"Same Kind Of Different As Me" by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

I just finished reading the book Same Kind Of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.
It is an amazing true story and a NY times bestseller. It is a great, fast, summer read and I highly recommend it! It is told through the eyes of these two authors in a unique way.
It starts out with each man writing his own chapter and alternating until their lives come together toward the middle of the book. When their lives come together it shares what transpires in this process of faith and friendship. I especially enjoyed it as i do volunteer work at a Chicago church -based homeless soup kitchen and that is where Ron and Denver meet. It describes some of the characteristics of this homeless man and how he has to live so very guarded on the streets, closed off from everything and everyone, until Ron and his wife come along. It explains so much about the often non-conversational and yet intense personalities of some of the homeless men and women we meet. It gives you a look inside their lives and hearts ,as well as those who struggle to serve them. Ron's wife is the motivating factor but as it turns out, Ron comes along for the journey and his life is forever changed by this man he meets and befriends ,with his "life wisdom" from a life of slavery and later homelessness. It demonstrates that one person's passion for good and serving others CAN not only profoundly change the lives of others but also change themselves- it will change them for the better as well as doing good for others.It is a touching story and reads so very fast as very short chapters- a real page turner, i could not put it down ... the characters and their new relationships draw you in.

Some of my favorite quotes are the following:

from Ron:when driving away at the end of a visit to Denver's original home town where he grew up as a share cropper and where some of his relatives and neighbors still lived on the same land:"We left just before dark, and as we drove away the images of poverty and squalor burned themselves into my brain like hated tattoos. I could hardly believe places like that still existed in America. I thanked Denver for taking me there and for taking my blinders off."Then Denver said- "Mr. Ron,they're livin' better than I ever did when I was livin here. Now you know it was the truth when I told you that bein' homeless in Fort Worth was a step up in life for me."

when Denver asked Ron to introduce him at a church he was asked to preach at, instead of saying Denver's life story as the preacher wanted him to say, he asked Ron to say this:"just tell em I'm a nobody that's trying to tell everybody 'bout Somebody that can save anybody".

from Denver:"I worried that i was so different from them that we wadn't gon' have no kind a' future. But i found out everybody's different- the same kind of different 'as me. We're all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final resting place. So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin our way toward home."