Among one of our highest goals at the Rescue Mission is to instill hope in the those that we serve. Hope is a powerfully potent force that can drive individuals out of the depths of despair and into the life that God has created them to live.
Because of this highly emphasized goal, it has been an honor to be recognized by World Magazine for their Hope Awards recognition this year.
Granted the “West Region Runner-Up” award, with Jubilee Leadership Academy taking the West Hope Award, I feel privileged to be recognized among so many outstanding missions and causes that seek to serve others in need.
Featuring the story of the Puckett family, residents of our Village of Hope, the story is featured in the October Issue of World Magazine and shared digitally by clicking here.
Devin and Jody were homeless in Orange County with their five year old daughter. Read more of their story and journey to the Village of Hope below.
Truth and beauty
West Region runner-up: From broken homes to a gorgeous campus
HOPEFUL: The Pucketts
Jody Puckett walked into Orange County Rescue Mission’s Village of Hope (VOH) in Tustin, Calif., turned to her husband Devin and her 5-year-old daughter Holly and exclaimed, “Pinch me. Is this for real?”
They had been homeless for six years, spending nights in moth-bitten motels, and on couches and streets. Every morning at 5:30, the Pucketts would pick a street and show a double-sided sign: One side asked for help, and the other, to which they quickly flipped when police passed by, asked for a job. “We were like gypsies,” Jody Puckett recalled: “I felt like dirt under your shoe. I felt hopeless.”
But now they were on VOH’s tastefully modern campus, where tall palm trees shade contemporary furniture on a manicured lawn, and water—symbolizing God’s living water of generosity and grace—springs from a massive urn. The idea behind VOH’s aesthetics is that every homeowner wants his home to be beautiful—so what makes the homeless different? Many who enter VOH were raised in broken homes, some hopping from shelter to shelter, others spending days and weeks on the streets—and kids growing up in such an environment have few models of order and beauty to emulate…
