4!+).´ )4 4/ 4(%342%%43 WALKING THE EMMAUS ROAD WITH RUNAWAY TEENS BY PETER LARSON
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he Crocodile Lounge is the birthplace of Seattle’s grunge rock scene, a club once frequented by Kurt Cobain, Pearl Jam, and others.Tonight “The Croc” is mobbed with fans packed tightly between the bar and the floodlights. On stage, guitarist Tim Morello of Rage Against the Machine is fronting an eclectic band that includes singersongwriter Steve Earle, Ben Shepherd and Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Mark Arm of Mudhoney,Wayne Kramer of MC5, and Boots Riley from The Coup, a political hip hop group. While none of these musicians identify themselves as Christian, tonight they’re playing a benefit concert for New Horizons, a Christian ministry that cares for Seattle’s street kids. “Tom Morello called up out of the blue and asked if they could do a benefit for us,” says Dan Shelly, executive director of New Horizons. “I told him, ‘Well, you know that we’re a Christian organization.’ He said that was fine.The only thing that mattered is that we were helping street kids.” Seeds of New Horizons’ ministry were planted in 1978 by a man named Don Ericson. Living at the Bread of Life Mission on South Avenue and serving as a volunteer chaplain,
Ericson began walking the streets of Seattle at night. Although the exact details of his ordination are somewhat of a mystery, he wore a clerical collar and was known as Father Don. As he walked the streets, Ericson discovered a subculture of homeless teenagers who were caught in a deadly web of substance abuse, violence, and prostitution. Although Seattle had homeless shelters for adults, none was safe for — or welcoming to — teenagers. In response, Ericson founded New Horizons, opening its first drop-in center in 1980, in downtown Seattle’s Columbia Building, dubbed the “Dismas Center” after Saint Dismas, the traditional name for the thief who hung on the cross next to Jesus. Plagued by funding problems, New Horizons was repeatedly forced to relocate to a series of dilapidated buildings until finally, in 1998, the group raised enough money to purchase a three-story building downtown on Third Avenue. Today, the building houses a large drop-in center that provides a place for street kids to take showers, do laundry, eat hot meals, and receive counseling, mentoring, and job training. More than 1,500 teenagers, from as far away as Tacoma, Olympia, and Spokane, visit
PRISM 2010
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