Hope For Weary Hearts

 "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12

Hope With Humility
We usually share the more positive things in our monthly updates, but to be honest it has been a tough start to the year. Several friends within our homeless community were assaulted or died from various causes over the past month. We have seen several hospitalized over health issues that have stemmed from neglect or the cold weather. It has taken a lot just to pray and have faith that God would see us through. We write now to say HE has been faithful through the pain and suffering. We still get to see stories of hope and encouragement in our community daily although at times if we don't stop to look we easily can miss them.  We want to share 2 stories of hope with you today and encourage you no matter what is going on in your life there is hope!

The first is our friend Scott a weekly volunteer here at Strong Life. Scott has an impressive resume spanning over 20 years of ministry but what caught our attention is he came to us one day saying I am retiring, and I feel God leading me to help with the homeless and to learn more about Strong Life. Scott has been extremely humble in learning some aspects of case management and social security to help folks get their social security cards and handle issues when he comes every Wednesday. He is more than qualified to teach all of us but instead showed up and said I am willing to serve. He drives our van to give our other staff a break and counsels with a lending ear any of our friends that need to talk. He is an encouragement for us all. Feel free to learn more about his ministry at fontofmercy.org

Hope For A Future
The second story of hope comes from one of our friends named Sam. Sam was in the woods before Hurricane Helene hit our area. He remembers coming to us after everything he owned was soaking wet or floating away. He said, “Without Strong Life, I don’t think I could have made it, it’s amazing all y’all do to help us.” He battled the winter and worked hard to work on some things, this year he has found wonderful peer support and a job! He has gotten a fresh outlook and hopes for the future now. Please pray for Sam as he is at a big transition point for his future. He has been in emergency housing and hopes to transfer to something more stable soon.

Please continue to pray for Strong Life as we are short-staffed in our busiest season of the year. We have worked 24/7 with a coordinated crew some days to be available to those in need during the cold weather. Your prayers and contributions would be greatly appreciated during this time as we need more financial support for the extra gas and heating bills to help facilitate the warming of over 70 people some days in our area.