Celebrating 5 Years as Joseph's House Executive Director

Today, Monday August 1st, marks the first day of my 6th year as Executive Director at Joseph’s House for Women. I spent a lot of time in the recent days reflecting on the past five years running Joseph’s House. For some reason, this milestone has caused me more prolonged pause and reflection than any to date.  I can’t quite put my finger on why this anniversary has felt different but I think a big revelation has been that this is now the longest I’ve done anything professionally since college.  When people ask what I do, I would tell them about Joseph’s House and usually somewhere in the conversation I would add that I am a licensed attorney by trade but don’t actively practice since taking over at Joseph’s House (aside from the occasional assistance to a resident with a family law matter or a traffic violation).  I suppose I’m still an attorney by trade but it seems now since I’ve been doing it for longer than anything else, that I am an Executive Director by trade. 

 

Leading Joseph’s House for the past five years has brought some of the greatest challenges in my life. Professionally, personally, spiritually- I have had my will and my spirit tested in ways I never imagined.  Sleepless nights, doubt, and spiritual warfare have at times been debilitating. The solution for me has always come when I lean harder onto and into our faith.  Whenever those dark feelings seem to get a foothold, I find some time or some way to try to bring myself back to center- spending time in the chapel, reading scripture or some daily reflections, or spending time with the residents and staff. Without these times of reset, the job could seem joyless, burdensome and at times, unbearable.

 

Of course these times of reset help to balance the joys of doing this work.  Nothing brings me more joy that working with our residents- sharing with them in their triumphs and walking beside them in their defeats. I always talk about my deep reverence and respect for our residents because of their authenticity.  In a world that is so caught up in keeping up with your neighbor or living through carefully curated and filtered Instagram pictures, I find so much peace and truth in my friendship with our residents.  Their stories are difficult, deep and can be as depressing as they are overwhelming to hear. But they are real- there is little attempt to sugar-coat or filter.  It’s in this authentic-ness that real relationships are formed, trust is built and connection is made.  We can do very little as an organization if we are not able to form a deep, trusting relationship with our residents. It’s through these relationships that accomplishments are celebrated with big hugs and hardships are comforted with a compassion that is unfamiliar to our residents.  When they hurt, we hurt. 

 

When I look back on the past five years I am proud of what we have accomplished.  We have grown the organization in many ways- increased staffing to increase direct service to our residents- namely counseling and life skills, increased fundraising and foundational support and established better business practices and procedures to help work towards more long-term financial stability.  We’ve also grown the mission- grown may not be the best word- maybe matured the mission.  With identifying our virtues that guide us, we refocused our work on our priority- our clients and we do it in a way that is adaptable, accessible and approachable to meet them where they are. I like to think we no longer measure success but progress.  Success evokes an endpoint, finality, or job well done.  Progress, more aptly, recognizes that life is a journey, our client’s journeys are different than ours but they are continuing growing and improving. It takes time, sometimes a long time. Progress is success.

 

We’ve also adapted to help serve where the greatest need is.  The trend has increased slowly over the past two years to where we now serve the majority of our clients who are in addiction recovery treatment- a trend I don’t see changing anytime soon. This has forced us to grow and learn to meet them where they are, understand the cycles of addiction and trauma, and to be a support in their long term recovery.  Until recently, as an organization, we didn’t always fully understand what that meant.

 

We have much work left to progress towards. By the end of this calendar year we will have doubled our residential capacity to up to 20 women at one time.  With the former Monastery property coming online this summer, we will first double, and in time, triple our capacity to upwards of 30 women and their children.  We’ve added a rental property that includes two apartments that have been renovated and will be occupied in the coming months- providing that necessary continued support in transitional living. Even with our increased capacity and increased level of services, we know there are still huge gaps in services for our clients. We recommit ourselves to finding creative solutions and wholehearted love and support for those who need our services.

 

We are constantly reminded that this mission is one of His Divine providence and we are humbly asked to be the hands and feet of the Lord in caring for and assisting our most vulnerable neighbors. I will often remark to staff- we get to do this for a living.  For them, and for me, it’s become much more than just a living but really is a calling or a purpose. It’s hard to imagine where my head was 5 years ago as I left the law firm and took over at Joseph’s House. It’s much easier to determine where my head is right now- immensely grateful for the first five, excited and determined for the next five.

 

“Rejoice in the Lord Always"

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.” Philippians 4:4-5

At Joseph’s House we Rejoice in the Lord always, and we are continuing to rejoice with the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. While we welcome the decision by the Supreme Court, we recognize and are keenly aware of the work that needs to be done to truly build a culture that respects the sanctity of life and the dignity of women. While this decision is a legal one, it makes more clear the need for cultural and moral progress in our society.  New York is and by all accounts, will remain, a pro-choice state- the government has made that clear. At Joseph’s House, the greatest concern is about the women who exercise their freedom to choose to have their child. Much of society’s current focus seems to be directed to ensuring that the woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy has options to do so- often argued that these options be completely unrestricted.  What about the options and choices for a woman who chooses life? What about the woman worried about daycare costs, finishing school, finding a place to live? How much are we focusing on policies that create economic mobility and growth to support a family?  How do we bring about change to meet the temporal, emotional, and spiritual needs of women who are facing an unplanned pregnancy? How can we ensure that no women is ever made to feel as though she has no choice but to seek an abortion? The verse above from Philippians gives us the answer “let your gentleness be known to everyone.”

Why would a woman seek to have an abortion? Often the fears and real consequences of bringing a pregnancy to term are insurmountable. We hear these concerns at Joseph’s House and work to find solutions every single day. Where and when can she obtain support for further education or job readiness programs?  Where can she receive counseling and treatment for past traumas and experiences? Where can she make an honest, respectable wage where she can successfully raise a family, often by herself?  Where can she work that will allow her the flexibility to deal with the challenges of sick children, snow days, and school breaks, without costing her wages or her job all together? Where can she learn to drive and get assistance acquiring a car so she can access these jobs, daycares and schools? Where can she live that is safe and secure and long-term? Where can she find hope and love? These fears and the natural consequences are real and we see them every day. The questions outnumber the answers and resources are often too few to come by.

If we want to create a culture that is truly pro-life- these are the questions we must ask.  In a time where every tough conversation feels as if it’s a boxing match and each side must retreat to their corner, we should let our “gentleness be known to everyone.” We will only begin to find solutions to these fears if we can engage with one another to better understand the circumstances and challenges of another’s life.  At Joseph’s House, we embody radical compassion, deep personal relationships, unbridled hope and refrain from allowing our own biases and judgments from clouding our service. We meet each resident where she is and embrace her as she is.  Listening to her story as she prepares to write a new chapter. It’s a gentleness that allows a woman to experience unconditional love, unconditional love modeled and embodied in Christ’s love for each of us. How much could we all learn if we could embrace each person we meet with that same disposition, with that same radical compassion? How much could each of us help to change the culture if we could begin with ourselves? For life and for the unborn, Rejoice. For the continued work needed in our world, let your gentleness be known to everyone.