Ministry Moment

When people think of Coronado and San Diego, they think of Sea World, the Hotel Del Coronado, and old town San Diego. They don’t know that there are thousands of people unable to find work living on the streets.

Sitting in the shadows of the Coronado Island Bridge, FOCUS San Diego launched its first meal July 14 serving the homeless in the down town San Diego area. Twenty-eight volunteers from six parishes that represented four different jurisdictions served 96 homeless.

FOCUS San Diego has an all-volunteer team that has partnered with a protestant mission called God’s Extended Hand. They have been serving meals six nights a week to those in need for over 80 years. God’s Extended Handserves meals six nights a week to those in need. FOCUS North America’s San Diego Center has partnered with them to cover the seventh night. Now no one who wants a meal will go hungry on Wednesday nights in San Diego.

FOCUS San Diego now has five partner churches and several individuals who are dedicated to helping fund projects for the needy in the area.

You can help too by donating online today to support the ministries of FOCUS NA.

Whether we are working with the hungry in San Diego or those in need throughout North America, your support makes a difference!  Thank you.

FOCUS Minnesota has a new location as of Thursday July 15, 2010, 1600 Lake Street, Minneapolis.   Plans are already underway to serve a deli-sandwich meal there on July 28, 2010 to maintain some momentum amongst our volunteers and to establish this activity in our new neighborhood. News of the meal has been shared with our neighboring social service agencies. 

As we build programming for the poor, we look forward to an official launch of our new center. On Saturday August 14, 2010, with the blessing and cooperation of the Minnesota Eastern Orthodox Christian Clergy Association (MEOCCA), we will celebrate the Divine Liturgy at our new center. The premises will be blessed, and following that a lunch will be served to the poor. A kids table, for neighborhood families with children who might attend the meal, is also planned and will be staffed by local Orthodox college students. This event will also act as an Open House for the broader Orthodox community. This will give the Orthodox a chance to tangibly come together around our physical location, hear about our plans for the future with lots of volunteer sign-up sheets on display for future opportunities to serve. A giant wish-list will be on display as well!

We are working diligently on the following ministries which are in varying stages of development:

Food

• Community meals served in the center to increase in frequency to the level that can be sustained by O-resources.

• A food pantry available once a week stocked by donations, Minnesota Food Share and Second Harvest Heartland.

• Nutrition Education - diabetes, blood pressure, weight management, heart health education all through O-resources who are healthcare professionals to complement Nutrition/Food Access through cooperative programs with the Hennepin County WIC office in our area and The U of MN Extension Nutrition services - Operation Frontline and SNAP programs

• Food support for adults 60+ through faith-based urban ministries (various)

Occupation

• Concentrating on  job-readiness training

• Researching existing curricula to adapt for FOCUS and O-resources/volunteers 

• Planning stages for collaboration with Step-Up (city of Mpls. Program)

Clothing

• Build up a clothing closet through donations/shoe campaign started in our churches 

• Refer to St. Vincent de Paul outlet which is within blocks of FOCUS Minnesota.

• Negotiating a voucher system with local laundromats which will provide 3 wash, 2 dry and soap.

Understanding

• Working with Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches  to become a site for a parenting support group that is run in various metro locations

• After School mentoring with students from The University of Minnesota OCF

• Reading hour, homework help (bilingual as well), positive social modeling, school readiness in the Fall

• Social work intake hours for emergency services staffed by advanced students from the U of Minnesota School of Social Work 

• Supervised by volunteer licensed clinical social workers (LICSW) from the O-community

Shelter

Though we are not equipped to provide shelter at the center, we will be working with two organizations (the Salvation Army and Families Moving Forward) on an emergency referral basis to place people in transitional facilities. 

You can help by donating online today to support the ministries of FOCUS NA.  Whether we are serving at our FOCUS Minnesota Center or those in need throughout North America, your support makes a difference!  Thank you.

When one thinks of Orange County, California, one doesn’t normally think of poverty since it is one of the wealthiest areas in the nation. However, there are over 20,000 children who are homeless in the county. Many of these children live in motels. In some cases there are more than six children living in one hotel room. They often do not know where their next meal will come from. FOCUS is working to unite the local orthodox Churches to serve these kids and help provide them the necessities they need.

Earlier this month FOCUS North America’s Orange County center launched a back-to-school program in conjunction with Nana’s Kids (a ministry of Grandma’s House of Hope) and the Collaboration to Assist Motel Families Orange County to help homeless kids living in motels in Orange County.  Six parishes have participated in the program as well as the Los Angeles OCF chapter.  The program is a three month commitment. Over 300 backpacks were given out with the name of a child on it. When people take a backpack, they are committing themselves to pray for and provide for that child. The backpacks will be filled with school supplies and returned at the end of July, and FOCUS Orange County will help to distribute these backpacks on August 7.  Also FOCUS North America is asking the sponsors to provide a pair of shoes for August and a bag of groceries for September.

Jacob Lee, FOCUS Orange County’s interim director, said, “The program has received overwhelming response. We could’ve have given away twice as many backpacks. I have received calls from the priests at the participating churches who said that the backpacks were great but their people wanted more. They want to get hands-on.”

FOCUS North America’s Orange County Center is dedicated to continuing its work with these children and their families that are living in motels and will be providing the hands-on action that the parishioners requested. At the beginning of September, FOCUS Orange County will begin weekly meals for the homeless families living in motels in the city of Anaheim.

You can help too by donating online today to support the ministries of FOCUS NA.  Whether we are working with homeless children in the motels of Orange County or those in need throughout North America your support makes a difference!  Thank you.

Last month, 30 Focus North America volunteers (aged 9 to 69) drove the 943 miles from the Kansas City area to Bakersville, North Carolina to help do work projects for some of the needy families in the area.

Times are tough everywhere nowadays. However, Mitchell County, North Carolina has been hit especially hard since the local textile industry was outsourced overseas and left the economy with a 20% unemployment rate.

The FOCUS North America mission team was able to help several families during this difficult time.

Melvin had to quit his job in a grocery store when his back gave out, and Marcia had been unable to work since her health issues had confined her to a motorized wheel chair. This past winter, the record amount of snow caused their roof to leak and destroy their ceiling. They were able to patch the roof, but they could not fix the damage done to their ceiling.  FOCUS North America purchased the materials and provided the volunteers to fix their ceiling. A team of eights served in Melvin and Marcia's house for three days, removing and replacing the rotten ceiling panels in the living room, dining room and two bedrooms.   Melvin said, "I thank my God for you (the Focus volunteers) coming and serving. You are a real blessing."   

Amber and Burt were at their wit’s end.  Their ten-year-old son Gabriel was born healthy. However, right before he entered pre-school, he was diagnosed as having autism.  Gabriel had an uncanny ability as an escape artist. His passion was picking locks, windows, doors--any form of containment.   At first it was cute to Amber and Burt, but it became more serious when Gabriel would escape and run onto the country road at the bottom of their property.    Underemployed and under-resourced, Amber and Burt could not afford the materials nor the labor to construct a safe-solution for Gabriel's containment--a picket fence. Gabriel could not climb up and over a picket fence. Focus volunteers from Kansas City brought with them funds for concrete, rails, pickets, and hardware as well as a generator, power tools and an air compressor.  Over three days, six Focus volunteers erected a Gabriel-proof containment system--a 6 foot picket fence--around the perimeter of Amber and Burt's home.   No longer fearing for her son's safety and able to sleep at night for the first time in 5 years, Amber offered, "I don't know what to say...this gift has changed our lives..."

Geneva Wilson has lived up in the hills for all of her 100 years.   As a "colored person," she and her husband were denied access to an education and good jobs.   But they scrapped enough together during the depression to purchase land and build their home--the home Geneva still lives in on her own.   Until last month, it had only been painted once.  Then Focus team from KC arrived with scrappers, ladders, paint, brushes and rollers.   Eleven volunteers blanketed the sweet little home in the woods, lovingly applying a coat of protection on the wood that can surround Geneva for the next 100 years.  Said Geneva,"I have never heard of somebody painting somebody else's house for free--and driving a long way to do it. I want to say thank you."

But the needs far exceed the demands.  Though this first team of Focus volunteers was able to fund the materials for and complete six projects, Focus has an ever-growing list of needs in the area that now exceed 45 projects.  

Focus--Appalachia is putting out a call to Orthodox Christians nation-wide.   Bring a team from your church to serve.  When you arrive, Focus can connect your team with appropriate projects for you skills and budget.  Focus can arrange lodging, meals and logistics.   Our Lord said, "The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.  Beseech the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the fields."   Focus is praying for God to send more teams to Appalachia.   Is that you?   

Click here to e-mail Bryan Dahms, National Director of Ministries, about your interest in sending a group from your parish to Appalachia.

St. Brigid’s Fellowship in Isla Vista, California is one of our partner ministries and is run by St. Athanasius Orthodox Church. They have an amazing outreach to the low–income and homeless population in their area. People who visit St. Brigid’s Fellowship are exposed to the love of Christ and because of this several are drawn to the Orthodox Church and start attending services at St. Athanasius. The following is a beautiful story from a homeless addict, Michael, who through the love that was show to him at St. Brigid’s Fellowship, became a catechumen at St. Athanasius. Michael truly is a perfect example of a living icon being restored.

My name is Michael and this is my story. A year ago I was going to die. There was so much pain in my heart from countless situations I had experienced. Starting as a young child the world seemed cruel. I struggled to care for myself—my tape covered shoes showed it. While other children played, I dug in dumpsters and sold flowers I picked or poems I wrote. The money I used for food and laundry. Without a family that cared, I became a victim to molest. Before I turned eleven I had also already witnessed a murder and a suicide.

I grew into life only to find that at the age of twenty-five I was still digging in dumpsters. I had become an addict, and I was homeless. I started at different times to get a hang of life better but found I could not keep a hold of stability and gradually grew worse. I finally resigned myself to death and was entertaining ideas of how the end my life on this earth. This was a year ago.

When I first came to St Brigid's Fellowship last November, I truly had nothing. They offered me food and social services. That December I felt a change in myself and I knew it came from something there. By February I became aware that God had put me there to save my life. I sensed that the hands of the people were also the hands of St. Brigid herself. I could see that the fire in their hearts was the fire of God. I call the people there angels because they lifted me up again. I felt the same fire light my heart. I kept coming back and felt my pain going away. I would cry in church on Sunday because I realized for the first time it was going to be better. I cried in grief over memories and I cried in relief I was beginning to feel.

I have been a Catechumen now for three months. I sense the saints when I am in the church and in the people who go there. They are my family, and I will be with them forever. May God bless St. Brigid's Fellowship and St. Athanasius.

ReEngage, located in Kansas City, is one of the newest partner ministries of FOCUS North America. It is a brand new agency dedicated to reconnecting African American absentee fathers with their children through outreach and counseling, education and preparation.

 

Rodney Knott, community organizer in Kansas City and Executive Director of ReEngage, Inc., realized that the problem of violence and poverty in the African American community would never be resolved until absentee fathers were reintegrated with their families. Knott says that currently 68% of all African American children are being raised by single mothers.

 

Statistics show that children without fathers have extremely high rates of being poor the rest of their lives, dropping out of high school, becoming incarcerated and having children out of wedlock. Then the whole cycle starts again for the next generation.

 

ReEngage takes a holistic approach to the whole situation. One of their tenants is to treat the family as a single unit and through love and support (not condemnation and resentment) to reintegrate the African America father as the head of the household.

FOCUS North America is proud to have ReEngage as one of our partner ministries and have awarded it a grant for start- up costs. FOCUS NA also donated a copier to ReEngage to help set up its office.

Your gifts at work through FOCUS North America and its partners.

The Treehouse: Wichita, Kansas

It is because of gifts and grants that The Treehouse is able to keep ministering to women who have chosen to carry their babies to term and give birth under difficult circumstances.

One of these mothers is Ashley. She has a 3-year-old son, a 1-year-old daughter, a 9-year-old stepson and is expecting a new daughter any day now. For the past three years, she’s been going to Treehouse. The first time she went looking for support as a new mother and to get back in touch with God. “When I look back,” she said, “I remember how I felt the first time I walked in and was greeted by smiling faces. I immediately got the sense that I was in the right place. It didn’t take long before I considered the Treehouse to be a refuge. I could go there and unload all of my problems, worries and fears. I was always met with smiles, laughter and love. I found the positive role models I needed as well as new friends with children and similar lives. The Treehouse also helped me through some of the hardest financial times.”

Other women, like Ashley, are being helped every day at Treehouse as they continue to support the courageous, life-affirming decisions of new mothers and the needs of their babies by:
•    Giving eligible mothers a one-time free distribution of basic infant necessities
•    Providing a thrift store for birth to 4T clothing, basic supplies for infants and toddlers, maternity clothes and more
•    Offering educational classes
•    Donating extra assistance five-times a year with diapers or formula

The Treehouse proudly serves the women of Wichita Kansas and the surrounding area. To learn more visit http://www.focusnorthamerica.org/partner-ministries