Our group of in-rotation guests is constantly changing. New families enter the program and others move out. I love seeing new families begin to relax and trust one another and trust our staff. Especially during the summer months, graduated teens come back to do odd jobs. Today one brought a baby bunny along. Another took a younger guest for a smoothie downtown. The guest of that boy asks her son, “Do you have money?” And the graduated teen says, “No problem, ma’am. I’ve got this.”
June—like every month at Family Promise–has been a time of highest highs and lowest lows, sometimes within a single hour. Families deal with fears about legal issues that hang in dark and seemingly impenetrable clouds of confusion and unknowns. Other families face the inherited tax and financial problems that linger long after a partner moves on.
Some days our staff faces what seems to be smoke and mirrors. Budgets and bills just don’t add up. Agreements and action plans are broken. “Maybe this program isn’t for you, “ is the kindest exit plan. And there is anger and slammed doors and sad departures.
But all that happens once in a while in the families we live in, too. There are seasons of worry and seasons of great joy. As our affiliate continues in our sixth year of operation it is noticeable how increasingly often our friends and donors, church folk, former guests and current guests are all the same people. That’s the dream of real community, in my book. It is the fabric of connectedness that is needed, wanted and rare in the world today. I’m grateful that here in this village we know one another. There is room for accountability and correction and grace.
“Love Lives Here” is written on the glass window of a storm door on the home of a graduated guest. That says it all