Trip to AFI

When going to AFI well first started off crazy I was about 30 to 45 mins late because of our great Lakeland Police Department. When I first walked in to the café I was still at little shaking from the Police but as soon as I walked in I saw Nate talking to JB and Tyrone so I went and sat by them. Tyrone wow what a amazing individual so funny, and I was a little surprised with his handshakes they were very firm to be so little hands. JB reminded me of Barry in a way but instead of golf it was basketball. The greatest moment I had was seeing him shoot a piece of trash in the trash can and when he made it his eyes lit up and his hands raised and the biggest smile. I don’t cry often but JB touched me just seeing how happy he was and also gave me a reality check I complain about a lot of stuff and not one time I hear Tyrone or JB say anything negative. I was going to paint a picture again but I figure I did two in a row with the act one and two; I should probably do blog writing. The picture I would have painted would have been of our reading group. Watching them read was touching and makes me want to help them no matter what I have to do. That’s why I’m going to set up a fundraiser for AFI haven’t really decided what I want to do yet either a golf tournament or a marathon. Listening to what that lady had to say about the funding killed my heart. To tell you the truth I am disgusted the church community or southeastern hasn’t step up to help. I gain a lot of knowledge from this trip and met some of the greatest people. I will never forget JB and Tyrone and I plan on returning to see them soon.

Act I and II The Boys Next Door

This Picture shows how I looked at the Act. Golf bag with a wood lesson sign and the donuts shop sign. The reason the house is black is because as a society and especially the church mental disable people have been black out or not even there or just ignore them.

This shows the mental institution where Barry was located white building but with black windows because i think it like a prison so i put black windows.

Cementary

The Spirit of God Hovered

Reading the Fettke article on “The spirit of God Hovered” gave me a better insight on how a parent of the Christian faith looks at mental disability children. I have always wondered if having a kid of mental disability would wreck the spirit of God in the parents’ lives living with the question why our child? God doesn’t like us? As I can see and also loudly stated by Fetteke I am just glad I have a son. He actually thanks God for his son that shows so much about his faith to God. If I was in the same situation I don’t know how I could handle it. Back in High school we had a mentally disabled wing with about 30 to 40 teens. I went in there a lot to hang out with one of the teachers because she was one of my mom’s friends anyways watching her with the teens was heart wrenching. Even at the time when I wasn’t a Christian I questioned why did God create this? And to think that the church community didn’t help that much with Fettke’s son shows why church today is not growing but is depleting. Some churches only care about themselves and not helping other people. I think the church lost their way being honest it shouldn’t be called a church; it should be called a business meeting. I can relate to Fettke in a since where the church didn’t want to help and then gossiped about my past. For a while I hated church because of that and I would think Fettke at the time thought the same thing. Here at SEU we had a mentally disable manger for baseball his name was AJ and the greatest time I had on that field was when he ran around the bases with the biggest smile and started to say I did it screaming I did it, I did it. My heart was heavy, My eyes were wet but I couldn’t help but to celebrate with him at home plate and all the other guys felt the same way.

Painting of Cementary

Sonny Blues

Reading this story usually one doesn’t get emotional or by any means starts to cry. The emotion I felt while reading this story was overwhelming almost unbearable. Reading about the addiction to drugs was hard and just like the flashbacks in the book I had rapid flashbacks in my head causing me to just not read this at all for a while. I didn’t grow up in the civil rights movement I don’t know the feeling of having your family torture in a way by white men. The closes thing I can relate is a drug deal gone badly. See I was addicted to not only pills, cocaine, and weed but I was a seller too. Heroin is one I didn’t use recreational but I had a form of it in hospitals, probably most people have had a form of it and they didn’t even know. Heroin so addicting and powerful because of the morphine mixed with the opium poppy. When getting off drugs, the withdraws are intense and usually you don’t make it with a good support system. This is kind of weird for me because I can relate to Sonny and then also to his older brother. While coming to southeastern, there have been plenty of my friends gone to jail for possession or under the influence of sometime type of drug. One that hit me hard like in the story, I guess we could be considered brothers in a way. Reason being I can relate is we made a promise to get out together to leave from the trap. Well it worked for me and not for him. I guess you can say I was pissed at him for a while when I heard what happen but after snacks was killed I reached out to him and he did the same. I can connect to this story in so many ways. There were plenty more tragedy events that happen that pushed us closer and now his ironically in the army shaped up and fighting for our freedom.