The programs, which usually last from Friday evening until mid-afternoon Sunday, are part of Mission Waco s emphasis on experiential education. They learn that 31,000 to 35,000 children die of hunger-related causes every day. But they also sleep outside and walk miles looking for lunch. Until a student feels the powerlessness, you can say in a classroom poor people don t have power 1,000 times and not get it. It s the sense of doing it together instead of talking about it together, said Jimmy Dorrell, who teaches a Baylor University class on poverty in Waco.
Mystery is key.
Having information, Dorrell said, equals having the kind of control and power beyond the grasp of the poor. Staffers work hard to make sure participants have no idea what will happen next and warn groups not to tell anyone else what happens either. That, Dorrell said, is what sometimes hits folks hardest. A lot of people can handle the elements, but they hate not knowing what s happening for breakfast and what time it is, he said. It s the control.