Thank you for loving your neighbor, Jawan,
and giving him hope for the future!
Jawan looked a lot like his biological father, and whenever his mother saw the boy, she was reminded of the man who had caused her so much pain. “She resented me, so she tried to take away anything that made me happy,” Jawan says.
Her rejection left him with deep emotional wounds, but he promised himself that he wouldn’t let his pain or his mother’s resentment keep him from pursuing his dream of a college degree.
Jawan enrolled and did well in the beginning, but his mother was verbally abusing him at home, and after a while, he found it difficult to focus. “I had no support system and no one to talk to about what I was going through, so I fell into a depression.”
Eventually, he dropped out of school, went to work and moved into his own place, heartbroken that his dream had fallen by the wayside. “I lost faith in myself,” he says. “I started drinking every day and became angry and negative.”
Then, one day, he had a moment of clarity. “I said, ‘I’ve got to do something different if I ever want to reach my full potential.’”
That’s when Jawan came to the Allentown Rescue Mission, and through our Transformation Program’s Bible studies, Christian classes and fellowship, he finally found the love and support he’d always longed for. “Not only were people at the Allentown Rescue Mission trying to help me, but I realized that the most important person in the world was helping me – God. It gave me the confidence to move forward again.”
“God is in this place.”
With his growing faith, a strong support system and belief in himself, Jawan is now ready to make his dream come true. “I’m going back to college and finishing my degree,” he says, with a smile. “It’s such a blessing.”
Jawan is thankful for the way you have answered God’s calling to love your neighbor as yourself – and have helped him learn how to love himself. “The Allentown Rescue Mission taught me to put my faith in God and have faith in myself.”
