Thread/ #FosterCare #MentalIllness #Homelessness #Opportunity #Jesus I had the chance to meet the sweetest, most polite, grateful young man a few days ago. He was discharging from a psychiatric hospital, was homeless, jobless and without a single healthy person in his whole life
2- he spent his whole childhood in foster care & was then dumped at a homeless shelter when he turned 19. He had nothing. No job, no permanent family, no money. Nothing. Life on the streets brought drugs, crime, sadness, wandering, despair, suicidality.
3- this sweet kid told me he was a believer in Jesus. He had Jesus tattooed on his arm. He’d been sent by foster parents to Salvation Army Summer Church camps. We picked him up at a local shelter, which literally couldn’t be a sadder place; so in need of the light & love of Jesus
4-this kid now years after aging out of foster care still had nothing. No job, no place to live, no one to love him, no money, no clothes. Just folders full of prescriptions, lists of places for fragmented services. I have a Juris Doctor & could barely navigate the maze, the mess
5- but while in hospital this faithful kid cried out to Jesus. Still. And by God’s great grace we got him into the most wonderful sober living men’s owned & run by addicts completely committed to giving back. They’re beautiful. We got clothes, bedding, the stuff we all need.
6/ I don’t know if this kid will make it but I know this. He’ll never be alone again. We will always care about it, welcome him here with our messed up crew, take him to church with us. He cried over these nothing acts of basic human decency. He was so grateful, so positive.
7-he has orange hair, tats & piercings. He’s messed up badly to survive. He’s so precious and kind. I’m undone by the magnitude of suffering humans who need other humans in a family like way. Giving to the local homeless shelter is the tiniest of bandaids. I don’t know what
8-the answers are precisely but I know it has to start by actually caring about these suffering people on the side of the road, literally & figuratively. It has to start w/the Good Samaritan times all of us. And then our public policy needs to prioritize it. I’ve barely touched
9- on the serious mental illness needs-The things that scare the crap out of people: mood instability, brain disorder, audio & visual hallucinations. It’s all a mess but I know this. God hasn’t forgotten one of those souls and we have to individually, and as a society, do better.
If someone could ask to unroll this & help spread the word, there are hundreds of thousands of people like this awesome young man. If this thread could help any of them, it would be a good Twitter day.
