June 2009 Host: Sara at La Sandia Restaurant

Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, An International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent

Summary

This is the factual story of a friendship that develops between a homeless black man who makes the decision to leave his life as a sharecropper in Louisiana and a Texan who turns himself into a wealthy art dealer. The story is told in each of their voices. They meet at a homeless shelter where Ron (at the insistence of his wife) is an initially reluctant volunteer and Denver is an equally reluctant recipient of charitable meals. Their initial encounter and subsequent hard won friendship came about through Ron’s wife, Deborah who was passionate about helping the underprivileged in Fort Worth Texas. This is an inspirational story and one about many types of loves - friendship, marriage, for all of God’s people, and for God himself. The book brings up many controversial issues such as homelessness, spirituality, modern day slavery, stereotyping of the rich or homeless, and racial profiling,

Discussion

-Homelessness will probably never be completely eradicated and it can be important to a homeless person to simply validate them as a human being by simply nodding or waving at them. They certainly don’t want to be in the position that they are in.

-When Ron and Denver first met, they each had a stereotype of each other which was eventually broken down. Due to Denver’s insistence, his friendship with Ron was not a ‘catch and release’ friendship. It was all or nothing for Denver. We rarely see this in our own lives.

-Even though we all enjoyed the book - some of us did feel at times as if we were being ‘preached’ to.

-Debbie and Denver have a very strong spiritual connection - Denver knows about things as they are happening to Debbie. It is interesting in that that majority of us are not privy to such connections.

-It is also ironic that Ron and Debbie set out to save souls, yet a homeless man ultimately helped them.