The Last Day of Training

What an experience this has been so far. I’m sitting on my computer as people are beginning to pack the buses for departure. I think this is making it more real. During this training we have been in a protective bubble. We have been immersed in people who are willing to learn, admit that they can be wrong, and admit the prejudices that they have, that we all have, but that we are afraid to confront. I feel that I have learned a lot over this training. I believe that I am now more able to admit the latent prejudices that I still hold, and work on them.

As the ride gets closer, I get more and more excited to be visiting these schools. I got an email from a good friend attending one of them. In the email there were a lot of questions about being gay. She told me that she had a friend who had never met a queer person. I think that fact alone will make this trip worthwhile. I think it is so important that these students can put a face with the word homosexual. I hope that at these schools the students realize that we are no different. We have families, we have loved ones. We all worry about the same things.

Along those same lines, we have all given up a lot to go on this trip. I am missing the birthday of several of my family members to be on this bus. More and more I’m realizing how important my family is in my life. I had a very hard coming out experience, but since then my family has begun to embrace me. That feeling is so wonderful. I think if we can influence one future parent, and possibly make their child’s coming out experience easier, or reach one student and help them to go on living one more day, then this ride would have been completely worth it.

And this is for my little sister. Happy Birthday Caitlin. I love you and I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for your birthday. Please know that every day of this ride I’m thinking about you and using you as inspiration.
The 2007 Soulforce Equality Riders would like to say:

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