Khalia Rowe
SLS
July 2013
Common Reading Essay
Through Wine to Water, Doc Hendly helped many people in Darfur receive clean water. In the process of helping these people he ended up saving himself. Doc went from an average bartender to a savior. I did not do anything that is as grand as Hendly but I found a few things that Doc and I have in common. I changed after volunteering at the children’s ministry just like Doc changed after saving thousands of lives with his Wine to Water services.
I grew up in Christian based home. My family goes to church every Wednesday night and Sunday morning. Honestly, I never really enjoyed church as much as I felt like I was supposed to. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in God, but I didn’t want to participate in any of the activities at church that my mom had always forced me to do. I wanted to rebel from the church friendly lifestyle without a doubt. It felt like everyone knew how I felt because I didn’t fit in with the youth at my church. I was obligated to go to church so I stayed to myself most of the times.
Yet I really loved to hang out with my friends, cheer and play soccer. I naturally went to almost every practice for both cheerleading and soccer or event my school had. Sports became a huge part of my life and practice excused me from going to church on Wednesday nights. It had only made me dislike church even more. I was juggling church activities such as the spiritual dancing and my church’s choir with soccer, cheerleading and school work. Of course I struggled.
Eventually, I quit spiritual dancing and my church’s choir after causing many obnoxious scenes over it. Life became easier for me but then again I hated it. I began to dislike cheerleading, soccer and school. I felt like I was living life without a purpose. It was then I decided to work at the children’s ministry for community service hours and I loved it. I don’t know if it was because the toddlers were all such cute and adorable children or if it was an entirely different reason. As I taught these young toddlers, it felt like I was teaching them the right way of living. There is nothing better than God. They are learning how to be good Christians because of me and I felt like I somehow became the preacher of my own church.
It’s funny because all I did was feed them animal crackers and made them watch biblical cartoons. Yet, when the kids would all gather around and answer questions about God. I felt like a proud mother when they