Phylicia

She's seventeen, goes to school, works at McDonald's. Her dream? Either to be a doctor or a supermodel (if she could get all those clothes and makeup)...."I wouldn't even go to college if I could be a supermodel", she announced over her iced latte. She took another sip and said, "A Christian college wants to talk to me about going there, but I'm not interested in a Christian college."

"Really? Why not?" I wondered why anyone who couldn't pay for college would turn down any institution that would give her a scholarship.

"CHRISTIAN college? They're Bible-thumping and walking around singing Kum-Ba-Yah. I would flip them out the way I talk...."

I ventured out. "I'm a Christian."

"REALLY?!!" She looked so incredulous I have to admit I wondered how it could be that shocking.

In her short life, she has run with her mom from an abusive boyfriend, lived in more places than I can count, and somehow she is surviving, making good enough grades to get into college one day and keeping her job at McDonald's for more than a year.

I met Phylicia as a 6th grader at a middle school where I worked for four years. All three years there she ran with the Running Club and me, and once she won first place in her age group.

She's in 10th grade now and since I've known her, she's lived in five different places. She's not running anymore because she doesn't have a ride home from practice; she rides the city bus to school.

Hopefully they will get a Habitat House before Phylicia leaves for college.....or is on a runway somewhere. The medical field or supermodel? They don't seem related to me, but to a seventeen-year-old girl like Phylicia, the both spell a way out.....