2016 November Newsletter – President’s Corner

This Thanksgiving, I want to be more intentional about expressing my gratitude for the blessings God has given me. I hope to identify, appreciate, and thank Our Lord for specific blessings. Here are some things for which I offer special thanks:

• Working at the Mission, a place that exists solely to express the love of God by serving the homeless. I see every day the love of Christ revealed to folks who often feel neglected, forgotten, and unloved.

• Witnessing the transformation of our guests’ lives. Juan was a guest at the Mission with his family several years ago. He entered our program reluctantly, intending only to have the Mission take care of his wife and children while he continued his previous life. God had other plans. He transformed Juan’s heart, bringing sobriety, a repudiation of drug use and dealing, and a commitment to Christ. As a result, Juan and his family have been independent and self-sufficient for four years, and they typify the hundreds of men and women whom God has redeemed and transformed through the Mission’s ministries. I cannot imagine a more emphatic blessing than the
opportunity to watch God change a life and thereby save a family.

• All the friends who support the Mission’s ministries and make possible the life transformations that occur here. Generous friends like you make it all possible.

• Our volunteers, the selfless folks who are, in a profound way, the literal hands and feet of Christ. Just like our donors, they enable God to transform lives and restore dignity to our guests.

• I am grateful, most of all, for the love of Christ. I see and feel it in myriad ways at the Mission, but I see it most profoundly in my own life, in the inexpressible joy I get from my personal relationship with -1 Christ, which is a reflection and result of God’s love for me. I hope each of you will feel that same joy and will respond with corresponding gratitude to the blessings God has given you.

-Freddy Clayton