Looking Back on 10 Years at Rewritten
Chapter 1: Finding our Purpose
“One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” –Elie Wiesel, Night
This hard quote from Wiesel’s book on surviving the Holocaust is difficult. However, something essential and important in it, amidst so much suffering, is the emergence of the character’s identity, something apart from his horrific experiences–he discerns his unique identity or essence within himself. With this new awareness, despite the harm others have done to him, he can move into the future with purpose. Likewise, our kids at Rewritten, and all of us, need to recognize our true selves in order to live out our years with intention.
Many of our kids are caught up in the swirling chaos of culture and difficult families. It’s hard for them to know what kind of life they can forge when they don’t have a firm idea of who they are and why they’re here. We all struggle with this, but it becomes so much harder when home and family are shifting, turbulent, and confusing. Our kids often lack that core need for a solid father. Because most don’t have strong families, our purpose has been to help them to develop a greater sense of personhood, and to learn who the Father God is for them. Our Co-Founder and CEO, Frank Perez, said early on that, “No child should have to carry the burden of an absent father alone.” His simple yet heavy statement expresses the heart of Rewritten’s start and its heart today.
We met our first kids 10 or more years ago, but most were fatherless before then. They were carrying that burden, that history, from their earliest months and years. It’s this reality that helped to create Rewritten because no child should carry that burden alone. A fatherless child feels the absence, the ache, the injustice of their situation which puts them at risk. This organization was created to help kids by carrying some of their burdens, and by offering them a safe place to get academic, career, and emotional support. This creates more stability in the present and the future. Our motto, “Editing Futures Past,” is about helping kids to change the directions of their chaotic and heavy lives.
We’re regular people helping troubled kids. What that looks like can be very different from one day to the next, and it can also look very similar. The daily picture looks like kids doing homework, finding community, having a safe place to be, and being mentored and supported. Sometimes, tragedy strikes a family, a child struggles with extra heartaches, or the world goes through a pandemic. Regardless, our mission and heart are to be here for these young people to help them through, so that on top of their other weights, they don’t carry their fatherlessness all alone.
We can be here to help them walk into a better future. We are limited, but our God isn’t, and we point our kids to his sufficient strength. Rewritten started 10 years ago because our founders saw a way to relieve some burdens one person at a time. That starts with each of us being guided by God to recognize our unique self and how we can try to create a life of purpose and value, then helping our kids to discern and forge that for their lives too.
