Our Lord has been requiring us to experience first hand ourselves all things that former inmates/former prisoners will encounter and need help to rise above... after they successfully complete www.TheCarpentersFriend.com programs and are released into society.
Being that each rent we have attempted to live in both in Charlotte, Concord, and Kannapolis North Carolina...from "Grace Properties on Kings Highway in Shreveport to Villas of Hammond in Hammond Louisiana have all turned out to be very unsafe.... For example...
In Villas of Hammond we actually had to fight off Knights of Columbus males who sought to fraternize with me attempting to avoid my husband.
And my William likewise could not sit and use the community computer unless I joined him....otherwise disgruntled angry divorced females would attack him worse than the males after me.
We were even propositioned by married Catholics...certainly they are Catholic in "Name only" for Our Lord said: "Only those who do the wil of my heavenly father will I acknowledge before HIM! AWAY FROM ME YOU EVIL DOERS... I DO NOT KNOW YOU!"
We have camped in many parks...in Tickfaw the same week my Aunt Joan Carroll Cruz died and was buried, we were intimidated by someone haven removed the fly from top of our tent, so we have done some travelling, slept in several different environments....always laying down on our cots in our extended van....which has been far safer and more comfortable than the tent or any rents we have tried living in across this great country.
Amazing that in Truck Stops from Louisiana to Florida, Minnesota & New York...the truckers are more respectable than Catholics of ST Gabriel Charlotte NC, ST James of Concord, or ST Anselm of Madisonville....
Where after the Saturday & Sunday Masses whether Sunday night or Monday morning...the bathroom floors are always covered with wadded up paper towels and even "feminine products" and other shocking filth!
Yet in Trucker Stops across the United States...bathrooms are always immaculate clean! And do not erroneously think that the cleaning crew spends more work hours in keeping it that way!
NO! William has found the male trucker bathrooms in the same respected condition that I have found the female ones.
Yes Jesus came as a sign of contradiction...Did HE NOT?
My father and others often used the saying as I grew up... Not only: "She talks like a sailor!" But also: "She sounds like a trucker to me!"
But the truckers both male & female have more honor & respect for others and themselves than the "St Anselm Galla" billionaires of Madisonville and ST Gabriel of Charlotte who sit themselves on thrones above others and never accompany their children into bathrooms.who wear their clothes vulgarly sinfully tight...causing some good hearted men's consciences to shutter just to look up at the altar as readings are read...
So this week William made a profound statement.
"God wants us to experience everything the former inmates will have to endure after their release."
Society has a whole has always been harsh and unforgiving...the very lack of compassion that has actually caused some of these inmates to commit their first crimes...
When young men cannot find jobs; when folks pound the pavement seeking employment but n one will give them he opportunity to work and to serve...
These folks still get hungry. These folks still need shelter and basic necessities.
When they cannot find their way...usually they return to the same streets that captured them into crime the first time.
So now we The Carpenters Friend are being shown by God to "Enlarge the horizons of our dreams!"
Just as God enlarged the territory of Jabez...
God yearns to give you and I...each man woman and child who ever calls on HIM infinitely more than we can ask think dream or imagine.
It is not enough to merely teach inmates carpentry or welding and to help place them into jobs and follow them.
We must anticipate every possible stumbling block that could possibly stand in the way of their successful transition into their communities.
William & I with Jeremiah eyes are visioning The Carpenters Friend as much more than a training program...
For just as few will hire former inmates, often no different than William & I...our families not approving of our work...
Not all inmates have families yearning to take them back into their hearts and homes upon their release.
We must teach them, then after release provide dormitory style apartments with cafeteria. So after they work hard all day on their jobs, they can return home where they will have neighbors who are either like themselves recovering from a past...which all folks no matter who you are....all folks have a past that has not been perfect.
Only folks who are not afraid to say who they once were and where they once was...only these can sing: "I WAS ONCE LOST, NOW I AM FOUND.... I WAS BLIND & NOW I SEE!"
Only these can be used in an extraordinary way by GOD...
And we The Carpenters Friend are determined to help them travel down the narrow path through the narrow gate.
