April 2021 Newsletter

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Thomas’ New Life

At eighteen-years-old, Thomas is living in two worlds: one of adulthood at the Mission, one of youth as a junior at Roseburg High School. He is pictured above in our Men’s Shelter dayroom doing his homework. The school provided the laptop and is working on getting him a Wi-Fi hotspot for internet access. He attends in person classes two days a week and remote Zoom classes the other three. When the school campus opened up again in February, Thomas had not taken classes since Spring Break last year for lack of a laptop. As it is, he is two years behind his peers, having repeated those grades because of attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADHD). He was prescribed medication to increase his ability to focus and to control behavior. He said, kIt made me really tired and walk around like a zombie. I stopped taking them when I was 16-years-old, and have felt great ever since.”

That said, it actually was a behavioral problem in his three generation home that caused him trouble. There was a family scuffle just days after his eighteenth birthday. He spent four days in jail for adults, waiting for a court date, then was released to the custody of a different relative. A week of incompatibility later, he had a new home at the Mission. Thomas said, “Its been really quiet. I’ve made friends here. I like it, its safe here, its like a home, people here are like family to me.”

We continually have students at our Samaritan Inn, that are minors with their mothers. It is commonplace to have men and women students here attending Umpqua Community College. It is unusual to have an adult finishing high school here. As long as Thomas is actively pursuing his diploma, and has no other place to live, he is welcome to stay here to achieve that worthy goal. We provide him with school supplies, a bag lunch, an allowance for chores, and repaired his bicycle. Then he volunteered to return to his medication to concentrate on school.

Thomas was raised in a Christian home, attending a local church regularly. He said, “I think Chapel is great. I need God in my life, because God is great for my life, so I can stay out of trouble, be healthy, be nice to people around me. I am a Christian because when I die, I want to go to Heaven, instead of where the devil is. I have never tried drugs or alcohol. I say no to it. I ask myself, ‘What would Jesus do?'” Thomas has a new life here, making a transition from youth to adulthood and strengthening his faith.