I once had a peanut butter banana sandwich that changed my life. I know, sounds dramatic but it’s actually quite accurate. A few years ago I agreed to be one of the leaders of a service immersion trip that explored poverty issues and homelessness in the Bay Area. I did what folks that work at a college do-I read a book on the issues and I became super familiar with the organizations we were working with. Armed with my new wisdom I was ready to lead. My newfound knowledge was armor-it was easy to talk about the residual affects of terminal illness and poverty in SF without even feeling a thing. I could rattle off statistics of childhood hunger issues as if I was ordering a latte from Starbucks. Then on day two the peanut butter banana sandwich showed up. We were given $2 each for lunch, tasked with not only eating from that amount but also encouraged to share our food with those that need it more and then we were dropped off in the Tenderloin district of SF. We had 5 hours to “get to know the neighborhood and our neighbors”. The 5 of us put our money together and had enough to make 12 sandwiches, 2 bags of chips and a package of cookies. We decided to head to a park to pass out lunch and that’s when we met Tony. He grew up in Georgia working on a peanut farm so he loved peanut butter. He wasn’t fond of bananas but appreciated the potassium. The military life brought him out West and his love affair with the bottle kept him a resident in moderate climate of SF. He had two grown children and several grandkids. Tony became our tour guide for the next several hours. We helped him fold his laundry and put it in his grocery cart. We took his sleeping bag to a Laundromat and heard about life on the streets as we were transfixed by the sleeping bag tumbling in the dryer. He asked me about my job at GU and my family. When our van came to pick us up we hugged Tony goodbye. He told us he would be praying for us and thanked us for “some love”. We were quiet that night in the van, smiling to ourselves, realizing that there was sacredness to our day and to our surprise his love changed us. Tony was not a statistic to us, he was a man with a story, a man full of love. I didn’t just know about Tony from my books but I knew Tony. It wasn’t just about serving sandwiches; it was about knowing someone and being known.
We are excited to know you and give you peanut butter banana opportunities here at Gonzaga.
“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”— Albert Schweitzer
With love,
Rev. Janeen
