Acts Of Faith Eboo Marcel Analysis

Mentors and how important they are
In Eboo Patel’s book “Acts of Faith,” he talks a lot about mentors and what they do to shape some ones view point and helps them figure out who they are as a person and who they are in their religion. When looking back at my life I had many different mentors, some of them are really good ones and some are not so good. Patel states in his book that all mentors aren’t going to be the best. Some of them will guide you in the right direction and some of them will guide you in another direction. Depending on what direction you are lead to you could be doing good things or even going the other direction and go the bad way and harm others in the process. Most people who aren’t really sure about who they are in their religion and or they are still learning about it are going to be confused and will listen to whoever will help them out and understand it. When I was re-reading a few chapters in the

book, Eboo Patel talked about both sides of having a good mentor and having bad ones and that reminded me of my mentors and how much impact they had in my life and help sculpted the person I am today. When kids are younger they will believe whoever is willing to help them out and learn more about what they want to learn about. I thought about this while reading the book, what would have happened if another mentor got to Eboo first and he got a mentor that had him go to the direction of the bad ways of being Islam? How would his story be different and or would he of figured it out and got out before it was too late? I know for me that having the right mentor made the different but it took me a while to find one that would help me understand my religion and help me figure out who I am and what I was meant to do after figuring everything out.
When I was younger, I really didn’t have a mentor. I went to Sunday school like every other kid my age that went to the same church. We had a lot of people that would come in and talk to us about God and everything but they really didn’t connect with us about what being a Lutheran really meant. Every Sunday we would meet for an hour while our parents were in service so that we could learn more but for the whole time all we did was watch cartoon movies about God and they read from the bible but they really didn’t bring it down to our level and made us all confused. I know for me my favorite part was going to Sunday school was seeing my friends that I only saw once a week. Everyone was on a big room, didn’t matter if you were a kindergartener or a fifth grader, we all get taught the same thing. They don’t make it easier for the younger kids to understand what they are learning. I was confused a lot of the time because I didn’t understand what I was learning. Half the time I wouldn’t pay attention and think about something else and or take a nap. I really didn’t learn anything until I was in 6th grade.
When I was in Sixth grade that’s when I started to learn about being a Lutheran and what it meant to be one. Our groups were smaller and around ten people in each group and everyone had a chance to ask questions and or answer questions. My mentor was really good; she would take the time to really understand what we were thinking about each lesson. She would ask a question and she would have everyone answer the question. We would go around in a circle and everyone would talk about it, then we would talk about everyone’s answers and see if we can get one combined answer. Having other people that were in the same boat as I was and I really didn’t know a lot about being a Lutheran was and everything made it really easy for everyone to say what they thought. That’s when I started helping out in the community. Then I joined a group that went to other states to help out others where they needed it the most.
When I was in eighth grade, which is when I was going out of my community and went to other cities and states to help out. For the first year I went to Duluth, for a week and worked with other Lutherans to help a poor community build houses and work at the food shelf and do house work that people needed help with. I learned so much from this trip because I was able to talk to people of the same faith as me and learn things I didn’t have any idea about and help them learn more about what I knew. When you see the people faces of people that you are helping, your heart melts because they are so grateful of everything that you are doing for them. Being is Lutheran is helping people out that need it the most and giving back to the community. After my first year of doing this kind of work I did this every summer for five years. People always ask me why I wasted my summer with going to other states to help people out, isn’t it a waste of time. I would look at them and say it wasn’t. It was making it easier for them to live and we are making their community better and safe for everyone. The places that I have gone to are New York, Tennessee, Colorado, South Dakota, and International Falls. Every place that I went to I learned more about me that I didn’t know already and I learned more about what being a Lutheran was all about. During these kinds of trips it really opened my eyes to what it could be like and what it is like for people. I know from personal experiences I wouldn’t have thought that people live in houses with twelve people and only have one bedroom, one bathroom and not everyone can be in a house together. Some of the kids sleep in tents in the front yard. When I did these trips I would come back with stories from these families that I would help out for the week and how I helped them but I also came back with how they helped me understand who I was. When you are there you talk to the people and get to know them and it really makes you think about a lot of things and you learn about yourself. Still till this day I still talk to some of the people that I helped and I get pictures of their families and hear about how life is after we left. They are still grateful that we helped them and changed their life for the better. Without these trips I wouldn’t have gotten these opportunities that I have gotten to learn more about being a Lutheran and about who I am. I learned so much on these trips that I wouldn’t change them.
Eboo Patel has a few different mentors through his life to try to figure out his faith.

The first one was with Brother Wayne. Brother Wayne helped Patel figure out who he is and what religion he was a part of. Another thing that he did was bring him to the interface group meetings. That opened up Eboo Patel’s eyes and getting more youth into helping others out. If it wasn’t for Brother Wayne he wouldn’t have started teaching in Chicago and meeting people his age that wanted to help other people. Another person that was a mentor for him was the Dalai Lama, because that was when he admitted that he was a Muslim. The Dalai Lame asked Patel if he was a Muslim and he said he was. Then the Dalai Lama also stated that being Muslim was good too (pp.96). That’s when he wanted to learn more about being a Muslim, he did know some things but he really wasn’t practicing it. When he got back from India at is when he started to grow with the interface and really looked into in faith and found out who he is. Those two mentors really opened up Patel’s

eyes.
What if we thought about what if he had different mentors like bin Laden and they were for violence, what anything be different? Bin Laden stated to his students “The youth should strive to find the weak points of the American economy and strike the enemy there” (pp.131). They learn this right away and it is drilled in there head, and they aren’t able to forget about it. Could Patel be one of those guys in the plans on 9/11 or would he of figured it out and got out. When you think about it mentors have a big role in young people lives and they help shape who they are.

Eboo Patel had mentors that really helped him figure out who he is and what it means to be Islam. It may have taken a little longer for him to notice who he was but in the end he figured it out. If we go back to my earlier question about what Patel would be like if his mentors drove him in the other direction? How would his story be different or how would he act? What if that happened to us, how we would be different from who we are. I know for myself that I wouldn’t have all the memories that I have going to different places and helping the people that need it the most. It’s hard for me to really think about what my life would be like because I wouldn’t want to change it, everything that I do makes me who I am and helps me figure out what is a Lutheran.