The streets of downtown cater to all kinds of people, the student headed to class, the professional going to or from work, the tourist snapping pictures of famous buildings or street art, and those who have no place to go.

The sad reality is that many call certain streets of downtown home, carrying their few belongings to different shelters or spreading them out on the streets to make a sort of “homey” place. Someone on this particular street has a brown reclining chair that they call a bed while others have a dismantled brown box that is used as a chair and bed. Others have shopping carts filled with different knick knacks, or bikes with bags tied to it. Some have nothing at all only the food that has been provided to them for the night. This particular Monday night, there was chicken alfredo, water and juice.

The word of the night talked about Jonah. Crash course if you don’t know about Jonah:

1. Jonah was told to go to a city to warn the people.
2. He refused and chose to travel the opposite direction.
3. He decided to get on a boat in order to flee.
4. While on the boat, chaos broke out when a storm threatened them.
5. Jonah was thrown overboard
6. Giant fish swallows Jonah for 3 full days.
7. Fish throws him up on the beach
8. Jonah now makes his way to the city he was supposed to go to.

You make ask yourself how Jonah who was swallowed by a big fish, have any relation to the struggles of those at downtown and really in all of our lives. If you look closely to Jonah’s story, everything he went through resembles us in our very human nature. Most of the time we are very stubborn and it is easier to run away. The story of Jonah is all of us, knowing what we have to do (or even what not to do) and reap the consequences. There is always a way out, Jonah spent 3 full days in the belly of a fish and many of us spend our entire lives running away. It’s never too late to stop and turn around to face whatever it is what we are running away from.