involves going to another state or country, forgetting that there are hurting lost souls under the bridge I drive on every week. And the amazing thing is that these people are so hopeful and so willing to share the little they have. I have close to 24 pairs of shoes in my closet, some of these people only had socks.

They thanked us over and over again for what we were doing, but the truth is, I feel more indebted to them than I can think to express. Their love is genuine and their hope is steady.

Tomorrow, we have Community Ministry day at our school, which basically means we get a whole day off of classes and go and do projects in the surrounding areas of Atlanta. But what it really means is that we are intentionally taking time of to do what we're called to do as Christians: to minister to the hurting, the lost, and the needy.

It reminds me of a song, and this is one I pray quite frequently,

"Make of me Your hands and feet,

I want to be to the people around me,

what You want to be to the people around me."

If we don't take time to love people under bridges, who will?

- Rebecca