Poverty2: hitting closer to home

So our church got on board with staffing the homeless shelter in town for a week—or is it half of a week?—every quarter (refer to Poverty post). Yay, church! My first overnight stay is next Monday, so I went to a training session a couple of days ago. My world was shaken a bit there: one of the guys staying there was a camper at Camp Mennoscah. And I mean a camper when I was a counselor or staff member, not a fellow camper of mine. I tried to place his age, remembering other campers who attended with him, and I came up with that he's at least two grades younger than my brother. That puts his maximum age at about 18 or 19. It really hit me, perhaps one of the saddest realizations I've experienced. And it's not that his family's staying there; he's all by himself. This is a "kid" I have had several longer conversations with in my past. For some reason, the two of us sort of hit it off at least one summer, if not more (let's face it—I was rarely the popular counselor or staff member, so I tend to remember those few kids I made connections with). When I talked to him the other night, it appeared that he may not even remember Camp Mennoscah, and he went there when he was somewhere in the age range of 7th-10th grades, for more than one year. I can't even imagine what's gone on in his life between then and now; he seemed so incoherent and scattered. That night, I felt the saddest I've felt in a while.