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48 Hours: Runaway Street Questions
Directions: Please answer the following questions in complete sentences, using the question in the answer.

1.  Why do the runaways say they use drugs?

2.  The 14-year-old pregnant girl named Deirdre ran away from a detention center.  She was adopted and her mother wanted to have the adoption rescinded.  The official in charge of the case said he sympathized with the mother and Deirdre.  

a)  Who do you sympathize with?

b)  What do you think the future holds for Deirdre’s as yet unborn child?

	

3.  Ginger was the young girl from Kentucky who was living with 3 other runaways.  When she was interviewed she believed she was pregnant.  She said she would go back home rather than have a child live on the streets.  But that she would do a better job than her mom.  “I’m going to love my child.”  Ginger did feel like her parents loved her.

a)  Do you think Ginger is realistic regarding her future, and what she wants.  Explain.

b)  The foursome seems so close, why do you think they broke up?  Explain.

4.  Of all the teens who appeared on the show, which one did you have the most compassion for?  Why?

5.  Which person do you have the least compassion for?  Why?

6. List at least 7 reasons for why these young people are on the streets?  

7. What is at the heart of the problem of runaways?  Explain.

8. What does the problem of runaways have to do with our definition of love?  “Love is choosing the good of another.”  Explain.

9. What can be done to keep the runaways from leaving?

10. What do you think would be the worst part of living on the streets?

11.  Which people in the film seem to be an expression of God’s love?  Why.

12. These runaways lost their “innocence” when they were too young.  Do you think that today young people are exposed to experiences, or things in the media that cause them to lose their innocence too early?  Explain.

13. How are the lives of these runaways evidence of the section of your book “Humans Are Wounded by Sin” beginning on page 45?  Explain.

Case Study for Analysis

A famous case from some years ago involved a young girl named Linda who did not come home after a dance one Friday night.  On Saturday, she admitted to her folks that she had spent the night with an Air Force lieutenant.

Her parents decided to teach her a lesson that would “wake Linda up.”  They took her to the desert near her home and ordered her to shoot her pet dog that she had owned for two years.  They ordered Linda to dig a shallow grave.  Linda’s mom then grasped the dog between her hands, and her dad gave Linda a .22 caliber pistol ad ordered her to kill the dog.

Instead, Linda put the pistol to her right temple and shot herself.  The police said that the only charge they could file against the parents was cruelty to animals.

In your opinion, what immoral attitudes and actions (if any) did each of the following exhibit?

a) Linda

b) her parents

c) the police

d) Whose action(s) most contradict(s) what it means to be a human being?  Why?