Student goes on mission trip and experiences a whole new lifestyle
By Kara Crane
MSU junior Tanner Colley spent last summer living in two different worlds.
One was with the Benny and Niki Nowell family and their three kids in Boulder, Colo.
The other world Colley inhabited was the gritty streets, alleys and soup kitchens of that affluent city. There, he rubbed shoulders with the poor and homeless, calling scruffy men by the unique and crude alias they dreamed up. Names like “Rat” and “Dr. Mother Fucking Tasty” and “Wizard.”
“That’s what they want you to know them as because they are trying to push you away and put on a persona,” Colley explained. “Some have had a negative experience in the past and don’t want to risk getting too close to the public.”
Colley worked as an intern for the Sevens Ministry from late July to mid-August.
The Nowells were part of the homeless ministry in Boulder, a city where visitors are more likely to encounter colorful street performers and talented musicians on the sidewalks, not those without shelter.
But they were there, Colley soon discovered.
“When you have a lot of rich people you also have a lot of people in poverty,” Colley said. Speaking of Boulder, he said, “There is no Middle Class.”
Boulder County has about 30,000 residents living in poverty, 2,000 of them homeless, according to statistics. Sixty percent of the homeless families have children.
Colley’s mission was to reach out to them.
“The Sevens main goal is to just give value to people,” he said.
“We’d go down to the Pearl Street Mall and just love on them because everyone else overlooks them.”
Colley interacted with heavy drug and alcohol abusers, transvestites, hippies, prostitutes, and children and adults.