In my faith tradition, we are in the Easter season. It’s a season when we sort of celebrate death. At least a particular death, which we believe brings forth greater life. It takes some emotional gymnastics to spend a season of Lent stripping away the unnecessary, then a passion week burrowing into pain and suffering and death, and then suddenly jump into resurrection and life in light of death.
I feel like Jubilee Home has embodied this story the past few weeks. We went from two residents to none in a blink, and then two days later our world shut down. We spent a number of weeks without residents, and without the referring agencies to get us residents. Then, on a Thursday afternoon, all of a sudden there was an opportunity to meet emergency housing needs for the wave of returning citizens being let out early to minimize COVID outbreaks inside state prisons. And life sprung forth. The call turned into an immediate staff meeting. The staff signed on right away, despite the direct risk to themselves. A few hours later, our board of directors voted to temporarily change our mission to meet the needs of the moment. Friday morning, the call went out for donations to meet the unique needs of this new mission – and the community responded abundantly.
