Helping the Homeless

Today, Pastor Rick and I, along with a Faith Community member, visited Interfaith Faith Hospitality Network, a homeless shelter in Xenia. Don Schneider was busy at work with other volunteers getting the building ready.

One of the reasons we visited with Don and IHN was to see about the possibility of Faith Community adopting one of the upstairs bedrooms in the new facility which will mean providing furniture, painting the walls, and making it look nice in time for when the facility opens. Three or four other churches have already signed up to adopt some of the other rooms.

Seeing the building getting closer to completion has been exciting. Presently, IHN is only able to provide housing for up to 14 people. When this new facility is ready, they will be able to host around 24 people in need of shelter. In addition to being able to host several more people, the other huge advantage will be that the families won't have to travel from church to church each week. Presently, this is what the families need to do since their current facility doesn't allow for overnight stays.

The picture above is the largest upstairs bedroom facing N. Detroit Street. That's Don on the left with Pastor Rick and one of our church members. This is one of the rooms that is open for adoption by a local church.

As we get closer to the season of Christmas, we are reminded that there was no room in the inn for the baby Jesus. But thankfully, they found a place for Jesus to be born even if it was where the animals stayed at night.

Let's keep Don Schneider, the staff at IHN, and the homeless families of Greene County in our prayers especially during this cold season. May this become a place of refuge for people in need.

I was so proud to hear that several of our church members have been volunteering their time in helping Don and IHN. Way to go, Faith Community!