From Victim to Victor

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Juliet Sharrow 01419676c13f3393ae901dec23ae13cff24f8cb52d-1

Our people must learn to do good by meeting the urgent needs of others. Titus 3:14a NLT

Victim.

It’s a label no one ever asks for. In fact, it’s a label that has to be forced on us! No one EVER chooses to be a victim. But that label forever defines us. It taints every decision, every moment, every occasion for the rest of our lives. We filter everything through our victim mentality. It can take years for us to trust again, to feel normal, to hope… to love.

Even if you’ve never been a victim yourself, I would guess that you know someone who shamefully wears this label. Victims see the whole world and every circumstance through the tainted lens of their victimhood. Victim becomes their identity. They believe this is who they are and who they always will be.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, a time for us to remember and honor victims, especially those who have died as a victim, carrying this identity to the grave. The sad part is this is not an unstoppable evil! It is not a cancer that ravages our body and we have no control over it. Abuse is one person choosing to hurt another.

Often abuse occurs between two people who love each other, and sadly even occurs in marriages. Do you know what it’s like to be beaten every day by the person you love? Have you been torn down with ugly, hateful, demeaning words until you believed they were true? Do you understand how it feels to wake up each day and wonder if today is the day they will kill you? Countless people around the world live with this fear every day!

UNICEF reports that 1 billion people worldwide who are alive today, have experienced or are currently experiencing domestic violence. And in the US, 1 in 7 adults (over 40 million people) currently live with or have lived with domestic violence, causing UNICEF to label it “one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world.”

Do these numbers surprise you? They should, because domestic violence is our best kept secret in this country. No one wants to talk about it, and even fewer will admit they are part of this statistic. But I stand before you today admitting that I a member of this statistic. I have worn the scarlet letter of victim for most of my life. I carried the shame of victimhood far too long. I believed the lies my abuser and Satan spoke to me, lies that told me I was unloveable. Unwanted. Worthless.

Can I let you in on a secret? All victims believe these same lies. Just ask them if they feel unloved, unwanted or worthless, and you will see their eyes well up with tears as they lower their heads in shame!

Life experiences have taught them they are unlovable. But God says differently.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

God believes these victims are worth dying for.

Their abusers and sometimes even their families tell them no one wants them. But God says:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” Jeremiah 1:5a

“You did not choose me, but I chose you…” John 15:16a

Society tells her she is worthless. Worth less than those who have a husband, or a good job, or a put together life. But she is treasured by God. Created in His image. Priceless!

These women don’t realize how beautiful, loved, wanted and valuable they are! And they won’t know until someone shows them. They need someone who makes them feel things like hope for the first time in a long time. Someone who speaks light into their darkness and life into their crippled hearts of stone. Someone who shows them their beauty in Gods eyes by loving them in all their ugliness, who shows them the depths of Christ’s love for them by serving them in their darkest hour and providing for them in the direst of circumstances.

These women don’t just need a handout. They need love. They need someone to show them how desperately God wants them by walking alongside them through even the hardest of days.

This is the mission God has laid before us here at Kelley Latta Ministries. We have felt His call to be His hands and feet and minister to these broken families. To serve them and love them and walk alongside them on their journey to independence and freedom. To break through the lies in their belief system and deliver them into the freedom truth promises.

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

This ministry was birthed through my own background of abuse, domestic violence, and homelessness. God used my past, my pain and my struggles to birth a passion to minister to and love those who are where I have been. While at the same time laying it on Kelley’s heart to reach out to the orphans and widows of our day—broken families—as scripture commands. God joined our hearts and our passions as we obediently followed His lead in founding this outreach ministry called Love LIVES.

The focus of this ministry is to meet the needs of abuse victims and their families along with the broken and down trodden in our communities. We do this by providing for financial, physical, emotional and spiritual needs. In meeting the most basic of human needs we build trust and show them they are not alone and that someone cares. This lays a foundation that enables us to share the love of Christ and the good news of the gospel with them.

When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. Romans 12:13 NLT

We also offer a mentoring program that allows us to walk alongside the victims on their journey to freedom and victory. Our mentors were all victims themselves, so they understand the struggle these ladies are going through and can minister to them in ways no one else could! In this way we share life with them, counsel them, love them and help meet ongoing needs with the goal of enabling them to not just survive but to thrive!

Through Love LIVES we have answered the call to minister to the forgotten and unwanted. We stand beside these victims and broken families to show them that their lives matter. That they are valuable. And that someone actually cares whether they live or die!

But we need your help. We cannot do this alone. We invite you to partner with us in making a difference in the lives of these women and their families.

You can help us meet the needs of our clients on an individual basis by joining our email list. We send out emails listing individual client needs as they come in from the Safe Home. We don’t expect you to help with every need, but only as you are able and feel led to. If you get the email and want to help, you let us know. It is that easy! And remember, even what seems like the smallest gift can mean the world to them.

We are also looking for those who would like to partner with us financially through a one time or monthly tax deductible gift. We use these funds to help victims with first month’s rent & security deposit to get an apartment or to help pay their rent or utilities in extenuating circumstances. We also use financial donations to purchase needed items that aren’t donated, or that we must purchase new, like car seats and mattresses.

Would you prayerfully consider partnering with us as we reach out to a lost and hurting world, giving them hope and sharing the love and grace God has so lavishly blessed us with? Will you stand with us to prove that Love LIVES?

button_makeagift

Putting Love Into Action

/0 Comments/in /by

“Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”
James 2:5

The aftermath of Hurricane Matthew leaves the nation of Haiti in desperate circumstances. Homes are destroyed. Loved ones have been lost. Survivors starve.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine such life-changing devastation. We see it on the news and feel it briefly, but we have so much distance from it, we don’t really comprehend its impact.

Yet I’m grateful for those who don’t settle for distance. Who stare suffering in the face and serve on the front lines to do something about it. Our friends at HBM stand on those lines. They don’t share the luxury of keeping a safe distance. They see the faces of starving children. They watch the sorrow over extreme loss. And they give of themselves hoping to enable change.

But they need our help, beloved. Would you consider offering your aid?

Here is an update from HBM from October 9.

Hurricane News:  Food Distribution

Thanks to Mission of Hope’s arrival yesterday with a boatload of food for Jeremie, we were able to start distributing supplies today!  6000 pounds of food and supplies were distributed today in the city of Jeremie to provide relief to the suffering people in the city.  We are so happy to be working in partnership with other missions in the area, and excited to get another 6000 pounds distributed to our Te Wouj, Kolimo and Des Champs areas tomorrow.

Tin for roofs is scarce, and one of the biggest immediate needs to make other houses livable again.  Our team at HBM bought what they could find today to begin distributing it in our community.  They plan to give 25 pieces of tin to each family toward roof repair and replacement, which costs $125 per roof.  If you would like to “donate a roof” toward this cause, simply click here, choose “Hurricane Matthew Relief” and write “Roof” in the comments box.

We also have a praise report that our first grade teacher at Te Wouj and wife of our Te Wouj Church pastor, Madam Marc Lapais had her baby this past week!  Both baby boy and mother are well!  We have been praying hard for her this week that her hurricane baby would arrive safely with no complications for either.  God is already working and facilitating new life in our community!

14570807_10150732894829991_719593814402793703_o

HBM Paster Eldet Tine and his family stand where their house once stood. Notice their smiles. The joy of the Lord is their strength.

14650464_10154241929694678_5901281183087303181_n

Here’s what’s left of the HBM church plant in downtown Jeremie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this season of so much chaos, this world needs love. Love that takes action. Let’s be that love.

Donate to HBM’s Hurricane Matthew Relief Fund

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18

Does God Have Your Vote?

/1 Comment/in /by

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” Joshua 5:13 ESV

We all want God on our side. In fact, we often claim He is without ever bothering to ask Him. We assume we have the power of His name behind us, fighting for what we believe.

And Christians fight against Christians, fully believing that God stands with them. Only God never battles against Himself.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4

God never gives mixed messages. He never disagrees with Himself. We fight one another from our flesh.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? James 4:1

It makes us feel better—especially with our passions roused in an election year— to say that our convictions come from God. Unfortunately, they often don’t. And sometimes we stand opposed to God without even realizing it

Even the Apostle Paul opposed God’s work because he made assumptions about what God would want and how He’d move. He wrote of his mistake in Galatians 1:13.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

Paul didn’t just raise his voice against God’s church. He raised weapons. His “zeal for God” imprisoned, wounded and killed those who loved Jesus, God’s beloved Son. He’d convinced himself he fought to uphold God’s desires when really, he fought to uphold his own.

The real question, beloved, isn’t whether God stands on our side. It’s whether we truly stand on His.

I’ll say this as delicately as I can. What you want to see out of this election really doesn’t matter. Your opinion on economic policy doesn’t make any difference. And your perception of each candidate holds no weight in God’s economy.

What matters is whose policies align most closely with God’s Word.

We stand at a tipping point, beloved. This nation must decide if we remain true to the One whose blessing and favor exalted it to the power it became. God’s hand inexplicably prospered a group of farming colonies into a national superpower because they chose to unite and establish themselves as One Nation Under God.

Yet we have systematically written into law statutes that deny the very God responsible for our great victories. And we stand amazed as our prosperity declines amid increasing instability.

It doesn’t matter if the lost among our nation refuse to recognize God, dear one. What matters to God is when His own do.

As this presidential election hastens toward us, I understand the frustration over the candidates. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t particularly like either personality. Both fall far short of the high moral ethics I’d like to see in a candidate.

But God doesn’t ask us to vote for a candidate, beloved. Party affiliation means nothing. As Christians we must vote for policy that most closely agrees with God’s Word and honors His position.

A great debate rages among the people of this land over the rights of an unborn child. I would like to ask you for a moment to shift your gaze from personal feelings and public opinion and look upon the question from heaven’s view.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” Jeremiah 1:5

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13-14a

The question, beloved, is this. Do you believe God’s Word is true?

If not, it really doesn’t matter how you vote. But if you do, a new question surfaces.

If every life is, in fact, created by God and ordained for purpose, do we have a right to override what God has decreed? Does man—created by God from the dust of the earth—have the right to tell God He was wrong this time? Can we really believe that we are entitled to tell God we know better?

Such thinking displays arrogance that sets itself up in God’s place. When we exalt ourselves where God deserves to be, we position ourselves on very dangerous ground.

If you’re a believer, I don’t need to tell you whose nature that resembles.

I understand that my words might upset some people. In fact, scripture promises they will. For we find ourselves in the days described by Isaiah 59:12-15.

For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.

 Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

We can’t allow the public square to define our truth, beloved. Public opinion no longer recognizes truth. The deceiver has lifted his voice, establishing false wisdom that denies our Lord. And we have believed him.

Forgive us, Father.

Wisdom cries aloud in every street (Proverbs 1:20) begging our return to the Lord our God. He alone holds the right to create life and deny it. He alone established the covenant of marriage and maintains the right to define it.

Everything else hinges on whether we believe that’s true.

You see, economic prosperity, victory in battle, and the safety of our borders all fall under God’s blessing when we stand in agreement with His Word. And He repeatedly promises that when we stand for Him, He stands for us and will make Himself known on our behalf.

Your vote this election will announce your answer to this question, dear one.

Do you believe Him?