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As you might imagine, it’s rarely a dull moment at Lydia’s House. We’ve been so grateful to host one of our guests now for almost 8 months, and to see her baby grow into a toddler. Collectively, we’ve seen his first steps, celebrated his first birthday, done a lot of stair monitoring, high chair clean up, and front porch rocking. Aside from our one long term guest, we’ve hosted several shorter term guests and are so happy that it’s likely one guest will soon be in permanent housing! Our work often highlights the housing crisis in our city, and it’s a great celebration when a guest gets into permanent, affordable housing. The summer has also seen heart break, with one guest leaving well before we would have ideally hoped, and returning to homelessness. Our sadness was balanced by the return of other former guests into our lives, and the realization that a robust after care ministry has been developing– with former guests moving into our neighborhood, coming regularly for dinner, and continuing to lean in to our community in times of need. Through them, we’ve learned that the end is not always the end. Our team has held the good and bad with Monday morning and Thursday evening prayer book ending our week, a new style of monthly worship, Sunday night dinners and many celebrations. Small joys come with neighborhood walks, particularly to the corner store for ice cream, movie nights and occasional karaoke sing a longs. We’ve also seen much transition on the volunteer front, and last week we said good bye to live in volunteers Rachel, Sylvia and Enlara. In July we saw off our associate Grace and welcomed Stephanie, and in September we’ll welcome Anne and Kristi.
