Good News Update

Time seems to fly by too fast when there is so much good happening.  Point of Hope has been kind of quiet the past two or three months when all our residences were empty and we were renovating.  Now as we began taking in new families again, there has been so much work to do for preparing to welcome them.  Dale, our maintenance man has been working very hard painting and fixing, thus in March, we welcomed two families into our program.

           







Last week, we had a group of youth from Kansas, Topeka Regional Youth Ministries comprised of Ellen, Nancy, 4 other adults, 2 young adults and 19 youth. They worked very hard at Point of Hope making the outdoors clean and beautiful through raking, shoveling and painting.  They were a very good group that worked well together, willing to do whatever work was needed. They also turned a dull and dark apartment into a brighter more cheerful looking one.  We hope they decide to come back again. Below are some pictures of them hard at work.

  That same week, we were also blessed to have Kaija and her son Kody from Ohio. You might remember her and their interesting experience when they arrived here last time they were here.  It was a day after Christmas and they could not get up to Padre’s Place because the road was not shoveled.  Her blog was titled “wandering around like Mary & Joseph”.  They also worked hard, rearranging and moving furniture and craft supplies.  As our new basic life skills program is starting, we needed a children’s play area close to where the parents will be working and so we have turned the former craft and sewing room into a children’s room and a meeting room. Having the children’s play area in the Father Lou Brinker house was not very practical because we always needed two adults to conduct any programming there for them, but having it now in the main house is better because there is always at least one other adult in this building besides the person working with the children.

              We have already made good use of this room several times this week, once for a meeting, and twice as a babysitting room while the NA meeting was happening.  We also use it for a group interviewing applicants thus giving them more privacy.  Now the activity room in the Father Lou Brinker house will now be the adult craft and sewing room when we have volunteers running these programs.  Stain Glass activity is now contained in the stain glass trailer including the office.  The office is now in the area formerly a storage area.  Thus all were very busy last week.
     Next update will be on the Point of Hope Blessing.