Shortly after moving into the neighborhood two years ago, I met Terrie, a mid-30s white woman living in an area that is over 99% African-American. She and her “husband,” at the time, stayed in a house just a block away while raising their three boys together. It was not but a few months later that they were kicked out of their home after finding out that it was owned by the city and that the supposed landlord was receiving rent from several tenants under false ownership.
After the city boarded up the home, Terrie and her family stayed at family and friends’ homes in trade for doing house work. Many of the homes were drug homes catering to the addictions of the couple. They were given a place to sleep at night; but often they would find their family locked out during the day, left to roam the streets in search of the next night’s lodging.
Last June, Terrie and her boys joined several other neighbors at our home for Mona’s first birthday party. Following the party, she was gracious to help clean up, and it seemed that the Lord was opening a way for a relationship between two young mothers. Several weeks went by without much contact, then one afternoon I noticed Terrie sitting on the steps of an abandoned house across the street with two friends that were not familiar to me. In speaking to them, it was obvious that they were all heavily under the influence of drugs. Just a week later, I received word that Terrie had been incarcerated, sent to prison for at least a year, leaving her young boys behind. I found myself discouraged, seeing the opportunity to minister to her slipping away.
Over those next few days I began to feel the Lord speaking to me about taking advantage of this time that Terrie would be away from her usual surroundings. Now, after nearly six months, some frustration, and a few returned letters, I received a letter in the mail from Terrie. She was writing to let me know I was officially approved to visit her. She caught Randy and me up on all she has been experiencing in prison. She desires to enroll in CNA classes to prepare herself for a job after prison. She finally got a pair of glasses and is waiting to receive dentures for her mostly rotted teeth that have been pulled.
I am looking forward to visiting her in the very near future, and I ask that you pray for my boldness in sharing Christ with her. Pray that the Lord will direct me in finding her the resources she needs to make a better future for herself. Also pray that, following incarceration, she would be able to return locally and
that contact will not be lost. Pray for her family, especially her children, and pray that Randy would have opportunity to minister to her husband.
We pray, as the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
