Chris
Guest thanks God for your support
Chris, a resident of The Oaks, is outspoken in her praise of Cherry Street donors. “Donors are angels from God,” stresses the 61-year-old, who arrived at Cherry Street in July 2007 with nothing but the clothes on her back.
“My physician had urged me twice before to seek help and protection at the Nest. I was living with a man in my own house, enduring emotional abuse, but he wouldn’t leave. I had credit card debt and was going from one emotional devastation to another. I started drinking to numb myself.”
On July 13, she spoke with her physician once again. “‘You’ll go to the Sparrow’s Nest or you’ll end up in a mental institution,’ he told me,” says Chris. “I gave him rebuttals, saying I needed to go home to get all my things, but he replied that the Sparrow’s Nest had the things I needed.
“I was a wreck when I arrived at the Nest, because I never thought I would become a homeless woman; I worked my whole life. But I slept so well that night.”
Chris soon discovered that the Nest did indeed have what she needed. At first, she noticed physical things, like food, toiletries, and a bed. But she soon realized that the Nest had spiritual things to offer. Within six weeks of her arrival, she had accepted Christ as Savior.
“I was introduced to the Bible,” Chris recounts. “Before, I knew there was a Bible, but I didn’t know it, so that took a lot of my time. You grow from that. The more you learn, the more you want to learn, and the more you want to help others.”
As she grew spiritually, Chris began resolving practical problems. With the help of the sheriff, she evicted her former boyfriend, then sold her house. She stopped drinking, filed for bankruptcy, and began paying her debts. Nine months after arriving at the Nest, she found a job at a local Cracker Barrel, where she continues to work today. In 2009, she was invited to move from the Nest to The Oaks, where she continues to find strength as she takes gradual steps toward living independently.
“I still panic easily, but when I walk into [The Oaks’] door at nighttime, everything is in its place,” says Chris. “The staff never, ever, doesn’t have time for you. I can talk to any one of the other guests; they’re my best friends. And there are Scriptures I can go to.”
For all this, Chris is grateful to generous people like you.
“All of us at Cherry Street need God, the Bible, the staff, and our peers to help us, but without donors’ assistance, we would have nothing,” she stresses. “It’s a ‘chain effect’ of donors working through staff to provide another way of life, another foundation, where everything blossoms.”
