The Power of Presence

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“I am very appreciative of those who work and live here,” Jeff says. This Christmas, he looks forward to serving others. He will graduate this spring and hopes to get into a Bible College program.

If anyone can understand the power of presence, it is Jeff. He grew up in a traditional home with a mom that remained a faithful constant in his life. Her presence provided Jeff with stability in the face of an absent father. Jeff’s father worked hard and drank harder. He introduced him to alcohol at age eight and he enjoyed the crass camaraderie of his friends as they laughed at how the young boy responded to the substance. At the age of ten, his father’s medical disability brought him into the home 24/7. His father’s powerful presence, however, was of a different kind—peace ended in the home front. Jeff longed for his father’s approval, but his workaholism and alcoholism opened a door for Jeff that led to low self-esteem and rebellion.

He tried everything to earn his father’s approval. As he states it, “I was viewed as a man. I worked 40-hour workweeks, went to school fulltime, knew no curfew, drank, and smoked just like any grown man. The community I grew up in Northern Missouri was small and known for alcohol and drug use. By age 15, I was an alcoholic. I went to work drunk only to go home and drink until I passed out.”

In 1996, he received a 20 year sentence for assault and battery. It was in prison that Jeff came to know Jesus. He was released after five years and started going to church. For the next seven years, his life was good until his wife left him. “I walked away from everything,” he says, “jumped on my motorcycle with my retirement savings and blew it in six months on alcohol and drugs. I went from making good money to sleeping behind dumpsters.”

About a year and a half ago his father died and three months later his mother died. He was in and out of the hospital for attempted suicide or alcohol poisoning. After having a seizure, he agreed to go into a long-term treatment program. “Before I knew it,” he says, “they put me on a bus and when I arrived in Omaha, John Lindsey Garland Thompson Men’s Center Case Manager picked me up and brought me to Open Door Mission.”

New Start…New Neighborhood

“I have been in other programs before but the community here is different,” he says. “I am not the man I used to be! It truly is a life transformation!” At first, it was only the drug testing that kept him in line. Eventually, the staff and residents began to show him the real power of presence. It was the small things. One day, a fellow program member handed him a Life Application Study Bible. “I don’t know when it happened,” he says, “but now I wake up around 5:30 am and read my Bible until 7:15. Open Door Mission has given me the gift of peace and happiness.”

Presence is powerful. It has the potential to bring life and it has the potential to lead to destructive cycles. We want to say thank you to all who give of their time and talent to be physically present and serve here at the Mission. Your presence is powerful and it is effective to help people move out of the destructive cycle into the life transformation. Your gift of time, treasure, and talents make a difference.

Submitted by Tara Rye,
Open Door Mission Volunteer