One night in the house

Even though I completed training back in December of last year, I was still nervous as I began my first stay at my community’s homeless house last night.  I was afraid that I would do something wrong or, worse, offend someone residing in Hope House.

Despite my best efforts to hide my fear, my nervousness must have been obvious because one of the first residents I encountered took one look at me and said, “You look scared to death!”  I explained that, well, in essence she was right.  I told her it was my first stay at Hope House and I was worried about doing something, anything, and everything wrong.  She chuckled and assured me that all of Hope House’s residents were fine and very laid back and relaxed.

It didn’t take me long to realize how accurate my new friend was with her description of the people I met throughout the night.  I spent most of the night in the company of a 4-year-old girl.  In her role as a doctor, my little friend had a busy round of appointments with others staying at Hope House.  After she completed her last physical exam, the girl curled up beside me on the couch while we adults watched some television in the living room.

I couldn’t concentrate on the television program, however.  I spent my time wondering if this type of gathering, this type of family gathering, was what the residents of Hope House longed for.  I wanted to ask the people around me if they wanted family that wanted to be family…family that would love, accept, and support them no matter what.

And then I realized that’s just what they had right there in the living room I was sitting in, in the house where I was going to spend the night.  I realized that it would not be easy for someone to leave Hope House because of the love that exists between its walls, between its residents.  Love is missing in the lives of so many people, but not in those lived by the residents of Hope House.

As the night continued, I began to feel even more at home.  I said goodnight to the house’s “doctor” before she was put to bed.  I spent quite a bit of time talking with my co-volunteer, a kind older man I had just met.  He told me about the various mission trips he’d gone on in the past and I, in turn, shared the details of my upcoming mission trip to Russia.

I was exhausted after our conversation so I headed off to get some sleep in the volunteers’ bedroom located on one of Hope House’s upper floors.  The room wasn’t fancy, but it was a comfortable place for me to lay my head for the night.  Before putting my head down on the pillow, though, I prayed.  I prayed for each and every person in Hope House.  I prayed for the lives that had been so disrupted at some point that it caused these people to be here, in Hope House, in the last place in our community they probably ever thought they’d be.

I don’t know why, but I was surprised that all of these people had welcomed me so warmly into Hope House…into what is currently their shared home, the home they shared with me, another stranger in their lives. 

I will never forget my first night at Hope House.  In fact, I’m already looking forward to my second stay there.  Investing in the lives of other people gives a reward that can’t be measured by interest rates or any other type of yardstick.  It’s simply something I’ve always longed to do and will continue to do long into the future because there is no greater immeasurable reward.