One of our partners for do.justice last week was Atlanta Union Mission. AUM is a Christian ministry that brings Christ’s healing power to men and women in crisis through programs of rescue and recovery, including emergency shelter, residential recovery, and transitional housing. I had the chance to visit all three of our AUM projects: My Sister’s House, The Shepherd’s Inn, and The Carpenter’s House. It was an AMAZING thing to see!! Thanks to ALL of you who worked so hard to serve this great organization and those in crisis who are benefiting from its ministry.
My Sister’s House is Atlanta Union Mission’s full-service center for women and children. This campus houses 136 women and children in nightly emergency shelters. It also houses 128 women and children in the Mission’s residential recovery program. Kerri Taylor, our Fusion Director at Buckhead Church, was serving with this team and wrote this about her experience . . .
At do.justice, a team of about thirty of us divided into three groups and worked on three different projects at My Sister’s House:
The first group provided day-care for the children of the moms taking recovery classes. The children LOVED having the attention and became very attached to our volunteers. There was little guidance and no staff supervision for the volunteers, so it was neat to see our volunteers just go with it and make it happen.
A second group cleaned, sorted, and organized a donation closet that had children’s toys in it. The volunteers did everything from breaking down boxes, taking trash to the dumpster, to organizing toys into storage sections.
A third team organized the clothing donation closet. I was on this team, as you can see from the picture. The closet was in total disarray. You could not even see the floor because of all of the clothes and shoes that were all over it. When we first saw it, we were overwhelmed and did not even know where to start. It was hot in the room and we had to sort through some dirty, mildewed clothes. Everyone worked so hard and just did whatever needed to be done to get the closet organized. We got it about 90 percent completed and could have used another 1-2 hours for perfection.
The coolest part was that we had a girl from the shelter come in to look for clothes for her new job. She was so excited that she had gotten a job working in housekeeping for the Holiday Inn. The volunteers helped her “shop” for clothes in her size. That really made a real-life personal connection to what we were doing.
Joel Thomas
Singles Pastor
