Hero Quest Chapter 1 Part 11

“Can they stay with you?”

“Don’t try to make me the villain here.  You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

“Well ok.  How quickly do you think you can have her out of here?”

“We’ll take as long as we want.”  With that the aunt barged her way out almost knocking down two or three other guests who had come into the office. 

“Hi, how can I help you?”  John tried to put a friendly smile on though it is certain that he was fairly rattled by what had just taken place.

“I’m looking for a place to stay.  Is there room?”

“Are you looking for a place with kids or without?”  Deep inside John was hoping without since those beds were already put together.  The only open mom room was now being vacated in room 3.

“I have four kids.”

“I do have room.  But it will take us just a bit to get it cleaned up.  Can you wait in the dining room for a bit while we get it ready for you?”

Tears began streaming down the woman’s face.  John handed her his hanky and she wiped the tears.  “Yes, we’ll wait.”  John showed the family to the dining room, gave them all some left over sack lunches and discovered that her name was Julie.  She was fairly certain that her abusive husband would be coming around and that was why she kept looking over her shoulder toward the gate.  “You’ll be safe here, Julie.  God protects the ladies here.”  As John made his way to get Becky whose social worker should be here by now he ran into two other ladies wanting a room.  One was a mom and the other a single.  If you can all wait here in the dining room I will figure out if we can help you. 

Becky’s social worker looked way out of her element at the Crisis Shelter.  It was pretty obvious that she had never so angry and also did not know why.  “Can you come down to my office?”

The two ladies nodded and followed John toward his office.

“Can you maybe, tell me what happened?”

“She called my man a punk. So I told her that I would be taking her down.”

“So you threatened her?”

“Yeah but it wasn’t here. So you can’t do anything about it, you punk.”

A flash of anger shot from Becky’s eyes and John sensed the tensions inside of him skyrocket.

The social worker suddenly became visibly nervous.

“If you were threatening her, and I would say that you’re threatening me right now.  You can’t stay here.”

The social worker tried to usher her from the room as her anger began to escalate.  Fortunately, the social worker got Becky out the door and was helping to get her packed up.  They were gone from the premises in less than ten minutes.

John took a deep breath.  At least the rest of check in seemed to be going ok.  Now he also knew that he could get that single in and went to make Becky’s bed.  That completed he was going to get the single to get her checked in; but noticed a lot of noise coming from around rooms two and three.  The aunt and Sarah were working up an audience and had developed a bit of a fan club with the mom in room two.  It was obvious that they were taking their sweet time.  John decided he needed to get them out of here before he left and now it was down to the last 30 minutes if he was going to get home in time to let Corinna get to the conference on time. 

Real Life at the Crisis Shelter March 19-25, 2012

Monday March 19:  A very heated discussion began in one of the singles room.  It progressed to the point where one of the guests threatened to kill one of the other guests.  The lady making the threat was asked to leave.  Later another guest had an argument with her brother at Oasis Park.  The fight culminated in the guest breaking a window at the shelter, punching her brother and going to jail.  Gate is now fixed!  Staff were able to meet with a mom who is struggling to parent in the midst of all of the stresses of being homeless, alone and afraid.    

Tuesday March 20:    Room 5 broke out in a fight amongst the singles.  There is some prejudice and other issues that is sparking the tension.  The guest who had broken the window came by to pick up her belongings.  She tried to spin the story that she was the victim.  This was hard to believe because of her 47 charges of violence and 2 murder convictions in the past.

Wednesday March 21  Room 5 was at peace today.  The discussion staff had with them seems to have soothed things over.  One of our guests lost her job this morning.  Her first reaction was to tell us that she needed to go use.  We talked with her and she has some other plans now.  Ultimately she moved across the state.    It came to light that someone had taken all of the lunch meat and we would not be able to provide sandwiches for the ladies in the morning.  However, a donor came by and donated enough lunch meat for everyone because it was buy one get one free and she could not use the second package.  Again God provides!   

Thursday March 22:    We had a same day accountability meeting for one of our singles who was very argumentative with staff.    She opted to not come to the accountability. 

Friday March 23:  One of our guests said that she went to the hospital last night but then had no paperwork.  When we were going to call the hospital to confirm that was where she was, she told us that she had used an alias at the hospital.  As the conversation went on and the story started changing rapidly it became apparent that she had not gone to the hospital and was asked to leave.  Another guest had a same day accountability meeting.  She showed up and staff was able to have a great conversation and the guest will be staying with us.        

Weekend:    One of our guests went to the hospital and had her baby!  One of our mom , one who is on her third stay, finds interesting excuses each evening for why she can not or did not do modules.   

General comments:   Same day accountability meetings is part of our latest experiment.  When a guest refuses to discuss some non safety issue and their part in it we have them pack their belongings and leave for a few hours.  Usually they are given some homework or told the accountability questions ahead of time.  If they come back at the assigned time and the meeting goes well they keep their bed.  If they don’t show up or are still unwilling to discuss their role in the drama they are checked out of the shelter.  So far mixed results but overall I am happy with the idea.        

    

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.

Progress on my goals March 18-24, 2012

	Target	Actually Done
Leadership Bible	Be on page 420 (5 pg a day)	On page 422
Faith in Action Bible	Be on page 504 (6 pg a day)	On page 507
Message Read Through	7 Days youversion program	On track
Running	15 miles a week	10
Crunches	1000 a week	1200
Floss	7 times a week	7 Days
Face Cleaning/Lotions	7 times a week	7
I Like Book	7 times a week	7
Modules	2 a week	3
Social Events	3 a quarter	2
Guy Time	10 X a quarter	9
Self Exam	7 a week	3
Book Reading	1 Book a week	1
Evening Prayer Meeting	26 times a year	7
Paid Speaking	3 a quarter	2
Date with Cara	3 a quarter	2
Date with Rachel	1 a quarter	0

This week was I was tired most of the week and not very motivated.  I'm not sure why.  I did manage to get in my goal number of crunches and read a book.  I finished reading a book about the Puritans.  While they have a repuatation for sternness and top down authority leadership, that may not be all that accurate.  The Puritan colonists instituted many democratic reforms that have become common place today.  While history shows very stern and seemingly brutal responses to sin.  They rarely went the distance to actually perform those capital offenses.  They also went out of their way to demonstrate Christ's love to the poor, which I can appreciate.  I wonder if I would have made it as a Puritan.  I become concerned that our world today is swinging too far to all roads lead to Heaven and everything goes.  Much as the book of Judges describes the children of Isreal, "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."  This is true everywhere even in the church.  I know I will come across as a legalist but we as Christians need to rise up.  We need to live different.  We need to not curse, not go to vulgar movies, not smoke and the like.  We also need to rise up to defend the helpless, the poor, the unborn and others that are living in pain of rejection.  We need to love the homosexual but let them know that they are living in sin and unable to get to Heaven.  Right now we simply say no you can't get married.  We must go to the soul and pray for them to be saved.
Overall I would consider this quarter a success even though I fell very short in some areas.  I am hopeful that I will be motivated this week to do and be more of what God has called me to be.  Oh that I could love as He loved.