Last Saturday, August 14th, we hosted another of our Women’s Outreach events.
Several times a year, we transform our Burnside Shelter into a women-only facility for a few hours. Homeless women, whose lives are often filled with fear and abuse, are welcomed into
a safe haven where they are fed and cared for.
Thanks to the volunteers from the Community of Adsideo, around 55 women were pampered with massages, manicures, haircuts and clean clothing. The women enjoyed food, conversation and love in a safe, warm environment.
A member of our staff, Jan Marshall, writes:
They flocked in and filled every table eventually. All sizes and shapes. We had a confused deaf woman who was angry and didn’t want to settle down. Adsideo had an excellent interpreter who stayed the whole four hours with this woman.
We had women with cell phones making calls to their men…how can they afford that? Maybe the pimps pay for cell phones.
We had a woman and her three children — two boys who stayed upstairs and played while mommy and sister got showers, foot massages, manicures and hair cuts downstairs. All I can say is, God bless those wonderful volunteers who took care of two active boys.
By the end of the day, many of our crew were tired, but fulfilled. The frustrated deaf woman came upstairs smiling. The others who entered dirty, cranky and suspicious came upstairs looking refreshed and with a new attitude.
We, the volunteers and staff, are simply to obey and follow. The Lord touched hearts in that one moment of time…a cup of cold water in His name isn’t wasted.
About 25 volunteer women went home exhausted to our comfortable air-conditioned homes. Fifty homeless women went back to–where? The pavement. Four hours spent together seems hardly enough to transform the lives of these hurting women, but we pray that God will have touched them in some moment as we cared for them.
Photos from previous Women’s Outreach events: