Real Life at the Crisis Shelter April 23-29, 2012

Weekly highlights

Monday April 23:  The door of the dining room broke off of the hinge as one of our ladies was walking through it.  She was not hurt but was stuck trying to hold it up.  This was a bit more challenging for her since she had only one arm, however she did a great job!  We did an incredible amount of check ins today.  One of our guests in phase II had relapsed again so has now been moved to overflow as her only shelter option (10pm-6 am mattress on the floor).        

Tuesday April 24:  One of our former guests was in a motorcycle accident and passed away today.  Funeral will be next week.  Pray for one of our Guest Assistants who decided today that she going to quit smoking!      

Wednesday April 25:  Two of our singles started the morning in a verbal fight.  One of them happily left when she had cleared her thoughts.  The boyfriend of a former guest stole a different former guest’s truck and then left it at the shelter.  One of our guests through a temper tantrum over viewing modules, getting her belongings into a tote and a wide array of other complaints.  Ultimately she lost her bed at the shelter but is eligible of Phase II (5pm-8am dinner, breakfast offered)   

Thursday April 26:  Lots of people keep coming.  We are stuffed to the gills.  Many of the ladies have health concerns.  Please be praying for them.    One of our ladies had an ear infection and had heard that putting garlic in your ear can help that out.  Many questioned that idea but she insisted that it would help.  It turns out that putting garlic in your ear can increase the infection so by today she was in total pain.  Doctors removed the garlic and then treated the infection.  She is doing better now.      

Friday April 27:  One of our moms received her 2^nd part time job.  She is very excited.

Weekend:    A couple of our guest assistants were drinking and asked to leave. 

General comments:      We set a record in March (1 more day so it will only go up from here) for number of regular shelter check ins (185) as well as total served (336)!           

    

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.

My personal progres April 21-28, 2012

	Target	Actually Done
Leadership Bible	Be on page 595 (5 pg a day)	On page 596
Faith in Action Bible	Be on page 714 (6 pg a day)	On page 714
Message Read Through	7 Days youversion program	On track
Running	25 miles a week
Running 2012 Overall	1212 miles by 12/12/12	263.5
Crunches	1000 a week
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	1
Social Events	3 a quarter	2
Guy Time	10 X a quarter	1
Self Exam	3 a week	2
Book Reading	1 Book a week	1
Evening Prayer Meeting	26 times a year	9
Paid Speaking	3 a quarter	0
Date with Cara	3 a quarter	1
Date with Rachel	1 a quarter	0

This week I finished one of my ultimate goals.  I completed my first novel and sent it to a publisher who has tentatively agreed to print it.  The book Hero Quest follows John Hero as he moves through life and interacts with a wide array of people at the Shelter.  This book shows the drama of Shelter life as well as the lifestyles of those who come and go around the Shelter.  Check it out. 
As a result of working on the book I had to not run all week.  This was a difficult call as I have big goals that will be more difficult to accomplish now.  But I can make up for those over the weeks to come. 
I finished reading a book called Founding Fathers.  Another examination of the Puritans.  In many ways I long to be like these people.  To be a man who is pure and holy before God.  While history tends to paint these folks with a broad Pharisee sort of brush they were mostly that way towards themselves.  I long to be pure and holy and to have Jesus find me serving Him, if He should return.  I hope to always be faithful to my Lord and King.
I did experience some disappointment this week when I lost the speech contest on Wednesday night.  While I believe that God would have me make a living as a public speaker I am starting to doubt that Toastmasters is my road to that destiny.  I am in prayer about this now.
The week was topped off with a celebration date with Cara.  I love spending time with her and look forward to a lifetime with her.

Hero Quest Chapter 2 Part 2

It took quite a few minutes for him to pull it together enough to get his day going again.  It was 7:00 and it was time to kick start the family.  Though he felt with every fiber of his being that he did not want to go to work, he knew that he must return to the battle.  He had a job to do, a world to impact.  Determination filled his soul as he climbed the stairs to make coffee for Corrina and make breakfast.  This was just an ordinary morning of an ordinary day and regardless of how he felt inside, he would not let fear own him today. 

            The car was cold but at least he didn’t have to scrape the windows.  Most of the snow from the day before was gone but he could still see some in the shadows.  Less than a block from the house he heard the sound of his cell phone.  Thoughtfully, John reached instinctively for his cell phone.  “I know I’m not supposed to answer this while driving, but I should see who it is and put it on speaker if it seems to be important.”  Casually he looked at the number on the phone. “Hmm, it’s the Mission.  I should probably take this.”   Quickly he pushed the off button on the radio that was playing an audio book.  Deep down; he was frustrated because he was losing his momentum with the book by answering the phone. 

He flipped open the phone and pushed the speaker button.  “Good morning!” John nearly sang his welcome.   There was complete silence on the other end.  “Hello…  hello? …is anybody there?  …I guess it wasn’t that important.”  John smiled as he turned the audio book back on. 

Pulling into the parking lot, tension and fear crawled all over him.  Looking around the empty parking lot he took a deep breath, carefully opened the door, got out of the vehicle, opened the back door and took out his computer and backpack. 

Suddenly a large woman with a large black bag appeared seemingly from nowhere.  “I need to talk to you.”

“OK.  What’s going on?”  John hid his frustration from not even getting in the door of the office before he was accosted. 

“I need to go to the hospital.”  She put her bag on her shoulder as if to go.

“Oh man.  What’s going on?” 

“I think I got food poisoning or something.” 

“Would you like me to pray for you?” John offered.

“You can, but I need to go now,” she said abruptly.

“I understand, I hope you’ll be better soon.” 

The woman glared at him with an increasingly searching stare. “What if I don’t get back on time?” 

John looked at his watch casually.  “It’s not quite 9:00 in the morning.  I am sure that you’ll be back by five tonight.” 

“So if I’m not back by five, you’re kicking me out for going to the hospital for food poisoning that you most likely gave me.” 

The thought going through John’s mind was, ‘I haven’t even gotten to my office yet.’  What he said out loud was, “I’ll tell you what.  I think that you’ll be back on time.  If it looks like you will be late, give us a call.  We will want you to bring paperwork from the hospital as proof that’s where you were.” 

“But I need to go to the store first and then I have to watch my sister’s kids in the valley.  I won’t get to the hospital before three at best.”  Her story began to change, John noticed.

Real World Events at the Shelter

Weekly highlights

Monday April 16:    We had a woman who was very angry because one of her room mates was coughing.  She wanted us to throw the cougher out on the street.  When we chose not to do that, she became angry that the woman would not go to the health food store with her.  Eventually she became unreasonable and we had to have her leave.  We had several ladies feign sickness when it came to chapel time and had miraculous healing when the shuttles left for Celebrate Recovery.  For some of these it has become a habit so they were asked to leave at their next outdate.      

Tuesday April 17:  The mom with the 25 year old son that we have been helping was heart broken when her son decided to leave to stay with a family friend for the night.  He eventually changed his mind.  Welcomed back a guest from about 2 years ago who caused lots of trouble last time.  Crisis Shelter Staff briefed the Board of Directors and enjoyed meeting them.   

Wednesday April 18:  One of our Guest Assistants was slipping because of a feeling of superiority.  With a conversation and some immediate consequences she was able to stay at the shelter and is making some personality adjustments.  We had the great loofa conspiracy.  One guest used another guests loofa and World War III broke out.  While staff agreed that it was gross, we did not feel that we should throw someone out over the situation much to the dismay of another guest.  

Thursday April 19:  We decided to give a room to the mom with 25 year old son!  Several of the ladies at the shelter wrapped around these two and have worked to help them feel loved.  Dramatic night with a woman who became afraid that her room mates were going to steal her teeth.  She eventually left on her own.       

Friday April 20:   

Weekend:   We had a small group of women who were hiding their beer in the toilet tank.  When we BA’d everyone in the room 2 refused and one was positive.  The two refusals were treated as positives and they were asked to leave.

General comments:  Numbers dropped a little with nicer weather.  We are helping at least one family who are only here to make CPS happy and that is challenging.              

    

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 as of April 21,2012

	Target	Actually Done
Leadership Bible	Be on page 560 (5 pg a day)	On page 560
Faith in Action Bible	Be on page 672 (6 pg a day)	On page 672
Message Read Through	7 Days youversion program	On track
Running	25 miles a week	25
Running 2012 Overall	1212 miles by 12/12/12	263.5
Crunches	1000 a week	1000
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	1
Guy Time	10 X a quarter	1
Self Exam	3 a week	1
Book Reading	1 Book a week	0
Evening Prayer Meeting	26 times a year	9
Paid Speaking	3 a quarter	0
Date with Cara	3 a quarter	0
Date with Rachel	1 a quarter	0

This was a bit of a sleepless week.  I have been working to finish the book.  I had thought that it would take a long time for a publisher to decide on whether to publish the book or not so I sent a sneak peak to a few publishers and was accepted by two.  That was great!  Except for the fact that I was only about 1/2 way through the first draft.  Now I have a deadline of April 30, 2012 to get them the book.  The way it's breaking down right now, I write futher.  Cara edits what I have written and then sends it on to her mom for a second set of eyes for further editing.  Once I finish the original I will take a final look at the book in its entirety. 
I continue to push myself to get this done by next Friday so that I can enjoy the weekend.  I am guessing that this will cost me one week of running but it will be worth it.

Hero Quest Chapter 2 part 1

Everyday Life- Tuesday

  John’s watch beeped.  He was going to just stay in bed.  The emotion from Monday had made the night’s sleep restless at best.  “No, John.  You have got to get up and run.”  The blankets hugged him tightly and seemed to encourage him to just stay right there in the bed.  “Why is it that the bed feels so much more comfortable when you know that you need to get up?”  John continued to try to motivate himself.  He then began to walk through his ultimate dream.  Every part of that dream had him walking around, fit and healthy.  In the dream he was 75 but seemed to be ageless.  As John saw himself in the dream he began to get excited.  It was time to get going.  The clock said it was 5:10 am.  Carefully making his way across the dark room toward the bathroom, John continued to try to motivate himself.  “If you are going to run 40 miles on your 40^th birthday you are going to need to just get out there and do it.  Besides, too many people know of your crazy goal to back out now.  But of course you need your rest, go back to bed.  You had a hard day yesterday.  You deserve to sleep, just another 30 minutes.”  The conversation continued but John dressed anyway and ran five miles.  Running always woke him up and got him past that morning lack of motivation.   

     After a cool drink of water John sat in his special chair and began to talk with Jesus, “So where were you yesterday?”  Silence.  “I mean I was left high and dry there, under attack and you did nothing.  I trusted You.”  “Did you?”  For a moment John was stunned.  “Of course I trusted in You.”  “Did you?” The soft compassionate but very serious voice again asked.  Now John was silent.  At least he was silent outwardly inside he began fuming.  “You know I need to get out of this job.  This is just too dangerous to my reputation.  What if the police believed her?  I would never be able to get a job again.  I would be disgraced in the papers.  My family would hide their faces when we went to church.  I can almost hear the people whispering, ‘There goes the woman beater.’  No doubt about it I need to quit.”  Again silence filled the house.  John listened to the clock tick.  The cat scratched at the carpet and John nearly dislocated his arm trying to hit the beast with his shoe.  Normally he would have just shooed the cat from his scratching duty but in the moment hitting the cat seemed so much the better.  “Stupid cat!”  The momentary pause in the prayer time reminded John that he was supposed to be praying and was wasting time letting his mind wander aimlessly.  “A hero must focus and I am John Hero so I will focus.”  John read a few pages from His Bible and tried praying a pre written prayer that he had once read from a book, copied and taped down in a journal.  Something seemed lacking in the moment though.  He closed the book and looked over at the empty couch across the room.  “Did you?”  Exasperated, John just stared at the emptiness.  Anger again welled up inside of him.  “I tell you that I learned to trust You 12 years ago and have never looked back.”  Suddenly John felt his face grow hot.  He was blushing.  Though there was no mirror near by him knew that he must be blushing.  That was a lie.  His faith had left him on many occasions.  Multiple times in his life he had resolved to abandon this whole God thing and just get on with a more normal life.  It might have been just coincidence but John felt a cool breeze blow across his face in that moment.  It felt like a soft inviting kiss.  “I love you John.  Why didn’t you trust me?”  The whole vivid, horrible scene replayed itself in John’s head.  He wanted to get away from it all and go eat his oatmeal.  But the scene played on anyway.  Again and again he watched things unfold.  Forwards and backwards the movie in his head showed him every detail in picture perfect clarity.  “Where did I fail?”  John watched it again and again. “Help me see this through Your eyes.”  Suddenly John saw himself sitting at his desk.  There was a woman talking to him.  But he could hear no voices.  Out of the silence he heard the voice.  It was silent for moment and then he heard it again.  “Let it go.  Let her steal the pillows, the blankets the sheets, let her have it all.  I will get you more.”  John wept.  He remembered hearing that.  But he had ignored it figuring that it was the voice of passivity sneaking up on him.  A small tear danced around the creases of John’s face.  “Now I see.”

Real Life at the Crisis Shelter April 9-15, 2012

Weekly highlights

Monday April 9:  A guest came to the staff office for Tylenol and through conversation we learned much of her life story.  While it was heart breaking it also gave an opportunity for prayer and healing.  A mom who has been working very hard toward her housing got a two day heads up from an apartment that she could move in.  We rejoiced.      

Tuesday April 10:    One of our children was out of control and hurting another child.  Staff stepped in to help restrain him.  It took over 30 minutes for the 9 year old to calm down.  Afterwards, he was a well behaved child again.  We encouraged mom to seek mental health help for the child.

Wednesday April 11:   One of our guests was becoming very anxious over the expectations for further stay.  She is also very bitter with her employers and transfers much of that anger toward staff.  We are working on helping her focus  A woman was wandering up and down East Sprague and was very confused.  Staff helped her in our Phase II room for the night since she did not seem stable enough for the regular shelter.  We will reevaluate in the morning.  One of our singles is also feeling very anxious by some poor parenting that she is seeing by one of our moms.  We have been working with this mom but not making much progress.  We checked in a mom who is definitely coming down from something.  Our goal right now is to keep the kids safe.

Thursday April 12:  Set up new entertainment cabinet in staff office.  We are looking much better and more professional.  The staff had a conversation with one of our guests who has been keeping their puppy (not service or therapy animal) in their car.  She told us that the dog will be moving to a kennel by tomorrow.  The child who was aggressive toward another child on Tuesday was walking around threatening others.  Mom didn’t seem to think it was a big deal despite many conversations and the issues on Tuesday.  She has been asked to leave Friday morning.      

Friday April 13:  Reports of a mom being abusive toward her child.  Several guests and staff have contacted Child Protective Services in the hopes of helping this child.            

Weekend:  Mom that had checked in high continued to use throughout the week and was asked to leave.  We also started working with a mom with a very sweet disabled son (25 years old)  since we are currently pretty stuffed at the shelter we are using our Phase II room for these two for now.  Otherwise we would need to double up and that would be uncomfortable for many of our moms (Put into a room with a 25 year old man.)    

General comments:   Anxiety seems to be higher among the ladies checking into the Crisis Shelter right now and that creates a stressful environment for others.  Interestingly most of those anxious people sleep a lot during the day so the day is very quiet!          

    

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.