My Story

I was born in the 70s in rural Texas, USA. The white gravel road leading to our house didn’t have a name. I think the Post Office called it “Route 4.” We had two neighbors on one side, and a horse pasture on the other. My dad sold used cars. A friend dared me to touch the electric wire on the fence surrounding the pasture once and after getting a little jolt I ran inside and told my mom I had been electrocuted.

Something we all share is that we don’t get to choose where we’re born, who we’re born to, or how we’re raised. I enjoyed watching thunderstorms roll in from the roof of the pump-house and carefully walking over the spillway slimy with moss deep in the woods behind our house. Looking back, if I had the choice, of course I would have given a hearty “yes, please” to these things, but I may have declined the narrow worldview I assumed along with somehow learning that my acceptability as a human was based on my performance. But both dirt bikes and Sunday school were a part of my development that led to who I am and the amazing life I have today, so I am thankful.

We moved around a bit, but we stayed in Texas. I was educated in Texas through college, and got my first job as an accounting assistant in Texas. By this point I just wanted to get out of Texas, even if just for a year or two, and I happened to land in China. Changing your physical location is relatively easy. Dislodging your mind from its assumptions about yourself and the world is another matter. While I was 6000 miles away from home, my limited experience of the world was identical.

One day on my way to language school I got another, much more significant, jolt. I saw a mother picking through a bag of garbage on the side of the street, and she happened upon someone’s leftovers which she shared with her daughter, who was thrilled. Like anyone else who was confronted by their profound need, I would have bought them a meal, and as many meals as they needed until the mother was on her feet and able to provide for herself and her daughter. But how could I help in a city and culture entirely new to me?

Fast forward several years and I became instrumental in a small group of people who opened the doors to a tiny space that offered a free place to clean up and get a healthy meal to people living on the streets – something almost unheard of at the time in the city I began to call home.

As the project grew, I learned that my new friends who had experienced life on the streets with absolutely nothing had more to share with me than I could ever share with them. I experienced a shift in my understanding of myself, and the world. My judgments of others and myself began to be replaced with compassion and kindness. My expectations of others and myself began to be replaced with curiosity and openness.

My former community perceived I was losing my faith, when actually I was just starting to awaken. A few even attacked me personally, and others sought out donors of the project in an effort to create doubt and ultimately diminish our funding. I went without any income for two years and used most of my meager savings to keep the project afloat.

That was more than a decade ago now, since then I’ve taken on a masters degree related to this meaningful new field I’ve found myself in, and I haven’t looked back once. The project has flourished with even deeper ties and vibrant connections with our community and we have greatly expanded and extended our services with a focus on assisting men and women get off the streets permanently through mentoring and employment. Whatever difficulties I experienced during that transition simply don’t compare to a living a powerful life with profound meaning and doing what I’m most passionate about every day.

In recent years I’ve naturally been helping a few others along their own meaningful paths, and a few have told me I'm good at it. I gather bits and pieces from my journey and post them here when I can. I am standing by to support your own story of overcoming and making a powerful difference in the world. I’d be honored and humbled to be a small part of yours.