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.