Personal Narrative: Homelessness In Chicago

As I sat on the sidewalk with him, shame overtook my heart. The glares from others passing by caused me to feel utterly uncomfortable but I continued to listen to his story. I knew what I had been called to do when I accepted this opportunity but never had I imagined it to be like this.

My alarm woke me at five thirty that morning. Groaning, I rolled off my cozy air mattress onto the cold, hard, worn, wooden floor. Shivering, I clumsily gathered my toiletries and made my way to the university showers with my roommates. We bathed quickly under the frigid water and then hurried back to the dorms where we were staying. Our mission trip leaders gathered with us outside of the dorms and explained to us what we would be doing on our last day of service

I didn 't really feel homeless at the time, I was treated just like any other person was. We made conversation with the occasional person and asked them how they liked living here in Chicago. I was beginning to wonder if we were just talking with pedestrians or getting a taste of what it was actually like to be homeless. That’s when hunger began to cross my mind. The more I thought about it the worse it got. I asked my group leader what we were going to do about lunch and she said, “I don 't know. Thats your job to figure out how you 're going to eat.” I talked to the rest of the group and we decided to combine all of our money and buy bread and meat for sandwiches. As we walked towards the convenient store I caught my first glimpse of homelessness that day. A man sat on the sidewalk. He looked rather old and was holding out a cup asking for money. As I passed him I ducked my head and kept walking, ignoring what he had to say. The others in my group did the same. We made it to the convenient store a couple of blocks later and bought the things we needed. When we walked out of the store we looked at what we had in our hands, leftover change, meat, and a loaf of bread. We all had the same idea in mind but it took several minutes for one of us to find the courage to say such a thing. Finally, one of the girls in the group said that we should have lunch with the homeless man and give him the leftover food. I was all for the idea but little did I know about the life changing experience that was coming my