It is hard to imagine that we have had the Transition House Ministry for almost 10 years. We have had 32 Women and over 32 infants/toddlers/children come through this unique ministry. When we started the Transition House we were the only one of its kind in the Charleston area. There may be one or possibly two others now. You may remember that we started this ministry when I heard a Charleston leader say that one of the greatest unmet needs in Charleston was housing for women with infants coming out of the Charleston Center. Particularly women who are on step-down medications. One of the many things I love about James Island Baptist is our willingness to take on the giants. I had no experience running a Recovery Transition House. My thought was it is better to try and to fail than to not try at all. So we tried. About 3 years into the ministry we temporarily stopped the ministry so we could do major upgrades to the house. The volunteers who did that did an amazing job. They made the house into a home. Four years ago we temporarily stopped the ministry again. This time we did it to improve how we administrated the home. We got input from others, had the Charleston Center Rehab give us help and we looked at what other ministries were doing. We did that re-boot about 4 years ago and it made a significant improvement in the day-to-day operations at the Transition House.
Now is the time for another re-boot of the Transition House Ministry. The re-boot this time will focus on a Transition House Ministry Team. Neale Young and I have basically been serving as the team. Now it is time to expand the team and to broaden the experience. I have every confidence that this will be a great move.
We currently have two residents plus their sweet children that live at the house. They will be transitioning out at the end of August. Jada has been with us for two years and Kate has been with us almost 1 full year. They have both become such a part of our church family. They are all loved and we are thrilled at being a small part of their recovery journey. My hope is that both of them will be continue to be a part of JIBC and Celebrate Recovery. I have every confidence that this will be a great move.
The timing for this re-boot is good because of the “shut down” of the Charleston Center. They have closed two of the programs that we worked with. The need is still great but not at this time because of Covid-19. I suspect they will re-open this fall and perhaps we will be ready to re-open the Transition House by then. We will look forward to whatever wonderful new friends God will bring us through this mission.
Blessings to all,
Pastor Tom
