Ah the joys of winter here in northern Wisconsin, sledding, skiing, ice-skating,…shoveling, plowing, salting, snow-blowing, un-sticking vehicles, dead batteries, etc., etc. I must admit though, I do enjoy the differentiation of the seasons and wouldn’t have it any other way. God is good! January and now February have come and gone and winter is waning, with a glimmer of spring in the warming weather and longer days. Things here at the shelter have been busy lately. We have remained fairly consistent averaging about 4-6 people in residence at any given time these last few months. We continue to get 8-10 calls every month. Some we can help, others we cannot, due to space limitations, abusive history, or a refusal to remain sober. We also continue to receive generous donations of time, funds, and materials to supply that demand. We have also been blessed with extra help these last few months as we have had additional volunteers besides our main volunteer office staff of Valerie and Kathy. Kathy has taken on new responsibilities working in the library and Valerie has been helping out in the pantry. Our newest part-time volunteer, Margaret, has been filling in for Kathy in the afternoons. They all help us keep up with the paperwork, phone calls and donations that would otherwise be overwhelming. They are doing a great job and giving a lot of themselves to be here every day. I wonder how we survived without them. Valerie’s internship is over and she has recently been hired as a Tribal Americorps Program worker. We are her host site and she is working approximately 45 hours per week, both here and in the local community, interacting with local youth in a drug and alcohol prevention capacity until August 2012.
Sometimes it’s easy to get too caught up in the day-to-day operations of the shelter and forget about the people we serve. Some days the meetings, grant writing, scheduling, reports, and paperwork take up most of my time and I find myself not having much prolonged interaction with our residents. There are days, I’m sorry to admit, that I get too focused on the ‘paperwork’ and catch myself not making the time to actually stop and HELP the people we are trying to help. I have to take a step back and wonder at how I let my job get in the way of doing His work.
That’s when verses like I John 4: 20-21 jump out and smack me upside the head: 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother.
Praise God for the leading of the Spirit to a greater understanding of His will for our lives.
We would like to say “thank you” to you, our local community, friends, and supporters from across the country as we continue to help our residents find employment, housing, transportation, clothes, food and counseling. We are also grateful for recent donations of many other supplies including food, toiletries, batteries, laundry supplies, phone cards, gift cards, and cleaning supplies we’ve received these months to serve and maintain the shelter. The Lord is blessing us every day.
Please join with us in praise and prayer about this spring’s Emergency Shelter Grant applications and continued fundraising efforts. We recently received an award from the State Shelter Subsidy Grant program in the amount of about $3,400 for this 2012 year. We were also recently blessed with funds from the Forest County Potawatomi Foundation that will help carry us into the future and allow us to be able to continue to do the work here a while longer. Please keep in prayer our staff, community service volunteers, and our residents as we are presented with the opportunity to help share the Gospel as well as meet the needs of the families in our area.
Thank you so much for both your prayer and support, we are operating and able to remain open and helping people in need because of your generosity. We are truly blessed to be doing His work with your help.
I’m terrible at keeping our website “www.newhopeshelter.net” up to date but feel free to come check us out anyway. You can also find us on Facebook.
Please feel free to contact me anytime: via email at director@newhopeshelter.net , via phone (715) 478-3669
In His service,
Micah Dewing
Shelter Director