Just ten days ago, the people of Good Shepherd gave a remarkable $389,571 towards the purchase and remodeling of a Home for girls who are themselves under renovation — rescued from domestic sex trafficking and headed towards healing with On Eagles’ Wings Ministries.
And so yesterday, we bought the home — an unoccupied structure at an undisclosed location in Gaston County.
And we paid cash.
To capture the moment, we sent Brad Brasel to be not only our business manager extraordinaire but in this case, our photojournalist as well. We also sent Cindy Cox, who chairs our Board, and Gary Peeler, who leads our Trustees.
Here is Brad’s report:
The lady in the red sweater is the seller.
She was moved to tears because her dream of helping young women was going to occur even if was not in the way she had planned. Linda is her name and she started a half house for young pregnant women but was not able to obtain enough funding to keep the program viable. For over six years she kept hoping the house could be used in some way that she originally envisioned.
The man in the picture, with Gary, Cindy, and Linda is Brian Matherlee, pastor of McAdenville Wesleyan Church, who has been deeply involved with OEWM helping to identify and contact potential donors for OEWM program. For the past three to four years it has been his dream to provide support for girls who have been trafficked.
Another interesting story relates to the woman who prepared the documentation for the closing. Her name is Kim and she and her women’s groups at Flint Grove Baptist Church have been praying for over a year for for some way to help women who are trafficked. She was overwhelmed when she discovered that the paper work she was handling was for a house for that purpose.
Here we are receiving the keys to the home:
The next step in the project is to define a scope of work, prepare engineering drawings, estimate costs, and apply for the necessary permits to start work. It is anticipated that we will have permits by the second week of March.
Within the next week there will be information on the GSUMC web site describing the furniture, accessories, and linen that will be needed for the house and where to drop off the items being donated.
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