High School Ministry and Shepherd's Door

We have a great affection for the ministry of Shepherd's Door. Our Senior Adults have been taking offerings for them at their monthly potlucks for years. We have a couple women at New Life Church who work there.

In addition, for the past six months our high school students have been serving meals at Shepherd's Door in NE Portland. Priscilla K. who is a professional caterer has found a ministry ideally suited for her. She prepares the meals our young people serve, but as you can read below in the email she sent me, it's not the cooking she loves!

By the way, I left work early last Thursday and went to Shepherd's Door. I was going to skip it because I was starting a 3-day catering job the next day. During the day Thursday I was feeling sad that I wouldn't be there. I have developed a relationship with many of the women there and I think they look forward to seeing me. I know I look forward to seeing them. I walked in and was greeted with warm smiles and hugs.

One of the ladies had celebrated her 53rd birthday on Wednesday and she told me it was the first sober birthday she can remember. She said she would usually celebrate her birthday like every other day, getting drunk and passing out.

We also celebrated the 1st birthday of a boy named Malai. His mother could not stop crying about her boy turning 1. I talked with her for a little bit and she told me she was crying because when she found out she was pregnant with Malai she had planned to abort the pregnancy. She said she really didn't want a baby but at the last minute she couldn't go through with it. She kept saying, "I love him so much, I can't believe I ever thought about aborting him?" We cried and we hugged, and we celebrated her decision to keep her baby. We took lots of pictures of the two of them together and I'm going to put those pics in a scrapbook for her. It was great!

You really should come with us sometime.