“It seems that you just told me that you needed to go to the hospital right away. You should be back by five.” He didn’t know what was really going on, but he was going to stand by shelter policies. They were there for good reasons.
But, this woman couldn’t relate with those reasons just now. If fact, she seemed to quiver with anger. She said nothing and went to her room. John shrugged and went toward the staff office.
The decoration on the door jingled like a warning bell. “How goes the battle?” John greeted Darlene.
She looked up from updating the computer. “Wild and woolly, as always.” He walked past her as she spoke and started warming up his computer. He walked back out for the daily snapshot book. Darlene gave him the to-do list. “Room five has a clog in the bathroom sink. I was taking the new gal around back to show her the back gate and the bell when I saw Sue smoking a doobie.”
“Really.”
“Yeah it’s really clogged.”
“No, I meant…”
Darlene cut him off with a smile, “I know, I know. She was very apologetic. She even apologized for disrespecting our guidelines, the shelter, and the mission as a whole. Before she left she even confessed to being here high on other types of drugs. Weird, isn’t it?”
“There is hope for that one. Go ahead and put her on the accountability list, if she comes back, she’ll have to pass our drug test.” Darlene nodded as she moved to do so. “Anything else of interest?” John asked.
“A few people are still shaken up from yesterday, but for the most part they are very angry with Sarah. There was even talk among the ladies in room nine about taking her out, permanent like.” Darlene winced and shuffled some papers.
“They know that’s not ok, right?”
“I hope so but they are fairly passionate about this,” she shook her head.
“Make sure they know that I do not want any revenge,” he enunciated firmly.
“I will.” There was a knock on the door and John took the book back to his office.
Flipping the book open, he read Maggie’s account of last night’s events. Most of these he was intimately familiar with, but there were some notes about the after effects. Several of the ladies had asked for a special prayer meeting and one of the volunteers had not only joined them but led them. Apparently the ladies from room nine were having their own kind of meeting, thought John.
Maggie’s account really made him sound like a hero, but he really didn’t feel that way. He got home the night before and was so out of it. What did his kids think of him? Was he a real man? He had been crying half the evening. He shook his head as if to shake off last night’s unpleasant events.
Three people had checked in the night before, and John updated the register in the computer. In the other room, he heard Darlene talking with a guest who was wondering if it was okay to take a job at a near by strip club. Darlene was trying to lovingly tell her that she was worth much more than they would be paying her. The guest was trying to explain that all she had to offer the world was an incredible body. John could hear the desperation in her voice and longed for her to see herself as God saw her; so much more than simply a sexual object. Darlene explained that shelter policy would not be giving her a late exception for that sort of job. Darlene encouraged her to get a job that was more in line with her real value. He heard the urgency in Darlene’s tone, explaining to the guest that she was precious in the sight of God, created for much more than this. As she talked about purpose and value and dignity, he prayed that Darlene’s seeds would find good soil in this heart.
He returned to his work, checking emails, making a quick to-do list and prioritizing the assorted crisis situations presented at the Shelter.
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