"Each of us has the capacity to change peoples' lives. It's frustrating and challenging, but the alternative, everybody giving up, is worse."

Sometimes I just hate it here.

I hate watching kids throw their lives away.

I hate seeing kids following in the footsteps of family members who have failed miserably in life.

I hate watching perfectly capable, intelligent, seemingly good guys, do incredibly stupid, selfish things.

I went to Eluxolweni yesterday. George, the house father who I've grown close to, pulled me aside, "bad news," he said.

One of my favorite kids--a 17-year-old boy who lives at the shelter, and another boy who used to live at Eluxolweni got drunk Saturday in the township. They came to Eluxolweni around 9 and tried breaking into the store room--where some computers and a lawn mower are kept. The burglar bars are bent back, the bottom window is shattered, and the tools the two of them used in their little crime rampage still sit on the ground. The 17-year-old thief is weeks away from going to high school.

Other shelter boys had been in the dining room on Saturday night when they heard a noise. They got up and saw the two guys breaking in. The house parent called the police.

The two thieves ran away, presumably back into the township. They haven't been around the past couple days, but they can't hide forever, and today a case is being opened against the two of them.

Eluxolweni Shelter forgives, and forgets, a lot. Most of the time when kids mess up, they're given second, third and fourth chances. The shelter knows the hand these kids have been dealt--and it understands that zero tolerance for everything would result in a near empty shelter.

Though it forgives a lot, it very often does not give second chances to kids who steal. It can't. Crime is a big enough issue here; you cannot allow people who are being helped by you to steal from you. I don't think my buddy is going to be cut any slack. I think once he's found, he'll be arrested, he'll have to gather his things and find a place to live in the township.

This is a kid who can finish school and easily make something of himself--and just as easily resort to a life of drugs and crime and remain hidden away, living a life off the radar on the dusty roads of the township. The choice is his-and right now, he's choosing the latter.

It's so sad that what he did on Saturday could have repercussions for the rest of his life. At Eluxolweni, he had a bed, access to showers and toilets, three meals a day, a roof over his head--and perhaps the most important thing, reduced access to the temptations that exist just a couple hundred meters away in the township.

He had it all-and as I write this, he's hiding somewhere because he knows what he did is wrong. He knows there will be people looking for him.

The case is being opened today. The police will find him, arrest him, and in not long, he'll be right back in the township free to drink, do drugs and steal all he wants; for he'll no longer have a bed at the shelter he tried to steal from.