From Suburbia to Africa to Pomona

My Journey from Suburbia to Africa to the Inner City

By Paul Hudak

I grew up completely different than most of the youth I serve.  I grew up with a great family, a loving and providing father and mother, and my older brother and younger sister. My life with both parents being present was amazing.  I was blessed to receive everything I needed including all the love and support necessary for me to mature into the man I am today.  

Life was normal all the way through high school, but it wasn’t until I went to college that I developed a passion to work with those who were less fortunate than I.  It was my senior year in college and a spirit of adventure and humanitarianism inspired me to go to Africa. That year I got connected with a Catholic Priest from Kenya.  He saw that I had this huge heart to go and serve young people in Africa so we exchanged emails and Facebook information and the rest was history.  A couple months passed and I set a date and a place do my work, in the villages of Kenya.  

Upon, arriving to Kenya I realized I forgot what Father Chris looked like so you can imagine my anxiety upon exiting the plane in a foreign land.  I was scared and alone in a new country all by myself.  Gladly, Father Chris and I connected quickly and the first couple of days he and I spent a lot of time together visiting people and learning about the Kenyan culture.  After 3-4 days we made it to his village where I would stay to do my teaching at a local high school for the remainder of my time there. I would walk back and forth everyday to teach my students, about a mile each way.  Talk about a culture shock.  The walk was eye opening it gave me insight into the everyday life of those in Kenya. Us Americans take even the smallest things for granted sometimes, but these Kenyans never complained once.

In Africa is where my passion for people and youth grew.  I would work with high schoolers 5 days a week and get to hear their stories that would forever impact my life and perspective.  In Africa I began to read a lot.  Through these readings I started to see this hole in our society in the US and the world.  I saw that children were being left by parents to grow up on their own, neglected and forgotten. These children were forced to become adults at extremely young ages.  

This is not how it is supposed to be.  Children are meant to be children and learn about life gradually without becoming overwhelmed with life's challenges and neither are they to be forgotten to figure things out on their own.  I mean even as an adult I get overwhelmed by what I need to do with my life.  How can we expect a 14 or 15 year old teen to do that without the proper support and mentorship? In some cases children even younger were left to to fend for themselves and figure it out. This moved my heart deeply. In light of this I have made it my priority to invest in young lives and to assist youth to pursue life being assured that they would have accompaniment and mentorship along the way.

That’s why I am here in Pomona and working with Just Us 4 Youth. I want youth to have the freedom to be kids and grow up to be strong adults that know how to live life to the fullest without being strung down by society and the expectations of this world. We should be working with these youth/children and help them become the best adult and person for the future and not throw them to the wayside.  Let’s join together to not only make our community better, but our world better. 

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