Real Life at the Crisis Shelter April 30-May 6, 2012

Weekly highlights

Monday April 30:  The developmentally delayed 25 year old man moved to stay with extended family in Ohio.  Mom was grieving but stayed with us.  She was very grateful for the exception.  One of our singles went on a second interview.  Some of our ladies are catching spring fever and are chasing men all over the place.  Staff have had many conversations about this addiction with them.  Most are open to discussion.         

Tuesday May 1:   Two of our singles are butting heads.  Both are very head strong so it has been interesting to work through the dispute with them.  Right now the conflict demonstrates itself in little nasty comments but this can quickly escalate so we are monitoring the situation closely.  One of our more anxiety driven guests almost moved out in a moment of frustration but then after conversation decided to stay.  We had to expand into another room to make room for singles.  One of our moms had her children taken by CPS today.  They were here waiting when she returned for the day.  Matters were complicated by the fact that she was running late.  CPS did a good job of keeping everyone calm during the situation.    One of our overflow guests was dropped off by the Spokane police who were surprised that we were willing to help her at all since they feel that she is a dangerous person, though they do not have enough evidence to take her in.  We agree based on past performance at the shelter, she has the overflow option only and that has low impact on the rest of the shelter.

Wednesday May 2:   One of our guests has been appearing angrier lately than is usual.  It looks to be relationship issues outside of the shelter.

Thursday May 3:    Pray for one of our consistent phase 2 guests.  She has lived a fairly rough life and has several illnesses that have resulted for her.       

Friday May 4:   One of our singles had been drinking.  The story is that her grandmother bought her the alcohol so that she would get kicked out and then have to move back in with her abuser.  I’m not sure if that true, but she was fairly drunk.  To compound matters she takes a lot of medication that does not work well with alcohol.  After she left (she was given the option of not drinking the rest of the day and then using our phase 2) she wandered the neighborhood and kept drinking until she passed out on East Sprague.  Paramedics were called and when they aroused her she became verbally abusive to them.  Since she had made some suicidal comments they took her in for evaluation.

Weekend:     Lots of “ah ha” moments for several of our ladies as they begin to understand that God has made them to be Royalty in the Kingdom of God.  Many conversations and classes are having an impact.  By the end of the weekend there were assorted dramas around the singles not getting along.  We are watching these situations carefully.

General comments:  This coming Thursday and Friday will be our first Guest Assistant/Good Worker retreat.  This will take place out at the camp and we are very excited over this event!                

    

Current Crisis Shelter Purpose Statement:

 The Crisis Shelter for Women and Children exists to increase the impact of our ministries of rescue, recovery and restoration by partnering with staff, volunteers and donors.  We will do this by meeting basic needs in a safe, clean, temporary shelter, with instruction and guidance for life transformation in a healing environment.