MOSCOW native, Zach Hacker, shares from his SOBA story

Photo from Outreach to Portland, Oregon

BLOG entry from 2/20/11

It is now the beginning of our ninth week and school has gotten into a bit of a rhythm, if such a thing can be here at SOBA.  We just finished the gospel of Luke, being the eighth book we’ve covered.  There are many things that I’ve learned in this time; and one that sticks out to me is just how engaging the bible can be to read that the word truly is alive.  I knew this before, but it was to a smaller extent, nothing like now. 

 I’ve also learned how far knowing a little background can help with understanding a book.  Knowing the historical background has helped me get a better understanding of just how culturally Jesus was out of place.  For him to say in Luke 18:16 “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them” was a big deal because that wasn’t something that was culturally proper in first century.  As well as how Jesus interacted with the women of the time, because women and children were considered second class citizens.

 Jesus was counter to the culture, he viewed everyone as equal.  Jesus taught his followers to view everyone else as equal, too. 

For me this relates to a little experience that we had a few weeks ago.  It was about 1:00p.m. on a Tuesday when we (the students) were all informed that from 3:30 p.m. that day until 12pm on Thursday of that same week we were going to homeless.  This was a bit of a surprise to say the least.  I know for me my initial reaction when I saw a homeless person was to judge them as somehow less than the rest of society.  But after two nights and a few days of being homeless myself, I saw firsthand that most of the people that were there had just been knocked down by life and trying to get back on their feet.  My stereotypical judgments didn’t apply to most of the people at the homeless shelter. 

That’s my SOBA story so far, and though it’s a lot of work, SOBA’s probably the most rewarding thing that I’ve ever done.