Day 1 Degage Ministries Feddema

I went to Degage, which is a shelter/restaurant/store where homeless people can go. It was only two of us, so walking in there was almost scary because we were surrounded by people we didn't know, going to a place that we had never been to before to help people in ways we didn't even know how to. But it actually wasn't all that bad. When we first got in, we went to the sign in desk and the lady brought us behind their little store counter to help out for a few minutes until she was done helping consumers. The rest of the day we spent doing things that were not originally planned. Instead of "going downstairs to organize stuff" we got to be with the actually people up there and get to work with them. The big room had a showering place, a little laundry-mat, a room for housing, a room for personal stuff and a room for getting an ID. There was also the "store" were you go to pick up your mail, purchase soup and tokens for the laundry-mat, sign up for showers, buy things are major reduced prices like t-shirts, socks, gloves for usually only around a dollar. So we got to work there. People would come up with their ID and we would check if they had an mail, others would give us their name and we would unlock their locker for them (where they keep all their possessions--they can rent them out). It was really fun because we got to actually talk to people and meet them.

I think lots of things happened to me while I was there, the experience was really cool. But there was one person that stuck out to me. Beforehand, Ron, the other volunteer there with us, had explained that a lot of these people don't have IDs, or if they do, they are from the prison and say so. Well when I was getting people's mail, some would just come up and hand me their ID, not even saying anything. Half way through the day, a man came up, and handed me his ID. It was a prison issued ID, had it on there in big letters. I almost dropped it, in a sort of half-shocked state, and looked up at the man. He could be my dad- same sort of style, wasn't dirty, maybe mid forties  He looked completely normal. I stopped being afraid and went to look for his mail, not finding anything. I told him that there was nothing there for him, and he walked off after smiling and telling me, "Thank you."