How is it possible that we are nearing the end of 2012? The year in review, is something I’m planning on doing with pictures and a slide show, which, will be coming to your inbox and our webpage soon!
One of the families served this fall had twin boys that turned 5 shortly after they arrived in the program. Many of you know this family. The boys were so excited about turning 5, and told everyone they met, several times each hour that they were almost 5! When the special day finally arrived, the hosting church did the evening up big; celebrating and recognizing the accomplishment of 2 boys turning 5! The next morning, Becky asked them about their birthday party. The response was, “oh the church gave us everything we needed! We don’t need anything else!”.
I have thought back on that story so very many times through the weeks since the happy celebration birthday. It serves for me as a life parable that models the early chapters of Acts, where the Church shared everything and “there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34, ESV). The perspective of 2 precious boys about the church providing everything, illustrates the beautiful structure and generosity of the Lawrence Family Promise network. Everyone does their portion. The network acts like a huge jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle is only complete with the multitude of people in the community contributing a piece of the puzzle.
The puzzle pieces come from over 1/3rd of the faith communities here in Lawrence, from thousands of hours of volunteer service, hosts, food preparation, tutoring, administration support, board members, fundraisers, work days, activities days, art and cooking projects, Doctors, Dentists and Counselors providing services, the other agencies in town adding their expert help, the Housing Authority, DCF, USD 497, Ballard Center, Bert Nash, LCS, SB6, Tiny K, Just Foods, Healthcare Access, LMH, Da Du Gi, The Willow, HCHC, 100 Good Woman, Salvation Army, Lawrence Workforce center, LINK…and several local businesses, generous property owners lending us their housing units, and on and on…
Coming, as I do, from the business world, I am always looking for measurements of success. In business, these are known as KPI’s (key performance indicators). How do we measure success in the Family Promise program? Well, we can look at statistics of number of individuals housed, numbers of graduates, number of jobs found, durations in the program, dollars the families are able to save for future housing, etc.
But success is also measured in this program by so many intangibles. How do you measure the success of the 5 year old twins who experience the love of God through the faith communities who celebrated their birthday with them? How do you measure the success of a family who had to leave the program a bit earlier than they would have liked, but through the network of service providers and continued case management from Family Promise, was able to obtain housing after 2 years of homelessness? How do you measure success for a single Mom, who has felt safe and loved for what she says is the first time in her life? How to measure hope restored? How to measure love? How do we measure faith in action and the transformation of lives? For these are the true successes of the Family Promise of Lawrence Program. Our mission will always remain helping families make the transition into permanent housing as promptly as possible, but these items and many more intangible successes are the real strength of this program. These successes are because of each of you. Each of you, the volunteers, hosts, donors, who dare to hope and love, make this program a success. Thank you. Thank you all for your support this year. We will provide the year end annual report to each of you in February, but I wanted to let you know quickly, some of the tangible (KPI’s) of this year. Year to date Family Promise of Lawrence has helped:
* 15 Families in the rotations through the congregations
* A total of 54 people, 34 of them children through the rotations in the congregations
* In transitional housing (which started in September) 6 families have been served
* In transitional housing since September, a total of 26 people have been served, 17 of them children
* Hope, faith and Love “but the greatest of these is love” (1Cor 13:13)
It is because of your generous support with time, service and funding that Family Promise is able to do so much with your donations. Because nearly 2/3rds of our work is conducted through in – kind donations of time and service, year over year, your dollars given are multiplied automatically by the efforts of all of you in our community.
Please consider a year end donation to Family Promise of Lawrence to help us serve more families overcome homelessness in 2013. You may give a number of ways:
1. A check can be sent to:
PO Box 266
Lawrence, KS 66044
2. Check, donations, or cash may be brought to the day center:
905 Tennessee Street
Lawrence, KS 66044
3. Donate on line using our Donate Now button on our webpage:
www.lawrencefamilypromise.org
Thank you for your continued support, prayers, time and financial support of Family Promise of Lawrence. God’s abundant blessings on each of you in the network. Thank you for the puzzle piece you provide!
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory… (Eph 3:20 ESV)