NEW HOPE
NOW
On my journey I have found that the hardest part of starting over is being able to purchase a vehicle and obtaining first and last month’s rent to secure reasonable living accommodations. A person aging out of the foster care system, a divorcee or a reforming addict that do not have the family support will have the hardest time in this situation. Often times we give up hope and end up back where we started. Families become homeless because they can’t find jobs due to lack of transportation. Without these necessities, we cannot secure rent for a place to live. What New Hope Now is looking to do it sponsor families and singles starting over, one family at a time. We want to offer services to giving people hope for a better life.
We want to encourage you all that no matter where you have been or what you have done; if you are seeking to turn your life around then you are headed in the right direction. We want to give people the opportunity to be free and not live in fear. To know that someone cares and not judging can go a long way. It is not our job to judge others’ sin or their salvation. We are here to love people and to draw them to Christ, whom is our final judge.
New hope now
Tricia Devaux
I was in the church for years and a part of leadership. I prayed, encouraged and I also loved on people. I considered myself very spiritual along with my Christian friends yet I learned to judge people. I have learned through my journey that judging people is sin and/or the sin of religion. I even had pre-determined notions that they must have deserved what happened to them. I found that I lived in fear of how I was being judged. I worried about how spiritual I looked to others and made sure my actions looked “Christian enough.”
When I went through my divorce I felt like I was then on the opposite side of the fence. I stepped down from leadership and changed churches. The road was rough and the untrue church gossip was cruel and exhausting. Not only was I dealing with the heartache from divorce, but I had to deal with the heartache of loosing several of my Christian friends during this time . So often I needed help they were nowhere to be found. One instance, I needed help moving and I couldn’t get anyone in the church to help me. It took a toll on me and I felt crushed. However, God sent people to help me but they were not from the church.
I believe we all need church. I love the church I am in now, as it is very different from previous experiences I’ve had. Church should be a place where we all can come and find God, including the sinners, addicts and convicts alike. Whatever anyone has done in the past shouldn’t matter. What matters is where we are headed.
God has taught me that it's neither the beginning nor the end that matters, but it's the journey and how we got there. He also taught me that He came not to judge the world but to save it. He sat with the sinners and did not care what they had done in their pasts. John 3:17. Yes, he cares that we live a godly life, but he came to draw us to Himself and save our souls and He loves us no matter what.
The biggest lesson that God has taught me through my experiences, is that while I was going through my divorce, regardless of how bad the untrue gossip had gotten it was the job of the church to love me unconditionally, draw me to Jesus and not judge or push me away. There were plenty of times where I felt “pushed away”. If it wasn’t for the brokenness, then this ministry to help others would not have been born. I have been there before. So the need to help others to wholeness comes from a place of love and experience. It’s unfortunate that I have encountered more than one church who wasn’t equipped to take on the task of true ministry. Although not all churches are like that, this was my experience. I now believe that it was God’s plan and purpose all along. Had I not gone through these things, then I wouldn't have seen the need for change and this organization wouldn’t have been started.