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Hope in Hamtramck
‘Right now, I am the least’
Acts 29 helps start woman’s turnaround from tragedy
Acts 29 helps start woman’s turnaround from tragedy
By Called and Sent Staff
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. -- Faye Grant remembers reading the flier: Acts 29, Free Store, household items, Saturday, Feb. 11.
She thought about her situation—low income, leaky roof, no kitchen sink. Yes, she could use some household items. But free? And what on earth was Acts 29?
‘Who does free?’
That Saturday morning a heavy snow was falling. Acts 29, a new Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) church plant and outreach ministry, was a three-mile walk from her house. Three miles in the snow looked like 20 in her mind’s eye, but this was free.
“At the time I had no state assistance, so I’m like, ‘OK, you can’t afford not to go,’” Faye recalls telling herself. “It was a Saturday, and it was snowing to beat the band.”
 | ||
Faye
Grant, 48, wells up with tears talking about her family's struggle to
cope with the death of her husband, Thomas, nine years ago.
|
She thought about her situation—low income, leaky roof, no kitchen sink. Yes, she could use some household items. But free? And what on earth was Acts 29?
‘Who does free?’
That Saturday morning a heavy snow was falling. Acts 29, a new Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) church plant and outreach ministry, was a three-mile walk from her house. Three miles in the snow looked like 20 in her mind’s eye, but this was free.
“At the time I had no state assistance, so I’m like, ‘OK, you can’t afford not to go,’” Faye recalls telling herself. “It was a Saturday, and it was snowing to beat the band.”
But she threw on a coat and dragged her two-wheeled pull-cart, her
‘Silver Limousine,” through the slush. Inside the Free Store she found
clothes she needed for a job interview, a big spread of food and the
friendly faces she’d been looking for.
One of those faces was Mike Gmetro, whose wife, Liza, organized the Free Store. The Gmetros are serving as CMA missionary candidates with Acts 29, which began serving the city out of an old car dealership in downtown Hamtramck in November 2005.
As leaders in Acts 29’s Abundant Life ministry the Gmetros lead small-group Bible studies and build relationships with people like Faye. Part of Acts 29’s strategy is “One Shepherd for Every Street,” an effort to help one family on every street in Hamtramck that can, in turn, reach out to their neighbors. Faye agreed to be their first shepherd.
“Maybe you can’t even provide money for them,” Mike recalls telling her. “But you can have them come over and sit on your couch, and you can talk to them and love them and make a relationship.”
Faye told him, “You know what? I can do that.”
From Leery to Loving It
She laughs now at the skeptical eye she cast at the Free Store.
“They had this little card to fill out—your name, your address, and [if you wanted] somebody to pray with you,” Faye recalls. “So I’m thinking, is this a cult? Because who does free?” She filled out the card, noting that she would indeed like someone to pray and talk over her needs with her.
“About a week later, I got a call. And they came. They came!” Faye says. “And when they came, we prayed, we talked, we had such a great time.
“When I got a chance to talk to them, they were so loving, it was like, are these folks for real?” Faye says. “These people were persistent. They saw that I had a need, and they started working.”
Acts 29 staff members assessed the house’s major problems, including shin-deep water in the basement. A few days later, Mike and a crew were unplugging a blocked drain line in the basement. In April, members of Acts 29 attended the funeral of Faye’s brother. “You don’t get people like that,” Faye says.
Turning History Around
Faye likes to remember when life was different, when she had a kitchen sink and a roof that didn’t open wide to invite in the rain.
Back then, Faye and her husband, Thomas Grant Sr., were living the middle class dream – a four-bedroom brick home in Detroit, kids in Catholic schools. He was a journeyman carpenter earning up to $5,000 a month. She stayed at home, helping in classrooms at her sons’ schools “to have crazy money.”
Then Thomas Sr. died of a heart attack. His death in July 1997 at age 43 hit Faye and their five sons like a grenade. She was 39. Only Thomas Jr., then 19, was out of high school. Jamal was 17, Ike 14, Jonathan 11 and Charles 6.
Jobs begun and left, colleges dropped out of, income lost, a home left in disrepair—they all point back to that dark day. “Our faith got a little shattered,” Faye says. “Since 1997 we’ve been on a roller coaster ride straight down.”
Faye tried to return to work right away, but the grief knocked her back. She struggled with depression and had to stop working. The life insurance money, minus funeral expenses, soon ran out. She found herself trying to scrape by on $1,000 a month in Social Security.
Months turned into years. Faye’s depression still kept her from working consistently. Social Security helped but disqualified them from state aid. And as her second and third sons turned 18, the family lost a little more Social Security income. They lost that nice brick house in 2003.
Faye heard people wonder aloud why she couldn’t get a job and move on.
“When you’re depressed, people just don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re totally flipped out that you’re in this situation, period. It takes a lot to get out the front door, let alone go tell somebody, ‘Listen, I’m really not doing good.’”
New Direction
Meeting up with Acts 29 seems to be the latest in a series of steps turning the family in a better direction.
After losing their home and living with relatives for more than two years, the Grants got a huge boost in January—a house of their own on the south side of Hamtramck, given to them outright by a benevolent woman who had befriended Faye. “It was really stepping out in faith from the very first day, because I had no job,” Faye says. “She said me and the boys could have the house, but she could not afford to do any of the major repairs.
“It beats living on the street.”
Then came the Free Store and Acts 29. That put her in touch with people who could help her with those repairs. Mike and Liza also have agreed to help her get past 1997 and into 2006, starting with teaching her computer skills.
“Acts 29 stepped in and said, ‘We know you’re having trouble, so here’s what we’re going to do—we’re going to pray with you, we’re going to check on you, we’re going to help you do these repairs,’” Faye says underneath a hole where rainwater has eaten away the ceiling tile. “Then we’re going to work on getting you where you can go out and do something.’”
Meeting physical needs, such as home renovation, in a way that reaches the whole person is what Acts 29 is about.
“If we don’t service the need of the people in that way, it’s hard to reach them with the Gospel,” says Brad Setser, director of Acts 29’s Axis home rehab and vocational training ministry. “It’s hard to share verbally the love of Christ if we don’t share physically what the love of Christ looks like.”
Right now Faye needs that new roof and sink. One will keep the rain out; the other will let her stop washing dishes in the bathtub. At least now she knows who to ask.
“The Lord said, ‘When you do this for the least of mine, you’ve done it for me,’” she says. “Right now, I am the least. I’m really struggling to get back. If it hadn’t been for them, I don’t know what I would have done.”
One of those faces was Mike Gmetro, whose wife, Liza, organized the Free Store. The Gmetros are serving as CMA missionary candidates with Acts 29, which began serving the city out of an old car dealership in downtown Hamtramck in November 2005.
| ||
|
The tarp tacked to the roof of Faye Grant's
house (left) does anything but keep the rain out, evidenced by water-damage throughout the interior (right). |
As leaders in Acts 29’s Abundant Life ministry the Gmetros lead small-group Bible studies and build relationships with people like Faye. Part of Acts 29’s strategy is “One Shepherd for Every Street,” an effort to help one family on every street in Hamtramck that can, in turn, reach out to their neighbors. Faye agreed to be their first shepherd.
“Maybe you can’t even provide money for them,” Mike recalls telling her. “But you can have them come over and sit on your couch, and you can talk to them and love them and make a relationship.”
Faye told him, “You know what? I can do that.”
From Leery to Loving It
She laughs now at the skeptical eye she cast at the Free Store.
“They had this little card to fill out—your name, your address, and [if you wanted] somebody to pray with you,” Faye recalls. “So I’m thinking, is this a cult? Because who does free?” She filled out the card, noting that she would indeed like someone to pray and talk over her needs with her.
“About a week later, I got a call. And they came. They came!” Faye says. “And when they came, we prayed, we talked, we had such a great time.
“When I got a chance to talk to them, they were so loving, it was like, are these folks for real?” Faye says. “These people were persistent. They saw that I had a need, and they started working.”
Acts 29 staff members assessed the house’s major problems, including shin-deep water in the basement. A few days later, Mike and a crew were unplugging a blocked drain line in the basement. In April, members of Acts 29 attended the funeral of Faye’s brother. “You don’t get people like that,” Faye says.
Turning History Around
Faye likes to remember when life was different, when she had a kitchen sink and a roof that didn’t open wide to invite in the rain.
Back then, Faye and her husband, Thomas Grant Sr., were living the middle class dream – a four-bedroom brick home in Detroit, kids in Catholic schools. He was a journeyman carpenter earning up to $5,000 a month. She stayed at home, helping in classrooms at her sons’ schools “to have crazy money.”
Then Thomas Sr. died of a heart attack. His death in July 1997 at age 43 hit Faye and their five sons like a grenade. She was 39. Only Thomas Jr., then 19, was out of high school. Jamal was 17, Ike 14, Jonathan 11 and Charles 6.
Jobs begun and left, colleges dropped out of, income lost, a home left in disrepair—they all point back to that dark day. “Our faith got a little shattered,” Faye says. “Since 1997 we’ve been on a roller coaster ride straight down.”
Faye tried to return to work right away, but the grief knocked her back. She struggled with depression and had to stop working. The life insurance money, minus funeral expenses, soon ran out. She found herself trying to scrape by on $1,000 a month in Social Security.
Months turned into years. Faye’s depression still kept her from working consistently. Social Security helped but disqualified them from state aid. And as her second and third sons turned 18, the family lost a little more Social Security income. They lost that nice brick house in 2003.
Faye heard people wonder aloud why she couldn’t get a job and move on.
“When you’re depressed, people just don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re totally flipped out that you’re in this situation, period. It takes a lot to get out the front door, let alone go tell somebody, ‘Listen, I’m really not doing good.’”
New Direction
Meeting up with Acts 29 seems to be the latest in a series of steps turning the family in a better direction.
After losing their home and living with relatives for more than two years, the Grants got a huge boost in January—a house of their own on the south side of Hamtramck, given to them outright by a benevolent woman who had befriended Faye. “It was really stepping out in faith from the very first day, because I had no job,” Faye says. “She said me and the boys could have the house, but she could not afford to do any of the major repairs.
“It beats living on the street.”
Then came the Free Store and Acts 29. That put her in touch with people who could help her with those repairs. Mike and Liza also have agreed to help her get past 1997 and into 2006, starting with teaching her computer skills.
“Acts 29 stepped in and said, ‘We know you’re having trouble, so here’s what we’re going to do—we’re going to pray with you, we’re going to check on you, we’re going to help you do these repairs,’” Faye says underneath a hole where rainwater has eaten away the ceiling tile. “Then we’re going to work on getting you where you can go out and do something.’”
Meeting physical needs, such as home renovation, in a way that reaches the whole person is what Acts 29 is about.
“If we don’t service the need of the people in that way, it’s hard to reach them with the Gospel,” says Brad Setser, director of Acts 29’s Axis home rehab and vocational training ministry. “It’s hard to share verbally the love of Christ if we don’t share physically what the love of Christ looks like.”
Right now Faye needs that new roof and sink. One will keep the rain out; the other will let her stop washing dishes in the bathtub. At least now she knows who to ask.
“The Lord said, ‘When you do this for the least of mine, you’ve done it for me,’” she says. “Right now, I am the least. I’m really struggling to get back. If it hadn’t been for them, I don’t know what I would have done.”
© 2006 Called and Sent Magazine. All Rights Reserved.