A Child’s Perspective on Homelessness by Edith Yoder

Today’s post in the series  Return to Our Senses in Lent is excerpted from a newsletter I recently received from my friend Edith Yoder Executive Director of Bridge of Hope, a ministry which provides a church based approach to ending homelessness. I was so touched by the video in this post that I wanted to share it with all of you.

“It shouldn’t be this hard and I’m wondering what I’m doing wrong.”  These are the words of Kim Ahern, a single mom facing homelessness who’s featured in this powerful video from the Seattle Times entitled “A child’s perspective on homelessness.”

In 2010, Kim moved from Chicago to Seattle because she heard of job opportunities there.  When housing fell through, Kim, her 9-year-old son Jack, and their Cockapoo Gracie lived in the King County tent city.  Kim explains, “I wish I had Jack’s imagination – without the zombies.”

Kim used the 211 directory to look for housing options and felt that she kept “hitting a wall” until St. Vincent de Paul referred her to Blessed Sacrament.  She and Jack were provided with a room and a shared kitchen and bathroom.

Kim spent two months applying for jobs, but wondered what she would do about childcare.  “Everyone wants $10-$12/hour and I can’t pay out all I’m making.”  She explains that she and Jack dream at night about a new home and furniture.   “It’s fun to dream but everything’s on hold.  It’s a waiting game.”

My dream for Kim and Jack and families facing homelessness is Bridge of Hope mentoring friends from a local church.

A mentoring group could look at Jack’s “furniture map” and help to make it a reality.  Mentoring friends could provide childcare while Kim interviews for jobs.  Bridge of Hope staff would provide temporary rental assistance and help Kim to find a job (and job training if needed) so that she can meet expenses for housing, food, childcare, etc.

Please contact me if your church or agency would like to make this dream a reality for a family like Kim, Jack and Gracie. “It shouldn’t be this hard and I’m wondering what I’m doing wrong.”  These are the words of Kim Ahern, a single mom facing homelessness who’s featured in this powerful video from the Seattle Times entitled “A child’s perspective on homelessness.”

In 2010, Kim moved from Chicago to Seattle because she heard of job opportunities there.  When housing fell through, Kim, her 9-year-old son Jack, and their Cockapoo Gracie lived in the King County tent city.  Kim explains, “I wish I had Jack’s imagination – without the zombies.”

Kim used the 211 directory to look for housing options and felt that she kept “hitting a wall” until St. Vincent de Paul referred her to Blessed Sacrament.  She and Jack were provided with a room and a shared kitchen and bathroom.

Kim spent two months applying for jobs, but wondered what she would do about childcare.  “Everyone wants $10-$12/hour and I can’t pay out all I’m making.”  She explains that she and Jack dream at night about a new home and furniture.   “It’s fun to dream but everything’s on hold.  It’s a waiting game.”

My dream for Kim and Jack and families facing homelessness is Bridge of Hope mentoring friends from a local church.

A mentoring group could look at Jack’s “furniture map” and help to make it a reality.  Mentoring friends could provide childcare while Kim interviews for jobs.  Bridge of Hope staff would provide temporary rental assistance and help Kim to find a job (and job training if needed) so that she can meet expenses for housing, food, childcare, etc.

Please contact me if your church or agency would like to make this dream a reality for a family like Kim, Jack and Gracie.

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Celebrating Advent with A Birth and A Death by Edith Yoder.

Today’s Advent reflection was written by Edith Yoder, Executive Director of Bridge of Hope an organization that creates a three way partnership between single mothers, social workers and church based mentoring groups. Edith’s spiritual journey includes a deep sense of call to engage and equip churches in ending homelessness for single mothers and children. She authored The Mentor’s Resource Guide, a training tool which helps equip caring Christians for an effective ministry of friendship with homeless families.

Antependium_Straßburg_ via wikimedia

“Advent is not a time to declare, but to listen, to listen to whatever God may want to tell us through the singing of the stars, the quickening of a baby, the gallantry of a dying man.”  

– Madeleine L’Engle

The Christmas season began this year for me with a funeral and a birth.  At the beginning of Advent we celebrated the birth of our third grandchild.  Makenzie was welcomed into the world by loving parents, her big brother, and a joyful extended family.  My stepson and his family live in Corpus Christi, Texas and so my waiting this Advent season means waiting to hold this precious new baby for whom I have already made lots of room in my heart!

But last week was also the funeral of long-time Bridge of Hope ambassador and co-founder of Bridge of Hope Harrisburg Area, Joyce Eby .  Joyce was a social worker who lived a life of service to Christ and who cared deeply about homeless single mothers and children.  Joyce also lived a courageous life, giving of herself even as she faced cancer.

These two events – a birth and a death – have put this Christmas season in a new light for me. This season, as I embrace Makenzie’s new life and say goodbye to Joyce, I recognize anew the implications of “making room” for others.  Making room for others means opening ourselves up to sharing in both the joys and the sorrows of life.

Advent is about making room, both in the physical sense – Mary, Joseph and the newborn Jesus needed a physical place to stay – and also in a spiritual sense – making room in my heart for this Christ child who is the Savior of the world.   My life is enriched when I truly make room for each person and family I encounter, whether housed or homeless, single mother or two-parent family.

I am grateful for the ministry of Bridge of Hope which values each life, each homeless mother and child that we walk with and serve.  While once-homeless single mothers in Bridge of Hope often continue to struggle to pay bills and provide a safe physical home for their children, they can rest assured that their mentors are walking with them and have, indeed, made room in their hearts for them.

May this Advent be a time when you catch a glimpse of the possibilities that abound when we allow God to make room in our hearts for our own family – as well as homeless families.

You Can Smuggle God into the World This Christmas – Edith Yoder

 

St Nicholas

Today is St Nicholas Day, commemorating the man whose secret gift giving became the model from which Santa Clause grew. But there is very little in the life of St Nicholas that resembles the gift giving of Santa Clause as we now know it. St Nicholas gave to the poor, in secret. His gifts often helped draw people out of poverty into self respect.

I thought of that as I chose this post today was sent as a fundraising letter from my friend Edith Yoder, Executive Director of Bridge of Hope.  Bridge of Hope is an organization that provides mentoring for homeless single parent families. It was named by The Externally Focused Network as one of the best 29 ideas for what it means for a church to be externally focused.

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I love the Christmas season.  I cannot help it.  There is a twinkle in 5-year-old Jenn’s eyes when she asks me how many days till “the Christmas feast.”  And my mom reminds me daily how many more days until our family gathers on Christmas Eve.  But it’s more than just the food and family that draws me to the Christmas season.

Recently I read these words by Barbara Brown Taylor (in Gospel Medicine):  “Like Mary….you can agree to smuggle God into the world inside your own body.”

By saying “yes” to God’s action in the world, we are becoming, like Mary, one of the God-bearers in our world – one who is willing to smuggle God into the world we live in each day.

Six years ago, I had coffee and breakfast with Rosita, Kathleen and Dawn in State College, Pennsylvania.  And they dared to say “yes” to smuggling God into their world.  From their “yes” to God, today Bridge of Hope Centre County is serving homeless single mothers and mentoring churches in their local community – and transforming lives.

Today 1 in 4 children in the U.S. is living in poverty.  Check out this 60 Minutes video from November 26 about homeless families who are living in their cars.  Your church or agency can be the bridge needed, today, for a family experiencing homelessness.

This Advent season is the time to consider how you might smuggle God into the world to transform lives of hungry and homeless single mothers .  Go ahead – be a God-bearer in your world!  Be a bridge of hope.

Edith Yoder

 

 

Take Off Your Shoes – by Edith Yoder

This morning’s post comes from Edith Yoder Executive Director of Bridge of Hope an organization which has always impressed me tremendously.  Their mission is ending and preventing homelessness in your community . . .one church and one family at a time.  I was really impressed with the practical suggestions that Edith has for ways to help us become more aware of the plight of those who are homeless.  And this seems such a timely reminder as I think that homelessness is likely to become more of a challenge in the future.

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In this recent episode of Secret Millionaire there is a scene that really demonstrates “seeing.”

John, the Secret Millionaire, is with a hat shop owner, Amin, who takes donated clothing and hygiene kits to the homeless.   John is amazed that many people take only one item.

Most moving to John is when Amin gives the shoes off his own feet to a homeless man using a walker.  The older man explains that he was sleeping when someone went to the bathroom near his shoes.  He asks, “How did you know these were just what I needed?”  Amin explains that he saw that the man needed new shoes.

The theme of this year’s Bridge of Hope conference is “Walking in Another’s Shoes: Seeing, Naming and Acting.”  Our theme was inspired by the book The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor by Mark Labberton.  Board and staff members from Bridge of Hope affiliates and sites will gather in October for training, networking and encouragement.

We will attempt to “walk in the shoes” of homeless women and children, especially via a poverty simulation and pre-conference seminar.  I invite you to try (this month) one of these ways to “walk in another’s shoes”:

• Feed yourself/family for $3 per person per day for three days.
• When your gas tank needs to be filled, find an alternate form of transportation because you “don’t have money for gas.”  Take public transportation, walk, bike, call a friend for a ride or borrow money, or even cancel your plans.
• Be homeless – sleep in your car, pitch a tent in your or someone else’s yard, or bunk on a friend’s couch.  If you are married and/or have children, include them and spend time talking together about your experience.  You might consider sleeping in your clothes, not using a pillow, a blanket, or a toothbrush.

Recently I came across one of my favorite Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems:

“Earth’s crammed with heaven

And every common bush

Aflame with God,

But only those who see

Take off their shoes

The rest stand around

And pick blackberries.”

Perhaps if we took off our shoes more often and saw the bush aflame (God at work), we would find the space in our lives to try on one another’s shoes and see things from each other’s perspective.