{"id":3110,"date":"2018-11-28T14:48:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T19:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=3110"},"modified":"2018-12-18T15:33:08","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T20:33:08","slug":"the-believere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=3110","title":{"rendered":"The Believer"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maddie Brockmyre & Alexis VanSingel
\n<\/strong>The Bucs’ Blade
\nGrand Haven HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 1, News Writing
\nPersonality Profile<\/p>\n

Long brown hair frames Anna Wilson\u2019s face as she flashes a bright smile directed toward the teenagers surrounding her.<\/p>\n

Life Church parishioners mill around the youth group room. The low chatter of mingling conversation hums, barely audible above the upbeat church songs that play in the background.<\/p>\n

Wilson converses with her self-proclaimed \u201cfaith family\u201d about struggles that had strengthened their relationship with their God. Although her belief is solidified now, there was a time where her faith was put to the test.<\/p>\n

In eighth grade her mom had a stroke that affected her motor, speech and memory abilities. Because of that, she had a hard time holding a job and Wilson\u2019s step-father became the main source of income for the family of four. He held a laboring construction job and was often in physical pain, but he continued working. Despite the stressors of his career, he provided for his family until Jan. 5th 2012, when he died of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

It was a typical day. After being dropped off at the bus stop, Wilson told her step-dad she loved him, and she would talk to him later. She didn\u2019t know that would be the last time she would see him.<\/p>\n

With her step-dad gone and her family grief-stricken, 15-year-old Wilson was left to care for her mother and sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really hard,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI think the hardest thing was seeing my mom come crashing down, and my little sister, too. She was just running away from home all the time, my mom was just an absolute mess and I felt like I had to be the parent, I had to be the strong one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson did her best to hold her family together, but because of her mom\u2019s disability the bills quickly piled up. By Sept. 2013, most of their belongings were moved to a storage unit and she, her sister and her mother moved into the Hope House, a local shelter for the homeless run by Love In Action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many worse places in the world,\u201d Wilson said of the Hope House. \u201cWe were very, very blessed to have the situation.\u201d Although she acknowledges the positives of the shelter, she also says there were many hardships brought with it, usually involving school. \u201c[In the Hope House] we weren\u2019t allowed to have electronics after 9, so they would take our cell phones and laptops,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cSo, if I had a paper due, because I was trying to take AP Lang at the time, it wasn\u2019t going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only did she struggle to finish her school work, but because her mom\u2019s vehicle was repossessed, she had no transportation to the high school \u201cWhen you\u2019re 15 or 16, which was my age, you\u2019re learning how to drive and stuff but I was just trying to make sure I could get to school because my mom didn\u2019t have a car anymore,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI actually wasn\u2019t able to actually make it to school a lot, and a couple of my teacher started stepping up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson recounts different high school educators providing aid to her, including John Mauro who drove her to school for a short time before helping her arrange different rides with more flexibility. Teachers weren\u2019t the only people that aided and befriended her, however.<\/p>\n

According to Wilson, she made many connections during her six months at the Hope House.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this one worker, her name was Jessica and she was probably like in her mid-twenties,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWhenever I was stressed out about school or I had boy problems or anything, her and I would sit together on Saturday morning and just talk for hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also found friendship with a girl named Hope, who struggled with addiction. Wilson says that Hope had \u201cthe biggest heart\u201d and would often listen to her rehearsing for chorale ensemble.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would go downstairs and shut myself in the bathroom [to practice],\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI\u2019d come out and all the ladies would be in the basement sitting outside the door so they could hear me sing and [Hope] would always be there, in tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having unexpected companions in the shelter, like many teens facing homelessness, Wilson\u2019s school social life struggled to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got so frustrated looking around hearing people complain about their boy problems, and their friend problems. and not getting the perfect dress for prom,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThey\u2019re just these materialistic things. I started to feel really angry and I didn\u2019t really want to connect with anyone and I shut everyone out.\u201d Wilson says that even though she knew her situation was not her fault, she was still ashamed of it, which caused emotional problems.<\/p>\n

Her mindset has since changed, however. She now speaks of her experience as enlightening, rather than disheartening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t regret it,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s been hard, but at the same time I\u2019m so very grateful that I have had the perspective that I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson plans to take that perspective and become a social worker after she\u2019s graduated college, which she will be attending in the fall. She credits much of her success to her faith in God.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been pretty deeply rooted in my faith,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cGod has been my rock definitely. I\u2019ve always felt like no matter how hard things are there will always be something better, something to look forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maddie Brockmyre & Alexis VanSingel The Bucs’ Blade Grand Haven HS 1st Place Division 1, News Writing Personality Profile Long brown hair frames Anna Wilson\u2019s face as she flashes a bright smile directed toward the teenagers surrounding her. Life Church parishioners mill around the youth group room. The low chatter of mingling conversation hums, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,63],"tags":[151,20],"class_list":["post-3110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nw","category-personalityprofile-nw","tag-2017-18","tag-division1","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jaimie Bozack","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=7"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-Oa","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}