January 2020 Newsletter

Download a PDF to read the full newsletter. Or read our featured article below.

A Stable Home Environment

Naomi and her three daughters, Mele (12), Angelica (8), and Susana- Guadalupe (6), needed a stable home environment. And at that time, school was about to start. They were living with a friend of Naomi’s, who was ok, but she said his bachelor roommates just drank and partied all the time. That was home, because their previous place was less tolerable, living in a failed relationship with the father of her two youngest children. For about a year, she was actually having to bounce her family between places as so-called guests just short enough to not break the two-week guest tenant law. Home had no sense of permanency or healthy living conditions for them. Naomi was the family security and provider. She has worked at a telephone call center and in fast food. Currently, she is a supervisor at a local farm.

The Mission’s Samaritan Inn is providing their family with a stable home environment. Naomi likes our structure and rules, especially the time schedule, for her children, because it is very close to the way she runs her own home. She works during the day when the kids are in school. On weekends, she works and stays on the farm, and the kids stay with their dad. When they move from Samaritan Inn, the oldest daughter will baby-sit the younger ones. As of this interview, they have been here two-and a half months, and they just received notice that they are to get the next open low income housing, two bedroom apartment.

Here is a family in crisis, lacking a stable home, but they were also needing a firm foundation in their lives. Naomi knew that. A couple of months before calling Samaritan Inn home, she began to attend the local church she went to as a child. Naomi testified, “I believe (Samaritan Inn) chapel helped a lot. When I’m sitting in church and I am crying because of what they are saying, and I come here and they are saying the same thing, its like a slap in the face, in a good way, like wake up. Look at what you are doing. What are your kids learning from you? A guest speaker at church gave his background, what path he decided to take, and what he put his kids through. His message about what a home is hit hard. Then there were people up front, if you wanted to receive Christ or prayer. I thought, ‘I’m not going up there in front of all these people.’ But tears kept coming, and I couldn’t control them. My heart felt like weight. I went forward and fell on my knees.” Naomi rededicated her life to the Lord about three weeks after arriving here. She said, “In Chapel here, I kept saying, ‘Nope, its not about me.’ Finally, I said, ‘Ok, whatever You want.'”