Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / Summer Speedos | Lifting Up a Grieving Mother

Transcript

Summer Speedos | Lifting Up a Grieving Mother · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

• 0:02
  This is Journey with Care. Hey. We're taking 4 weeks of the summer
• 0:06
  to keep it short or speedy. Let's just call these
• 0:10
  summer speedos. Short action packed dives into the
• 0:13
  incredible stories of everyday people using Care Portal to
• 0:17
  build connection and change lives. Care Portal, for those
• 0:21
  that haven't heard, is an amazing platform connecting churches,
• 0:24
  families, and businesses with specific needs with some of the most
• 0:28
  vulnerable in our communities. So as you soak up the sun this
• 0:32
  summer and enjoy these summer Speedos, remember, Journey with
• 0:35
  Care is powered by Care Impact, a Canadian charity helping
• 0:39
  strangers become good neighbours. To keep bringing you our podcast and these
• 0:43
  stories, we rely on supporters like you. So for
• 0:47
  the summer Speedo series, join our summer of 30.
• 0:51
  We're looking for 30 amazing listeners to donate $30 in
• 0:54
  the next 30 days. Every dollar helps us maintain our
• 0:58
  equipment, update our software, and help us cover all the
• 1:02
  expenses associated with bringing you these important stories.
• 1:06
  So to join the summer 30, check the show notes for the link or visit
• 1:09
  journey with care dot ca slash 30. That's journey with care
• 1:13
  dot ca slash 30. So go ahead,
• 1:17
  pause it, and become 1 of the 30 right now. Alright.
• 1:20
  Enough chit chat. Let's get on with the summer Speedos.
• 1:33
  I think keeping in the forefront of our mind, we're sending the churches on
• 1:37
  mission over and over again, right into, into hard places.
• 1:47
  A need came in and the need says, this mom
• 1:51
  lost her 7 year old child last week to drowning.
• 1:55
  She wants to get connected to a local grief counseling program, but she
• 1:59
  doesn't drive. And so an Uber gift card will ease this
• 2:03
  financial burden of transportation and allow her to get the services that she
• 2:06
  needs as she greets her child.
• 2:14
  And so a local church picked this up, and
• 2:18
  they acknowledged we could send her a gift card through
• 2:22
  email. We could send that gift card through the case
• 2:25
  worker, but we would really, really love
• 2:35
  And so, they showed up to her home. They really expected
• 2:39
  to give this to her and go. But when
• 2:43
  they came to the front door, she kind of launched
• 2:47
  herself into their arms and wouldn't really let go.
• 2:53
  It had been 6 days since she lost her 6 year
• 2:56
  old son. They lived in an apartment complex. He had,
• 3:01
  pretty severe autism, and they had walks
• 3:04
  in place and all of these extra measures,
• 3:08
  in place to keep him safe. And he still got
• 3:12
  out, and he still drowned.
• 3:17
  She hadn't had the ability to process that really with anyone.
• 3:21
  She ended up in child welfare and in prevention due to the
• 3:25
  investigation of all of that. She and her
• 3:28
  family are from Ghana, and so they recently relocated
• 3:32
  here, and so she doesn't drive. Her
• 3:36
  husband left almost as soon as they got here, and so she's pretty
• 3:39
  isolated.
• 3:44
  She has no real way of supporting her family. She has a 15
• 3:48
  and a 7 year old still at home, and they're struggling
• 3:52
  to then grieve this loss that happened as soon as they got here.
• 3:58
  And so, for the church to go in
• 4:02
  and offer her not only this gift card, but this
• 4:05
  place to to process. They stayed there for hours.
• 4:10
  She showed them pictures of her baby. She was able
• 4:14
  to talk with them, and then they they told her,
• 4:18
  we'll be back. Like, how how soon can we be back?
• 4:23
  And they were able to tell her, this is not punishment
• 4:36
  here with you, and we'll be back. And so, how are you gonna feed your
• 4:40
  kids this week? We'll be back with food. Do you need groceries? We'll be back
• 4:43
  with groceries. How do you who is your support? We're your support because
• 4:47
  you are so marginalized here and you are so
• 4:51
  isolated here, and we're your people now.
• 4:58
  And so, you know, a a few actually reached out to me because
• 5:02
  here's I wanna quickly read what the church responder left
• 5:06
  as the the feedback. He says, this child
• 5:09
  drowned on Wednesday. This was the saddest and heaviest
• 5:13
  care portal need I've ever been involved with. When we entered the apartment,
• 5:17
  we introduced ourselves and mom immediately embraced the lady who came with me
• 5:21
  and began to cry. They had never met and yet 1 mother was comforting another
• 5:24
  mother and sympathizing with the indescribable pain that goes with the
• 5:34
  She took She took out her phone and showed us pictures of her
• 5:38
  beautiful 7 year old boy. It's heartbreaking, really. We
• 5:42
  talked a while and told her God sees her and has not forgotten
• 5:46
  her. We told her about our church and that she was
• 5:49
  not alone. We asked to pray for her and she called her other boys out
• 5:53
  and the 5 of us stood, held hands, and prayed together.
• 5:56
  This family is from Africa and she seems so alone and isolated. I
• 6:00
  hope and pray she knows she's not alone. I hope and pray we can be
• 6:04
  there for them moving forward.
• 6:08
  So the the follow-up here is that this past
• 6:12
  Sunday, these
• 6:20
  blessed to go. They had strategically placed people to greet
• 6:24
  them as they went in the door and the responder kinda said the church
• 6:28
  doesn't always get it right, but on Sunday, they nailed it. They felt
• 6:31
  welcomed and embraced. They went out to lunch afterwards.
• 6:35
  They have plans moving forward, like the 15 15 year old needs to learn how
• 6:38
  to drive. He just got his permit, so they have people in place to teach
• 6:41
  him how to drive. They have people in place to get groceries moving forward. They
• 6:45
  have people in place to walk through counseling, and they have her counseling
• 6:48
  covered. And so the idea of everyone
• 6:52
  just just getting it right on such a heavy 1,
• 6:55
  Right? That this family went from isolation
• 6:59
  to support through a church saying yes and connected
• 7:03
  by Care Portal. And her
• 7:07
  investigation is closed out, her prevention case is
• 7:10
  closed out, and the church really has got it from
• 7:15
  here.
• 7:21
  Thanks for listening to this summer Speedo on the Journey with Care podcast.
• 7:24
  To keep the stories and conversations flowing,
• 7:34
  visit journeywithcare. Ca/30. That's journeywithcare/30.
• 7:40
  Thanks for being part of the journey.