The Fruitfulness of 2023

Throughout the year 2023, Lydia’s House accomplished many things. We provided emergency shelter to over 20 families and served over 40 families in our aftercare program. Being able to serve all the families that we do and serve them well involves a lot of moving parts, helpful connections, community change, and growth. Some of the biggest changes that occurred in 2023 involved having new staff members come on board over the summer, the ground breaking of our shelter addition, and the purchasing of a new building in order to help grow and expand our offices and flow of services.  

Merry Christmas!

The holiday season is upon us, and Lydia’s House has been getting into the Christmas spirit. Throughout this month, we have been doing lots of festive activities to fit the season. Our month started with having Breakfast with Santa! Our families enjoyed a pancake breakfast, made crafts, sang Christmas carols, and of course, took a few pictures with Santa Claus. We want to give a special thanks to the Ladies of the Moose (Lodge 301) for putting this event on for us!   As many of you may know, December 6th is St. Nick’s Day. St. Nicholas is the patron

A Visit to the Hof

By Mary Ellen Mitchell When we were 24 (in 2005), Meridith and I took a trip up the east coast to visit intentional Christian communities and imagine what our futures might be. Our last stop was the Bruderhof, which Meridith described as “kind of Amish, kind of Catholic worker.” We stayed with a family, worked in the laundry, and saw their peace barn. Years passed, Lydia’s House was born, and we looked to lots of places to get help and inspiration for this work. In 2019 Bethany Kurtz came to us, as she was leaving the Bruderhof, having discerned that

Halloweekend In Review

Halloween weekend was plum full of different events and fun times! On Saturday we had a busy day with two different things happening. Here at Lydia’s House, we had middle schoolers from Good Shepherd Catholic Montessori spend the day with staff learning more about Lydia’s House and helping us out with some projects as well. While some of our staff worked with our middle school volunteers, Grace and Ashley went with a group of Lydia’s House families on a trip to Gorman Farms. The weather was in our favor and it stopped raining just in time for us to take

Our New Atrium Space

Our new Atrium space is finished and open for children to interact and learn about God! The past month our friends Dan Aerni, Dane Miller, Dennis Bishop and Steve Whitlatch have been hard at work preparing our new classroom space for our Wednesday night Atrium religious education program. We put in a new wall in order to have two separate classrooms to divide up our age groups, repainted, and set up all of the different interactive stations. Putting in the drywall and getting it painted.         About two weeks ago, all of the construction was completed and