I love to share the stories of this place. The stories of growth. The stories of joy. The successes. Even some of the failures.

But there are stories I can not share. In some ways, they are the stories that will stick with me. Yhey are the things that give me nightmares. The pain, the suffering, the cruelty.  The out and out meanness. The tearing down of others.

Dead bodies are not the worst things I have seen. Perhaps it is all the funerals I have presided at have numbed me a little to dead. It is the pain I witness daily. 

The abused women who return to their abusers only to repeat the cycle.

Or the kids that suffer because their parents don’t know how to be parents.

Many of the issues stem from the boarding school era where kids were torn away from families and raised in sterile institutions.  Who taught you how to be a parent?

Or the people who fight so hard to  overcome addiction, only to fall off from a lack of hope.

The ones that give up because no matter how hard they try can not get what most would call a normal life. You know simple things like a place to call home, fulling work, heck any work, a sense of purpose. A sense of hope.

I have seen and dealt with things that no one should have to see. As bad as that is, imagine living through it.

In the last 2 days, I have dealt with:

A personal death threat that had to be brought to the police.

An attack when I asked a guy not to be loudly swearing at the center. He was arrested, and an officer witnessed the entire event.

Was informed of a young girl who was sex trafficed by her father and grandmother. Victim services is being engaged.

A teen mother and baby who was attacked by the father in front of his family, who sat their and did nothing.

A shelter member who had to be asked to leave because of iratic behavior.

A dad who has been clean and sober for months, but no one will give him a chance to work.

32 actual requests for financial help, all of which I could not help.

A friend whose wife was rushed to the hospital in Rapid.

A young girl who fell off got drunk and arrested.

There are so many things I deal with every day that have become normal but shouldn’t be.

I am here because God wants me here. I know I am making a difference.

God wants me here because God loves all. And so do I.