Many of you know that as part of a process that began in 2000, I recently attended 3 weekends of Local Pastors Licensing School. This was in hopes/anticipation of being appointed to serve Hope for Healing.Org as an Extension Ministry.
Today, I find out this will not happen. While this saddens me I do remain convinced that God's divine providence is supreme. It does not dampen my enthusiasm for the future of Hope for Healing.Org. Please do not let it dampen yours.
Reportedly, there were several factors involved in the decision, one of which that was told to me is my lack of salary. This has never been important to me or to our board of directors serving victims has been our focus. It suprises me that this came up.
Out of Hope for Healing.Org, several things have happened. Type in "rape Recovery" on Google or Yahoo, our Rape Recovery Help and Info. Page has been #1 for years. We have celebrated 10 years online, surviving both the .com boom, .com bust and everything in between.
Our groups have also been number 1 their categories for years. We have 5 of them and I daresay we have best volunteer moderators that can be found anywhere!
Since arriving in Strawberry Plains we have established an office, helped victims, begun a clothing closet (19 people were served last month), held prayer journaling workshops and serve as the only social service agency in Strawberry Plains -in addition to working through the website and online services we offer.
From our ministry, other organizations have been born. The Strawberry Plains Community Alliance is actively tackling issues faced by the residents of Strawberry Plains. A community awareness day was an overwhelming success with volunteers from 2 counties working together! Hope for Healing.Org just hosted the second meeting of the formation of a ministerial association to boost church involvement in the community. We are about to host the community's first crafts show on June 3 which will highlight jewelry and crafts items made by former victims and volunteers.
This is the second little sting from the church. The first was in 1999. My husband and I gave money to underwrite a class to better train clery on how to deal with sexual and domestic violence in the church. Despite professed "interest" and "excitement" this never happened. A few years later, we asked for the funds back and used them to found Hope for Healing.Org in the spring of 2002.
The good news is this may well be God's way of telling me to focus on victims. We are looking at many exciting options for the future. Hopefully this will entail a manager for the thrift shop so that I can pursue speaking and publication options. My life seems to be heading in this direction more so each day. Ultimately, I believe that is where Hope for Healing.Org will lead. I envision training events and motivational events for the future.
As long as funds are available we will pursue these in conjunction with the ministry center that this area needs.
1 comment:
so? whens the church been there for us little people. keep on doing what u r doing.
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