Photo: Members of the Milwaukee Mennonite Church youth group slept out for homelessness on Oct. 30. Photo provided. 

This story originally ran in the Central District Conference Reporter. 

On Oct. 30, a burning barrel and load of wood rumbled into the back parking lot at Martin Luther Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Slowly, piles of cardboard, rolls of duct tape, tarps, and teenagers appeared, along with sleeping bags, blankets, hats, mittens and open minds. Tonight, they would be “homeless.”

The Milwaukee Mennonite Church (who shares space and worships at Mar­tin Luther Lutheran Church) invited youth in sixth through eighth grades from their junior youth group to learn about homelessness in Milwaukee in a new way: by sleeping outside all night!

The starting temperature was a chilly 45 de­grees Fahrenheit.

The youth worked in two groups, girls versus boys, in a challenge to build a structure out of cardboard, tape and tarps that would keep them warm and dry for the night. The youth had only one hour to build their shelters for the night—one hour until the sun sunk below the horizon and things got even colder.

After their “homes” for the night had been completed, the youth went into the church building for a three-part educational session. They watched video clips about urban homeless per­sons and about a homeless youth experiment. They shared their past encounters with homeless people, made emergency kits for the homeless and donat­ed 35 canned goods for a local food pantry.

Af­ter a supper of cold cheese pizza, the kids returned outside, where adults from Milwaukee Mennonite

Church had built a fire. Huddled around the fire, they played “Would You Rather: The Homeless Edition,” with questions ranging from, “Would you rather have a blanket or a sleeping bag?” to “Would you rather sleep in a box, a homeless shelter or on a city bus all night?”

The real lesson began around 2:30 a.m., when it started to rain. Two youth, who had chosen to sleep in lawn chairs near the fire, chose to escape the rain: one into a nearby car and the other into a room inside the church building. At 4:30 a.m., the boys’ cardboard shelter collapsed, sending five more young people fleeing into the youth room in the church. At 6:30 a.m., breakfast was served, and two girls—the only ones who remained dry in their shel­ter the whole night—actually had to be woken up.

The morning debriefing of tired, cold youth result­ed in more sharing and in planning for next year, including their resolutions to invite more people to “Sleep Out for Homelessness.”