I am a volunteer with Homes of Hope for Victims in Domestic Abuse (HOH) and wanted to share that part of my life with my readers.
One of the things that makes our help through Homes of Hope different than the state and county is that we are a faith based organization and our mission is to; Provide tools to victims in domestic abuse with faith based value-added services; mentoring, job and life skills, housing assistance.
I became familiar with this horrid aspect of life through a friend that was stuck in a situation for 20 years. Five children later and no life skills she finally made the 7th and final decision to leave. (seventh attempt to leave is a national statistic) Only with help from family and friends has she been able to make a go of it alone. Since she has left him he has died due to his bad habits of drugs and drinking which were part of the issue in the whole situation. The children are also struggling with that part of their life. It is evident on some of their relationships and choices that it has effected them negatively.
We have been building this non-profit organization for 4-5 years. It takes a long time to get things all set up and ready to go and even when we think we are ready we find that we aren’t completely. I have been mentoring our first client for almost 2 years now, through her struggles with keeping her children and the courts not believing her over him. She is gaining confidence in self and her abilities and now has a 40 hour job which is another part of self esteem and life skills. The judge said, ‘she had to get a job to keep her children.’ It took her 3 months to find one after several attempts at interviews and waiting and waiting. With the help of our organization and her parents I am happy to say that she is almost finished with our program and assistance and able to start living on her own and paying her way in life with her job, God’s help and her new self image!
It is rewarding and a blessing to be able help people with the skills I have learned in my life The schooling that I have taken in Christian counseling classes has helped tremendously. However, I am not a counselor for HOH, just a mentor. I also am a mentor and an assistant to the office help, teaching her computer and office skills. She is my long time friend that was the reason for HOH starting. (There is a permalink up at the top for our site. My first so I am curious how it will work.)
There have been tons and tons of prayer and will continue to be more to get it off the ground and fulfill our goals. We are trusting God for the dream He gave to the co-founders to be fulfilled.
Please pray with us if you have a heart for domestic abuse victims. Also, if you know someone who is a victim find out what you can do to help them, not hinder or hurt them!
P. S. The one question you may be asking is; “Why don’t they just leave?” I will share some on that in one of my next posts.
Blessings,
Marsha
flutteringblessings 