It was amaizing how this ministry had started. In June 2007, Ann's father was concerned about her as he watched his daughter struggle as a single mother of three who lost all that she had in the dissolution of an abusive marriage. He could never understand how she was always smiling when he knew she should be crying. She never stop trying; she was knocked down, but not distroyed. He knew that God had a hand in his daughter's life. Out of compassion, one day he called her and gave her a website address to which he though was supposed to provide her with a job that would help her and her family to a better way and better life. Even though he did not get all the details, he told her to go and search the site, because he knew his daughter was computer literate.
She went to the site her father gave her but it was not available, there was some information missing. However, she continued to search for the name from the information he gave her. As far as her eyes could see was information on abuse. It was supposed to be a site about a possible job, instead it was providing help for battered women, single parents, and such likes, but none of them really provided help. These websites were just a whole lot of information that did not really produce the kind of help a hurting person needed. She searched with frustration. She continued until the early hours of dawn searching, and as much as her eyes could see, it was just a vast amout of information that would drive an abused person further into pain, because the type of help that was there was not the kind of help they needed at that very moment. The information that was provided was backwords.
It was a kind of bitter and sweet feeling that she cannot really explain in words. Bitter because it was a whole bag of frustration searching through all those sites that had what she described as hidden help. Sweet because on that very night it was clearly revealed to her that now was the time for her to start this ministry, a ministry of giving.
She sat down and stared at the computer, asking the Lord, are you really telling me to do this now Lord? She prayed and prayed, her heart was pounding, but it was all coming back to her, word for word as it was in 2005, all the things she went through and the things that was never available to her. The things that people need to help them. The many places she went to that say that they provide help, but it was help that was never there. The embarrassments, the explaining and getting no where, being made to relive the pain over and over again and getting no where. It was almost like an insult to injury to be in a situation like that and go through a whole lot of processes and at the end you are told "Sorry no, we don't do that", or "Sorry, we don't help people like you." Nevertheless, she looked at it as a traning process that will help her in the ministry of Refuge for the Abused.
Thank God for holding people up. She had also joined with organizations and supported ministries that fed the homeless, and she had seen the hurting faces, the pain strickened faces and the frail bodies. She watched with pain as they rushed with anxiaty to get a little plate of food, and thought "This could be me". After examining the environment, she notice the boxes they were sitting on. The boxes were the only separation between the body of the homeless person and the cold wet ground. She listened to many stories of how they ended up on the streets, and she prayed with them. Every time she looked at these websites and meet with more and more people that were facing hardship because of abuse, she knew she had to hurry with the ministry of Refuge for the Abused. It was only God that kept her from becoming homeless herself. Her circumstances had allowed her to be able to identify with the many other parents and children that are out there hurting, abused, broken... She was once again given detailed instructions of how to start the process and even though she did not have the finances, she started the process, with the help of the Lord. The process that would become a blessing to many others.
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