If you have not visited in awhile, you must! Just driving by you will see our amazing new Lydia House women and family shelter, the Permanent Supportive Apartments, and the in-construction Garland Thompson’s Men Center and be assured if you see any open space – Candace has a plan for that too! When you drive by you see clean streets, repaired buildings, shinny windows, and manicured lawns – you see our surface.
But what I love about serving at Open Door Mission that the surface is not what it is all about. What go on behind our walls - what goes on in the heart - is the fun and the call of our ministry.
Last week a woman, a potential Permanent Supportive Housing resident, came to my door unexpectedly. Our conversation started out casual, she asked a few questions about her application, but then she just broke down. She said that she really did not know why she came to Open Door Mission that day, other than the fact that she ‘knew something was different here and she needed to be here.’ What an honor to listen to her as she shared that earlier in the day her son had been sentenced to 40 years of incarceration, though she knew the sentence was fair, she was in so much pain from mourning for the lost of her ‘baby’. She just kept saying over and over that she needed to be here – she wanted more in her life – she wanted peace. What joy to be able to share with her about the peace Christ provides and pray with her.
And in God’s great timing her application was completed and approved the next day and she moved in to her own apartment. Today she has a safe-affordable home as well as assurance she has a home for eternity!
Ronda Nelson
Housing First Director
Housing First Director
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