Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

★★★ 1/2

"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 restin place.  So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin' our way toward home."

This memoir is the story of two men from very different backgrounds that becomes friends.  Ron Hall is a wealthy art dealer living in Fort Worth, Texas.  His wife Deborah becomes active in the church and convinces Ron to help out at a mission center near their home.  Ron reluctantly agrees and the couple serves meals to the homeless at the center once a week.  Ron and Deborah meet many homeless people and Deborah tells Ron that she had a vision about a withdrawn man named Denver.  After awhile, Ron and Denver slowly becomes friends.  Denver is a homeless man from Louisiana that grew up on a plantation in circumstances similar to slavery.  Where he grew older, he left the plantation and spent the next years on the streets and in and out of jail trying to survive.

Denver becomes like a part of the family and Ron and Deborah becomes more and more involved in serving at the mission.  Deborah is diagnosed with cancer.  After a long battle with many failed treatments, she dies at her home.  Many people give money to the mission in support of her name and a new mission is built in her honor.  Ron and Denver reach out to each other to support there lose of Deborah and work together selling artwork on an estate.  Denver also becomes interested in art as well and begins selling art of his own.  He is active in the church and preaches about his love of God and tells about Deborah impact on him and her work with the homeless.

I don’t usually read nonfiction, but I generally liked this book.  The book read as a narrative and was able to keep my interest.  I enjoyed reading the story from two very different perspectives and thought that the book brought up new understandings of individuals that are homeless and in similar situations.  It was a bit preachy at times, but I was glad that the authors were able to use their tragic situation to inspire others.