April 2011

New Horizons Ministries is an exciting place to be these days. Young people who used to live on the streets are serving coffee at Street Bean Espresso, one of the best cafés in Seattle. Other young people are getting ready to work for eight weeks with a professional artist. They’ll create an art exhibition while learning job skills at the same time. Our Belltown Drop-In Center is busy, too. We’ve seen more than 400 different youth there in the last sixty days alone and we are actively working with about 160 young people on making life choices that will help them leave the streets.

One of the things that encourages us most is hearing from people who used to be our clients and are now living healthy, independent lives. A young woman we began working with at the age of seventeen contacted us recently to tell us about the difference New Horizons made in her life.  She wants to give back to us so that we can help other young people like her. She’s rallied her church to support her in our June 4 fundraising Walk for New Horizons and has a vision that God will help her raise $10,000.

This isn’t unusual. A few weeks ago, I met with a group of young people who are still on the streets and use our Drop-In Center regularly. I asked them what we could do at New Horizons to better meet their needs. They preferred to talk about what they could do for New Horizons. (A car wash was one of their more conventional ideas.) They want to work with us on making New Horizons a better place because, for many of them, this is the closest thing to home that they have.

We’re committed to making New Horizons a better place as well. We’re looking at partnerships that would allow us to offer a broader scope of services in the Drop-In Center. We’re dreaming about ways we could provide more of the job training these young people need so desperately if they are ever to live independently. God has given us a mission and a vision to help equip young people to leave the streets. Thanks for joining with us to meet this challenge.

Mary Steele

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