becoming hopeless

At the time of' the last blog post, we started a campaign to raise money to get into a real house and out of living at an extended stay motel. We have since found a temporary house that we can stay in for the next two to six months. It's a two bedroom two bath (insert a million exclamation points here) with a nice fenced in back yard. It also has a garage, so we wont need a storage unit while staying here. It's still a little small for 8 people and two pets, but, after cramming into a motel room for over 4 months, it seems like a palace (especially without furniture in it). It's a great interim house, while we wait for the perfect house in the perfect location. It's also a huge glimmer of hope.

It seems that hope is really hard to come by for so many here in Miami. The streets are lined with people that have nowhere to go, nobody to love them and no way to change their situations. They are hopeless.

A month or so ago, Joel and I went out with some pizza, to feed some people we had seen at a park. We ran into a married couple from Kennett, Missouri. They had arrived in South Florida around the first of September and, like us, tried to rent a house. Of course, they had no proof of income and nobody would rent to them. They ended up spending what they had on an over priced motel room while they looked for work. No work was found and they soon found themselves on the streets.

They searched hard to find a safe place to sleep and ended up by the beach. Then one night, the police woke them up and made them leave. The police gathered up all their stuff and put it in trash bags, including their marriage certificate, identification cards, birth certificates and social security cards. As they protested the police throwing their stuff away, they got arrested. A few days later they were released and back on the street, this time without I.D. Now they can't get a job, because all employers require valid I.D. before they'll hire you.

So, they started the process of getting new I.D.'s and of course you need a social security card and birth certificate along with two pieces of mail with your name and current address on them. So, they're stuck in this viscous cycle and have lost hope.

We were not able to help them with any more than a little pizza, but, they were very open to being prayed for. She started tearing up during prayer and I think that just standing there with them in that place at that time gave them a glimmer of hope. I have not seen them since, but, pray that God continues to improve their situation and provide for their needs.

The hope that God gives us is what really keeps us going. With finding this interim house, our hope has been strengthened in a tangible way. Yet it's the intangible hope that really makes a difference in our lives.